How To Make A Weekly Menu Plan
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Tired of trying to decide what to make for dinner? Simplify grocery shopping and cooking meals by making a weekly menu plan. You’ll save money on groceries, too.
Why Plan Your Weekly Menu?
Planning and cooking meals can feel stressful, especially when you’ve already got a busy schedule. Setting aside time to make a weekly menu can solve a variety of problems.
- Save money. Going to the grocery store once results in fewer temptations and impulse purchases.
- Reduce stress. If your family eats three meals a day, seven days a week, that’s twenty-one minor arguments you’ll have over what sounds good. A weekly menu plan lets you schedule meals everyone will eat.
- Save time. By properly planning your weekly menu, you’ll be able to turn leftovers into entirely new creations, saving you an enormous amount of time.
- Healthier eating. Once you’re not deciding what to eat at the last minute, you’ll be able to think about whether your family is eating an appropriately varied diet.
How to Make a Weekly Menu Plan
Rather than jumping into planning every meal for the week, start by choosing one meal to focus on for the first week or two. Does your family eat breakfast together in the morning? Start by planning a week of breakfasts they’ll love. Is dinner more your thing? Put your effort into crafting a dinner menu for the week.
Step 1. Create a list of trusted recipes.
Now isn’t the time to test a bunch of new recipes you saw on Pinterest or to try expanding your family’s tastes. Those approaches lead to a refrigerator of spoiled leftovers they won’t eat or ingredients you’re too tired to cook. Ask your family what they like, and plan your menu around that. Doing so gives them ownership of the menu, and they’re less likely to complain when you serve something they’ve requested.
Step 2. Sort by proteins.
Even people who love chicken tire of eating it for dinner every night. If your list of trusty recipes is all chicken-based, head back to your recipe file and mix things up! For my family, I try to serve two chicken meals, 2 meatless meals, 2 fish meals, and one beef meal per week. Then I alternate the proteins so we aren’t eating the same one on two nights in a row.
Step 3. Make two lists.
Take a piece of paper and draw a line from top to bottom. List the meals you plan to serve on one half. On the other, list the ingredients required for each. Don’t forget to list the spices and condiments, too. Consolidate as you work, so instead of having “1 cup brown rice” on your list three times, you wind up with “brown rice: 3 cups.” This is your Main List for the week. (More on how to use that soon.)
Step 4. Figure out what you already have.
Look through your cupboards, refrigerator, freezer, and pantry to find what ingredients you don’t need to buy. If you’re short on something or don’t have it, put it on your grocery list. Don’t be afraid to substitute ingredients. For example, if you have a recipe that calls for ground beef but you’ve got ground turkey in the freezer, use what you have!
Step 5. Post it.
Hang your weekly menu plan where family members can see it. Next time they ask what’s for dinner, you can point to the list. Displaying your menu plan isn’t just about saving your voice: once they see you’ve got the week’s meals planned, and that none include the drive-through, they’ll stop asking for it as often. You might even find they look forward to specific meals.
Step 6. Stick to it.
Get your shopping done and start serving meals based on your weekly menu plan. Grab your Main List and make notes about things that didn’t work and what did. Perhaps baking a quiche for breakfast on a school day wasn’t such a great idea, but your family loved the chocolate granola you served Saturday morning. Next time, consider a double batch of granola for school mornings and make the quiche over the weekend.
Step 7. Repeat.
Put your Main List for Week One away. Now, go through Steps 1-6 for Week Two. Take just as much care and add notes throughout the week about your trials and successes.
Step 8. Rotate them.
Once you have two Main Lists of meals and ingredients, rotate them. Your kids won’t remember they had oatmeal precisely 14 days ago, so why go through the effort of coming up with all-new menu plans every week? You may think they’ll remember, but most people can’t recall what they had for lunch three days ago, much less two weeks ago. So take that stress off of your shoulders. And if they do remember, suggest they plan the weekly menu and do the cooking — that usually stops any complaints.
Advanced Menu-Planning Tips
You’re ready for advanced planning when you’ve perfected two or more weeks of menus.
Swap in ONE new recipe per week
Found a great soup on Pinterest you’d like to try? Swap it for one of the trusty meals on a Main List, then repeat steps 1 through 7. Now you’ve created a third list. Sweet!
Feed your freezer
Are chicken breasts on sale this week? Buy extras and double your recipes throughout the week. Stash the second batch in the freezer. Next time you rotate through that week’s menu, you’ll be able to defrost, reheat, and serve.
Cook once, eat twice
Prepare and even cook ingredients in advance whenever you can. For example, you can roast a chicken for dinner one night and then use what’s left to make chicken noodle soup. Or make a large batch of quinoa to serve as a side dish one evening, then add chopped cucumbers, tomatoes, olive oil, and red wine vinegar to turn it into a salad. This habit is a fantastic way to save time.
Switch menus with the seasons
Buying what’s in season is a great way to get the most out of your grocery dollars. Once you’ve made and used your Main Lists for a few months, you’ll probably find yourself ready to move on to other meals. Store your lists in your household notebook or recipe file for next year and create a new set for the new season. Do that four times in a row, and you’ve got an entire year of menus planned. Talk about saving a ton of time!
When and how often do you go grocery shopping? I’m trying to adjust my shopping schedule. I go once a week on Monday mornings and shop for the whole week.
I shop on Mondays for the week, too. Although in Spring and Summer, I often visit a local produce market later in the week, usually Thursdays, to fill in with fresh-picked stuff.
ohhhh I needed to read this post today–we’re on Whole30 and I NEED to get a better plan in place–so many good tips!
Visiting from Inspire Me Monday at Create With Joy.
I am totally terrible at meal planning, so I really appreciate this post! It seems well thought-out and easy for the domestically challenged like myself! 😉
Hi LuAnn, I hope you find it helpful!
Dear Katie,
Thank you so much for your very useful tips! While the execution of a weekly menu plan sounds like an easy task on the surface, for many of us it is in actuality very challenging (ahem!)
I’m going to try to use this as a tool in helping myself achieve some of my personal health goals this year.
Thanks for sharing this with us at Inspire Me Monday at Create With Joy. I think this can help others as well so congratulations – you are one of our Featured Guests this week!
Happy New Year to you! 🙂
Happy New Year to you, too, Joy! Thank you for the feature. 🙂
We used to do this and it worked beautifully and then we somehow got out of the habit. Each person picked two meals a week; decided what they wanted to make and we made a master list together…. I really need to get back to doing that. I find lately we’re stopping for “extra” supplies one or two nights a week because I have stopped planning ahead and I hate that.
I hate the mid-week fill in trips, too. Love the idea of everyone in the family taking a couple of nights to be in charge of cooking!
Good post – and I do hope lots of folks read, mark and inwardly digest (pun intended) it. I’ve been planning and shopping to a list since the mid 1970’s when my husband succumbed to a lot of allergies, and meal planning became a medical necessity. One thing that I was told to do by the “experts” was to try not to repeat an ingredient more than once every five days in a week. So if one had a dish with beef as a main component, you didn’t have that for at least 5 days. Mix in vegetarian dishes – increases the 5 a day component. I used to try beef, chicken, vegetarian, lamb, salad/pasta base, and fish for Monday to Friday menus, a bought in meal perhaps twice a month and so on. It became a habit in the end, and both my daughters too adopted the habit – 30 years on! I’d recommend it to your Followers!
Oh yes, allergies do make menu planning much more difficult! I hadn’t heard about not repeating an ingredient more often than once every five days. So if one served something with potatoes on Monday, for instance, they’re not to be served again for five days? You have my admiration, because I think that would prove more of a challenge than I’m up to!