Menu Planning Made Easy

Our guest post this week is from Laura at I'm an Organizing Junkie! Each week she hosts "Menu Planning Monday" on her site. 400 families participate by linking up their weekly menus to share ideas and recipes.!
I started menu planning three years ago when I became a stay at home mom. It literally changed my life and now I don’t know how I ever managed without it. I used to be under the impression that menu planning was too rigid and wouldn’t offer me any flexibility. Yet that couldn’t be farther from the truth.

Menu planning allows me to set up and shop for a whole week of dinner options at one time and even though I menu plan what I’m having on certain days I am by no means restricted to that. It really doesn’t matter because I already have all the groceries on hand so if I feel like switching up a couple of days, no problem! The menu planning itself takes me no time at all.

Let me take you through my process step by step:
1. If you can choose a regular grocery day and stick to it. My grocery day is Monday mornings when the grocery store is empty.
2. The night before grocery day sit down with a notepad and create sections for each day of the week.
3. Then looking through cookbooks or online start putting together a list of 5 or 6 different meals your family might enjoy that week. To make it a little easier for me when I do it, I start by figuring out which “meat” I’m going to have on which day. So on my notepad I might have chicken marked down for Monday and beef marked down for Tuesday. I also usually try to include at least one meatless dish. Once I know what meat I’m having I can do a quick search for say chicken recipes to find one that I want to use in my menu plan.
4. As you are doing your menu/recipe search you will certainly come across some more dishes that you’d like to try. I created a folder in my bookmarks called “recipes to try” with sub-folders listing the various food categories (ie: veggies, chicken, desserts, etc) and as I find recipes I’d like to try in the future I bookmark them for quick and easy access in subsequent weeks.
5. Don’t forget to create a night for leftovers. I purposely make extra on the other days so that I can afford myself a leftover day or two and that way nothing is wasted. This is especially helpful if scheduled for nights when you are busiest. I also do Simple Supper Sundays where anything goes.
6. Some other considerations to keep in mind when creating your weekly plan is what you might already have on hand in your freezer or pantry that might need to be used up. Select recipes around those ingredients and save money on your grocery bill that week.
7. Have a look at the grocery store sale flyers. If roast is on sale it is a good time to include roast in your menu plan.
8. Write a grocery list of the foods you need and post your menu where everyone can see it. No more having to answer the annoying “what’s for dinner?” question.
9. Join Menu Plan Monday to share and get menu plan ideas from other participants.
10. Smile and relax knowing that come 4 o’clock each evening you’ve got dinner covered. No panic necessary!