Meal Plan Menu Monday: Week 1 (October 5-11)

Why wait until January to make a new resolution? My most recent resolution is to get back into meal planning – both for budgeting and for time management. 

I’ve always liked the idea of meal planning, and I absolutely love having a Meal Plan Menu to work from, but, without fail, I run out of meal ideas for my meal plan after a month or two. I had an ‘aha!’ moment when I read this post from The Kitchn which talks about a better way to choose your meal ideas, and I’m confident that the well won’t run dry this time around!

Essentially: instead of simply scheduling the meals that your family likes (which gets a little old after a while because you’re bound to forget about some of your favourites, like enchiladas or taco salad), have ‘themes’ or prompts for every day of the week. For example, this is what I’ve decided to use as a skeleton plan for the next month – just to see how it goes.

Monday: Slow Cooker Meal
Tuesday: Pasta Dish
Wednesday: Soup
Thursday: Meat & Potatoes
Friday: Egg Based Dish
Saturday: Pizza
Sunday: Casserole

A few other ideas that The Kitchn mentions as theme nights: Rice, Stir Fry, Salad, Chicken, Vegitarian, Sandwich, Breakfast for Dinner, Steak…

I had absolutely no problem picking a recipe for each of those categories – in fact, I could have gone and made a meal plan for the entire month, I have so many different favourites for each category! However, I want to see how this week’s plan works for our family before I go on to the next. 

Here’s my Meal Plan for the week – feel free to copy as you like – and PLEASE link up a favourite dish that fits into one of these categories – I love new ideas! 

Here are some links to a few of the recipes that are online:

White Chicken Chili
Broken Spaghetti Skillet
Copycat Red Lobster Biscuits
Paula Deen’s Pizza Dough

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Jenn vanOosten

I live in Hamilton, Ontario, and love my city. I'm a Netflixer, choral music geek, bookworm, inventor of recipes (I take Artistic Licence on EVERYTHING that I make), wife of one, mother of two, and owner of a neurotic Schnauzer. I respect people who respect others. I love good food that's well done, but my favourite lunch is KD & hotdogs. With ketchup. I'm addicted to Clearance Shopping. I will ALWAYS get the product that I want at the price that I want, eventually.

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