How to Plan a Menu

Why have a menu?

To save time! With a menu you've already decided what to cook.  No more staring into the cupboard or the freezer or trying to get the family to tell you what they want. You check the menu and start cooking. You can also plan simple meals. You can plan to not spend a long time in the kitchen.

To save money! You only buy what you plan to eat (produce especially) and use what you buy; you also don't have to go back to the store; you have better meals which cuts down on snacking and there can be leftovers for lunch - so less eating out. After you make your menu you can check to see if what you have planned is too expensive and can make adjustments before you leave home. Much less frustrating than putting items back that you can't afford.

You can eat healthier! After your meals are planned, you can evaluate the meals from a nutritional standpoint, and see if it needs adjusting.

You enjoy your meals more! When meals are well thought out, the entire meal will be better since well-rounded meals are more satisfying. You can feel the effort it takes to cook was worth it.

Where do I start?

Start by making a list of the main dish items your family likes. I like to separate this list by chicken, beef, Mexican, fish and pork. Then make a list of all the vegetables and side dishes, and fruits you can think of. And last, make a list of all the breads your family likes. You can always add to these list later.

Next look at your schedule. Are there days that are always rushed? (Yes - you can say everyday!) Are there days you don't want to spend any time in the kitchen so you can get caught up on other things? Are there days when you like to entertain or have something nice for your family? Are there days when you traditionally like to have certain foods? (Sunday roast, for example) Now look at you list of main dish items. Can you see where there might be obvious matches to the schedule and the menu. Don't feel like you have to start with day one, it might be easier to plan all the Wednesdays  first.

Just as an example, in our family...

Sunday nights we have breakfast for dinner with an occasional roast

Monday nights are kid friendly so everyone is happy for family night

so hamburgers, taco, etc.

Tuesday night we have a chicken casserole (because we had breakfast on Sunday

and hamburgers on Monday:).

Wednesday was something fast because we always had church so hot dogs, corndogs,

chicken soup, etc.

Thursday was comfort food, dishes Doug and I grow up with. Meatloaf, beans and cornbread, etc.

Friday's we liked something nice because Doug would get paid and we wanted to feel rich, so steak, pork chops, Sweet and Sour chicken, etc.

Saturday I made dishes that needed longer to cook or hardy meals before Fast Sunday like Fried Chicken, Lasagna, or Stroganoff.

It's really easy if you have a pattern because you can change out the weeks by just substituting similar meals. For example, Hamburgers one week can become Sloppy Joes the next. Biscuits and gravy on Sunday night can become pancakes and eggs the next week. Four different chicken casseroles will be enough to fill a month of Tuesdays.

After you have your main dishes you can look through the list of side dishes and add a vegetable or two and some fruit and an occasional bread. Think carefully about the time it will take to make the side dishes. If you plan meals that take too long you may be tempted to not do it at all. My rule is “only one dish can take any effort, the rest has to be super simple.” For example, if I'm making homemade Spaghetti then the sides will be a simple salad, canned corn and Garlic Texas Toast from the frozen food isle. If I'm making Stroganoff which is easy, I'll cut up squash and onions as a side. Even meals like hot dogs or mac and cheese can be improved with 'steam in the bag' vegetables or fresh fruit. You may also want to make a few simple changes to each meal to make it faster or cheaper. This was my best swap. I loved Chicken and Broccoli casserole with candied yams, corn and a salad but the meal took 2 hours to cook! We had it once or twice a year. I swapped the fresh broccoli which had to be washed and cut - for 'steam in the bag' broccoli. I swapped the cooked then chopped chicken - for canned chicken and I swapped the boiled, cooled, then peeled fresh yams for canned yams. Now we have it once a month and it takes about 20 minutes to put together. There may be changes you can make that will give you more dishes to work with.  

After you have cooked and enjoyed the meals you've planned, make notes about what you would do differently. Don't be bothers by a meal that wasn't great.  Think of this as a masterpiece in the making.  Fine tuning a meal to have the perfect side dishes will make meals more satisfying and more worth the trouble it takes to make them.  The more rewarding the cooking, the more you'll want to do it.  Pretty soon you'll have lots of perfect meals.  To me a perfect meal is one that:

1. my family will eat
2. is nutritious
3. affordable 
4. and not so much work that I mind making it 

All four of these factors need to be met or I will ........actually never cook it.  So I address each one separately.
First it has to be something the family will eat.  When I started this all 5 of our kids were at home. The oldest three were teenagers.  So picture this scenario.  One of the kids walks into the kitchen and asked, "What's for dinner?"  The answer will either be a happy surprise or the beginning of a problem.  Isn't it so fun when we can answer that we are having their favorite food.  Of course, that isn't always possible because there are 7 people living in this house and there are only 3 main dish items that they all like........Augh.  This is what you can do.  Pick a main dish and then think about each person in the house, individually.  What could I put with this meal that would make it enjoyable for each person.  Hopefully you will be able to find some way to make each meal better for everyone.  Then when they come and ask, "What's for dinner?" you only tell them the part they like and they leave happy.  I'll admit I did this purely for my own piece of mind.  I didn't expect the happy result which was that their confidence in my cooking improved so much that their over-all attitude about dinner improved, making them more willing to try something new.
Now let me skip to number 4 before you all decide this is way too much work.  The next way I evaluate a meal is by effort.  Only one part can take effort. Look for easier ways to cook, frozen veggies instead of fresh, canned chicken instead of fresh, maybe using a crockpot or microwave.
Of course, number 2 and 3 need to be addressed.  Sometimes foods high in fat are more filling, but if you end of spending more on doctors bills you're not really saved anything.  Nice vegetable dishes can greatly improve the nutrition, the taste and the quality of a meal and make it lower in calories. Not to mention, if they enjoy the side dishes, the main dish, which is usually more expensive, will go further. This is a nutritious choice I made when the kids were little. We drank a lot of Koolaid with lunch and dinner but I felt we couldn't afford juice for breakfast.  When I added up the cost of Koolaid and sugar I found if I took most of it away there was enough money left to buy several orange juices.  Sometimes being open to changes in snack and lunches can net enough extra money for more enjoyable, nicer dinner with lots of leftovers.  As a rule I only cook foods during the week that have leftovers so Doug will always have lunch for work.  He doesn't feel picked on if he can take leftover Sweet and Sour Chicken for lunch.  

One more step
Now if I could just add one more step.  This makes planning a menu so fun and easy.  Once I have lots of 'perfect meals' that we enjoy, I create a magnet for it. I write or type the whole meal on the magnet.  Then when it's time to put a new menu together I pull a chair up to the fridge and arrange the magnets and I'm done.  It takes maybe 5 or 10 minutes.  I snap a picture of it on my phone (the masterpiece!) so I always have it with me.  Then I go to the computer and print off a master grocery list (which I keep on the desktop), mark off what I don't need and I'm ready to go to the store to buy food from a great menu that my family likes, is nutritious, affordable and I enjoy the little effort it takes to cook it.

By having a menu - even on days when I don't want to cook I know what I have planned is faster, easier, cheaper and better for us than fast food place and I can have it ready in less time than it would take to even decide where to go or what to fix without a menu.  Don't get me wrong I love to cook.  I just don't always love to cook at 5 pm every single day.  But I hope to eat every single day around 6.  

One last story - About a month after I had adopted this way of planning and cooking I had a day.  You know the ones.  Just as I was about to leave work to go 30 minutes south to pick up 288 cinnamon rolls for the choir fundraiser our youngest son called,  he is sick and needs me to drive 20 minutes north to pick him up.  Which I did....... so now I'm off schedule by almost an hour which meant I got caught in rush hour traffic...... in the rain......and there was a wreak. There's a lot more that went wrong in this story but I'll just let you imagine that.  I got home at the same time as my sweet husband, Doug.  He's a smart man and can tell I'm grumpy and stressed, which was right but I was also starving.  Before I started venting about my day, I glanced at the menu.  I knew when I was out in the rain, stuck in traffic, that I had a menu planned.  That it would be something we all liked, and that it would be easy, and I had all the ingredients for it.  So I didn't stop for fast food which would have taken time, not been as nice as what I had planned and would have blow my budget so... as I was saying, I had just started venting about my day when I glanced at the menu.  It just so happened to be Doug's favorite dinner.  I grabbed the meat out of the freezer and threw it in the microwave and then started cutting up vegetables.  In 30 minutes I had finally finished complaining about my day as we sat down to a hot, delicious, made from scratch meal that we all loved.  Before Doug said the prayer he just looked at the food on the table and I knew he remembered other days like this that didn't end with a beautiful hot meal (egg sandwiches is probably what it would have been) and I knew we had been blessed to find a way to plan the menu that would work.  Totally worth the effort!  

That was 10 years ago...still totally worth the effort!

Need more encouragement? Check out the labels "Better, cheaper and as Fast as Fast Food" or "Menu Ideas" and "Master Grocery list"