How do you plan meals?

[Anonymous]

Although I don't always do this every week, I have found that the easiest way for me to plan meals is to do this:

Sundays: Big meal, usually beef

Mondays: Soup and Bread and/or Salad night (or leftovers of the big Sunday meal)

Tuesdays: Chicken or Turkey

Wednesdays: Pasta

Thursdays: Beans or fish or eggs

Fridays: Pizza or frozen food night

Saturdays: some sort of easy fun type meal like: sandwiches/burritos or tacos/burgers or out-to-eat

One of my elderly friends plans her meals for ONE MONTH. She is very organized, but she and her husband eat beef about 50% of the time. She is an old-fashioned meat and potatoes gal. With my plan, we only have beef once a week and chicken once and pasta once. I used to get into a rut of serving chicken way too much.

What does everyone else do?

[Anonymous]

Actually the way you do it sounds pretty organized. I have a relatively small kitchen, so week to week shopping works best. Not sure if you're elderly friend only shops once a month, but the only person I knew who did that didn't eat any fruits or vegetables.

[Anonymous]

OP here - I think she does eat fruits and veggies but too much ground beef!

I didn't write it down but I always do a few sides including salads - just whatever veggies are in season and look good.

[Anonymous]

I plan meals for a week at a time. I'm pescatarian, so no meat, just seafood or fish 1-2 times a week. The rest of my family eats meat. This coming weeks plan looks like this.

Slow cooker BBQ chicken sandwich, corn on the cob, salad
Meatless lasagna, tomato and cuke salad
Pork tenderloin, roasted potato and green beans
Corn chowder, bread
Parmesan tilapia, rice, veggie
Veggie pizza, salad
Take out/out to eat


I will have bean tacos, stir fried veggies or something like that on meat nights. We don't eat alot of beef, maybe 1 or 2 times a month. I plan by what I already have at home and what's on sale.

[Anonymous]

I have an app called Pepper Plate.
it makes planning/shopping really easy.

I have no method - 7+ months pregnant and just fly by the seat of my pants because I'm exhausted (but, I HAVE been doing pretty well the past couple of weeks in cooking).

I agree that Sunday is the bigger cooking/prep day in our home.
Husband doesn't eat meat, I don't eat fish. It makes weekday meals difficult.

[Anonymous]

When I was kid my mom had a monthly menu, so that is not a foreign concept to me. We didn't stick to it, but it was there (typed, in a sheet protector) to give her ideas before she went to the store. She did it so we would not get in a rut and have the same food every single week and so she wouldn't forget to make various items that we all liked. Being the 70s, there were quite a few casseroles, many with condensed soup.

I once took the time (before parenthood) to write a menu plan. I tried to keep it balanced between beef/lamb, pork, chicken, seafood and minimize the starchy foods. M-F meals are quick and easy. Sundays can be more complicated. Try to have leftovers for lunch the next day (or next two days, then the next night can be no leftovers).

This week:
Mon - brats, baked apples, sauteed cabbage
Tue - flank steak, roasted broccoli and carrots
Wed - grilled chili lime chicken, refried beans, SW Caesar salad
Thu - crock pot tomato soup (skipped the salad and grilled cheese that were planned accompaniments)
Fri - cheeseburgers, salad w/ tomato & avocado, corn
Sat - probably eat out / order in / or breakfast for dinner
Sun - grilled fish, roasted veggies

[Anonymous]

Here's what we do in my house.

Saturday, usually over breakfast, my husband and I go over our calendars for the week--who has work travel/commitments at dinner time on what nights.

Then we allocate what nights each of us will cook or if we will go out to eat (usually Fridays). Each of us is then responsible for 2-3 meals in the week.

We each then add any required ingredients for the meals we are cooking to the common shopping list (text file in a shared dropbox folder which is accessible by laptop or phone). Shopping is done Sat afternoon and/or Sun morning.