How and Why To Menu Plan (and my menu for the week!)

How and Why to Menu Plan | FoodsOfOurLives.com

Hey there! I thought this week we could talk about why I menu plan and how I do it and then I will post my menu plan for this week so you can SEE exactly how I do it. There are a few reasons I make up a menu plan (and why you should too!). 

1. So I only really have to think about what I am going to make for dinner once during the week. This saves me from asking my children, “What should I make for dinner tonight?” and having them answer, “pizza” every night. Having a menu in place for the week means when it comes time to make dinner, I peek at my menu and there’s my answer. Done.

2. For grocery shopping purposes. I don’t know about you, but I only go to the grocery store once a week. I hate having to run in for one thing I need or having my husband stop on the way home (I want him to get here so I can see him!). Making a menu plan eliminates extra trips to the store, because you should already have everything you need for all your meals for the week. Awesome, right?

3. Because it saves money and resources. When you have no idea what you are going to be making to eat for the week, you go to the grocery store and you buy a bunch of food. The problem is you might not get the right food for whatever random dish you end up deciding to make. Meaning you will either end up with another trip to the store (using up exra fuel, time and money) or you end up buying food you don’t use and then it goes bad sitting in the pantry or fridge. Lame. Right? 

4. It allows me to make lots of new things we have never tried before. If you have followed my blog for a bit you surely have seen this in action! My friends ask me ALL. THE. TIME. how I am always making new things and it’s because I menu plan. I go find a new (or even a couple!) recipe I think I’d like to try making and I add it to my menu. Then I go to the store and buy the ingredients I will need, so when it comes time to make it, it’s a breeze. I just actually have to look at a recipe which I don’t often do, so that’s probably the most challenging part for me 😉 

5. To save money. When you go to the store with a list of what to buy and really try hard not to purchase things that didn’t make the list, there will be less impulse buying going on and therefor… money saved. 

Just trust me. If you want to feed your family or even just yourself, if you’re single, a well rounded diet and try new things once in a while (or more than once in a while!) AND make things easy on yourself, you HAVE to menu plan. 

So how do I do it? 

Well. This is the fun part (in my opinion). I like to make my menu on my computer. I make a note on the desktop with a little chart. I have used an excel spreadsheet before, whatever works well in your brain to keep track of it. Maybe it’s a whiteboard or a cute chalkboard in the kitchen (my kids erase things like that and color their own menus so that doesn’t work for me). My kids mostly don’t touch my computer so I find that to be a reasonably safe place for my menu. 

I divide it into days and I actually plan out our breakfasts and our dinners. I don’t like my kids to eat cereal unless we are really in a rush. So I try to find some quick, easy breakfast ideas that the kids like, to put on there as well. 

When I sit down to menu plan, I get out a couple or a few cookbooks and my computer and I spread out. I mean, this is serious business. It looks like I’m doing research for a paper. But that’s just me 🙂 You can find recipes all kinds of places, I find lot’s online on blogs and websites. 

I like a huge variety in our menu. I’m sure you guessed that. I typically start with what meats I’d like to serve. We eat a pretty large variety of different meats, maybe you don’t or maybe you’re vegetarian so you could choose a different plant based protein for each night. Around here we have elk, venison, goat, pork, duck and lamb in our freezer and I usually throw in some kind of fish like sardines, tuna, cod or salmon. If I want to fix chicken I have to buy it because we didn’t slaughter any chickens this year, so I rarely fix chicken right now and never beef. We are moving across the country in about 5 months and we need our freezers to be relatively empty by then, so buying meat would be silly and not frugal. So given that variety of meat, I usually choose a meal using each one for a different night. Then I will double up on a couple to give us 7 different protein bases. 

Then I will look for recipes to match. Typically for the elk, venison and goat I will simply use a recipe that calls for beef, it translates well to those meats. So I might say to myself, I’d like to use ground elk. Well my husband didn’t actually shoot an elk this year, we just have some a friend traded us for some other meat, elk is a treat and should be tasted and not just put into a casserole…so we will have elk burgers this week (not for real, I’m just giving an example). 

Then I think, ok venison. Lets do a roast. Find a roast recipe or make one up. Done. 

Then goat, how about backstraps (this means steak). Pick a side and a veggie. Done.

And so on until you have a meal to match each of your proteins. 

Then look at your schedule for the week and match a meal to each night. I do this based on how busy I will be each day/evening. If I have a busy day and/or evening activities, I pick an easy meal (usually a crockpot meal). For days I’ll be home most of the day just catching up on housework, I might pick a new recipe or a more complicated one. That way when you come to that day, you know you have chosen something do-able. 

That doesn’t mean I don’t switch things around fairly often, sometimes I get to a day where I did have something complicated or new planned and I just don’t feel like doing it. And that’s ok! I typically have enough stuff on hand I can choose a different meal from the menu or just throw something together. I like flexibility. The point is to be prepared so you don’t end up having nothing to eat and ordering out or going out. This saves SO much money you won’t even believe it. 

Once I have my menu made up, I go to each individual recipe and look at the ingredient list. I compare it to what I already have and what I need and write down what I need for that recipe. Then I move on to the next recipe, until I have gone through every recipe and written down what I need to buy so I can make everything on my menu. Then I will add staples and whatever else I need to get that week. 

Then when I get to the store, I have my mission! 

So here is MY personal menu for this week and my shopping list! Also I have a particular day I go shopping every week which I find makes things easier for me.

Subsequently here is my grocery list, you won’t see everything on the list you might expect because, for example, I already have brussel sprouts in the fridge from last week that I didn’t use and I already have all the meat in the freezer, I just have to get it out to thaw. I just adjust accordingly.

Produce:

Potatoes

Green Beans

Asparagus

Bananas

Kiwi

Limes

Fennel

Spinach

Dairy:

Milk (I sold my goats since we are moving so now I have to buy milk and it’s SO weird!)

Half and half

Heavy Cream

Meat:

Applegate Virginia Ham (for kid’s school lunches)

Prosciutto (snacking)

Sardines

Baking:

All Purpose Flour

Brown Sugar

Other:

Wild Rice

Cereal

Order 1 bag hard red wheat/1 bag soft white wheat (the beauty of living in Montana I can order grain for grinding flour from the local mill, I will miss that when we move to Florida!)

So that’s it! You can see I don’t buy tons of groceries. Well, sometimes I do, but most of the time my list looks about like this. I try not to buy lots of snacks for the kids, if they’re hungry they snack on veggies, fruits, cheese, prosciutto and sardines. When I go to Costco I will get some kind of snack thing like Pirate’s Booty or veggie straws, but that’s about it. We keep it pretty simple. 

So how about you? Do you menu plan? Do you shop with a list? What’s your system? 

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Megan

is a self taught home cook who enjoys cooking healthy and simple foods and delectable desserts for her husband and kids and the frequent last-minute dinner guests her husband shows up with.

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