Do you rotate meal plans?

[worm761]

Do you meal plan the same basic thing every week? Every month? If so, could you share some ideas with me? I need to get a bit more organized than I am.

Something like:
Meatless Monday
Taco Tuesday
Wednesday: meatloaf

Honestly, the only thing we do consistently is Seafood Saturday. DH and DDad are the only ones that eat seafood. There are 5 of us. Myself, DH, DS19, DD5, and DDad. So I need kid friendly foods too. We are seeing the end of DD's pickiness (slowly! but progress is progress!) so I can expand a bit.

Thanks for any suggestions!

 

[LJSquishy]

I'm a housewife so I have more time than some to prepare unique meals and we don't really repeat exact meals on exact days or certain categories on certain days (like how you do seafood Saturday). I do try to do two vegan meals followed by one animal protein meal, though. So, we usually eat meat 2 times per week, sometimes 3 (and sometimes none at all). There are a few meals that we really love so I repeat those, but not weekly...maybe biweekly. My meal plan can get thrown off sometimes if we have a lot of leftovers that we didn't eat for lunches or if we have an event where we have to eat out so my planning isn't too exact. I also freeze extra portions of vegan soups and such in mason jars so in the event I'm too tired to cook or we don't have much time I can just heat that up.

 

[Crystal M L]

I usually try to do one pasta meal a week because it makes such a huge meal. Then, we have some for leftovers too. The rest of the week is a meat, veggie combo and then add in a seafood night.
Examples:
Chicken Spaghetti
Smothered Pork Chops
Grilled Salmon
Tacos/ Taco Salads
Casserole (use extra chicken or such)

It's just us three and my DD is 4 so we are still fighting the picky eater stage. Hope it helps!

 

[TwoMisfits]

Instead of a weekly rotation, I have a "double day" 1-2 times a week. That means if we have chicken Monday, we are also having chicken Tuesday, but in a different prep (so that I can buy value packs of proteins without any going bad). This week, I'm doubling chicken, so I am making homemade chicken pot pie with carrots, green beans, potatoes, onions, and fresh herbs today and chipotle chicken soft tacos tomorrow. I'm actually pre-cooking all the chicken now (3 month old drumsticks that I found in my freezer plain in the crockpot with broth) and will take it off the bone today, so tomorrow's prep will be 5 minutes (which matters since we are gonna be out most of the day). I double all types of chicken, beef, pork, and turkey (fish and expensive proteins like lamb or bison are one-shots here - they don't tend to be value packed and they are expensive...this rotation means there are some weeks we have no beef and some weeks we have no chicken, etc...but no one complains!

 

[GaSleepingBeautyFan]

I used to but not anymore.

We used to do Mexican Mondays, Chicken Tuesdays, Italian Wednesdays, No cook Thursdays (usually some sort of sub or basic sandwich and pasta or potato salad that I made the day before), Fun Fridays (I gave the kids a couple of choices like pork sliders, burgers or BBQ and they chose). Whatever one they didn't choose was Saturdays meal and on Sundays I usually cooked something nice like steak, salad and potatoes or pork, salad and potatoes depending on what I had in the freezer or was on sale that week.

 

[Claire&TheBoys]

I try to rotate what I cook. The only consistent thing is that I cook beef the same day or maybe the following day after I've been to the grocery store, usually Monday. I'm peculiar and do not like to freeze meat - I think it tastes funny when it's been frozen. The only exception is chicken, which I buy at Sam's and freeze 2-3 breasts per bag. So if I buy hamburger meat, it gets used the same day or rarely, the following if I am shopping late at night. Beyond that, I try to do pork one night and chicken one night, leftovers one night, something quick on Wednesdays because we go to church activities early (those nights are like hot dogs in crescent rolls, frozen pizza, etc). We usually eat out a night a week, sometimes two, and have what we call "catch" one night (which is short for "catch as catch can" - or whatever you can find, you eat). Occasionally, I'll throw in a sausage dish. We're not big seafood eaters and I never prepare fresh seafood at home.

 

[CAFarmerGirl]

Heh...we only have Fend For yourself Friday (leftover night!).

 

[Colleen27]

I don't, simply because I like to work with what's in the freezer (we buy meat bundles) and/or what's on sale plus what is in season and that never seems to fit with a regular rotation. I take inventory of what we have and what's on sale before I do the meal planning, so while there are regular dishes in the rotation there's not a strict schedule for them. A typical week will involve something Mexican, something Asian, something Italian, and a couple of homestyle American meals like meatloaf, stuffed peppers, pot roast, paella, etc. We do a lot more stir-fry, kabobs, and vegetarian meals in the summer, when we're drowning in eggplant and zucchini and other yummy ingredients, with more comfort foods and crock pot meals in the winter.

 

[Disney_1derland]

My form of organization is a bit different. I shop on Saturdays and do most of my prep for the week on Sundays. That prep includes washing/chopping veggies, pre-packing snacks, cooking meats (Whatever ground beef I'm using for the week and usually a large batch of roasted chicken that is then de-boned and shredded for recipes throughout the week) I also have a crockpot meal going on sundays and pre-pack salads for the week into Mason Jars.

I have very limited time to turn around dinners in the evenings due to my son's acid reflux, so I'm in the door at 4:45 and dinner on the table by 5:15-5:30 which makes prep day an absolute necessity for me.

 

[msmama]

I don't like doing the same thing every week personally. It gets boring to me and I find myself spending more on take out because I find I don't want to make what's on the plan.

That said, every week I usually start every weeks meal plan with a chicken dish, a beef dish, a veggie dish and an extra kid friendly dish (nuggets, scrambled eggs, pancakes). Then I go from there.

I don't have an appreciative family (by that I mean they're just as happy with sandwiches as a meal that takes a long time to cook) so I've decided easier is better for me.

 

[threeboysmom]

I absolutely HATE meal planning and I HATE food shopping even more, so my system works great for ME. Probably not everyone's cup of tea though, lol.

I have a set meal plan that I use for 2 weeks. I sat down and wrote out 12 of my family's favorite dinner recipes and assigned them to each day of the 2-week schedule, leaving both Fridays as "new recipe" night in case inspiration hits me (or I can use as leftover night if needed).

Throughout the summer I just continue to rotate this same schedule. Will sit down and plan another 2-week schedule for the fall/winter (more heartier dishes/soups).

The best part is that I then created a grocery list with all the ingredients needed for these 2 weeks organized by store aisle #. All I have to do is print it and go (after adding any items on sale that week or staples we've run out of).

SOOOOO easy! It makes 2 very dreaded jobs much more palatable to me, and that's what is most important to ME!