4 Steps to an Easy Answer

What’s for dinner? Night after night, it’s a problem for many parents. But with one simple tool, which you create for yourself, you can answer what’s for dinner tonight and the next night and the next. Here’s how to create your own monthly menu-planning tool:

by Lara Krupicka

Step One: Simplify Using Categories

It’s easy to come up with 30 (or more) recipes you regularly use when you brainstorm in categories. To start your menu plan, consider which categories of meals your family eats most frequently. Categories can include ethnic foods, such as Italian, Mexican and Asian. Or group recipes by cooking method: crock pot meals, grill recipes, stovetop or oven cooking. Or you could group your recipes by protein type: chicken, beef, pork, fish, beans.

Brainstorm categories until you’ve found seven you could comfortably serve once a week. My menu categories are: Italian, Crockpot/casserole, Mexican, Meat and potatoes, Soup, Pizza Night, and Grill/Quick & Easy. The category “Pizza Night” in my plan reflects our family’s tradition of making homemade pizza on Friday nights. If your family has a tradition like this, include it in your categories. It will simplify your menu planning.

Step Two: Play Favorites

Under each of the categories, list as many as you can of your favorite recipes (aim for five to nine for each). Take out the cookbooks and recipes you use most. Then find the meals you know your family enjoys. You’ll find the 80/20 rule applies here: you probably use 20 percent (or less) of the recipes you have 80 percent of the time. That’s okay. List those recipes first.

If you’re coming up short in any of the categories, flip through your cookbooks or untested recipe files for new dishes to try, or search the Internet’s recipe sites. But be careful to put only a few on your list. You don’t want to be surprising your family with something unfamiliar more than once a week. If you have more new ideas you’d like to try, set them aside to include in next month’s plan. As you experiment using new dishes, mark on your menu plan if they were a success.

Those that are a hit with your family can become permanent additions to your list. Those that aren’t, won’t be repeated.

Once you’ve created your lists under each category, you should have more than 30 recipes to choose from. If you’re one who likes to keep things loose, you can stop here and simply use your lists as a “recipes at a glance” tool for deciding what to cook each night. But if you prefer to plan ahead, you’re more than halfway to mapping out a month’s worth of dinners.

Step Three: Create A Basic Plan

You’ll want to create your menu plan on a computer or smart phone in order to save and reuse it each month. A spreadsheet works best, but if you’re more comfortable using a word processor, you can set up your plan that way instead.

I use a spreadsheet. Across the top, list the name of the category. Simply create seven category columns with category labels. Next create blocks of rows to represent the weeks of the month. To fit my spreadsheet setup, I’ve found nine rows in each block works well. On the right hand most column you can list the dates for the given week (e.g. Oct. 16-22). Then under each category enter the lists you created in step two. Duplicate each list for the successive weeks, filling in the entire spreadsheet for the month.

Once you’ve created your basic menu planning chart, you can insert and remove meals depending on season or changes in preferences. And you can change up the dates for the new month before you begin planning.

Step Four: Select This Month’s Meals

With your chart in front of you listing the meals your family enjoys, you’re ready to select a month’s worth of meals. Using a highlighter or pen, highlight or circle one meal from each category for week one. Then move on to week two and select those meals, being careful to vary the selections from week one. If you prefer, you can work your way down each category, selecting a different recipe for each week until you’ve picked a variety of meals from each category.

Once you’ve planned a month’s worth of meals, you can create a grocery list. When you have on hand everything needed for your meals, you’ll be able to effortlessly answer the “What’s for dinner?” question.