Yes, I’ve covered menu planning…how to do it by your sales flyer, how to do it by randomizing the meats, veggies, and flavors your family likes (links to these posts at the bottom). But what if I told you I could fix it so you never plan a menu again…would you be intrigued?
Deciding what to cook every week IS a huge challenge…even for me! And when something is this hard, we just avoid it. I find when it comes to this, I’m really lazy. I avoid and procrastinate…but you know what? You don’t HAVE to!
Stop planning menus!
What? You’ve talked about all these ways to DO it, but now you’re saying to NOT do it? Hear me out!
Have you ever heard the expression “re-inventing the wheel?” It’s basically taking something that’s already been done and finished and re-doing it again and again even though it’s ALREADY done!
Sorta goes hand in hand with “doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result” being the definition of insanity, right? If you’ve already done it, why would you do it again?
“Re-using” isn’t just good for the planet
You’ve got a great menu plan that you love…why toss that aside? I know you don’t wanna eat the same things every week, but what if you had made 4 and you re-used those after week 4?
That means you’d be eating the same dish once a month, each month. If you chose well, and you love these recipes, chances are it will take you a while to get tired of ‘em. Use ‘em till you hit that point!
A great menu plan is also a great framework
So maybe you ARE getting a little tired of that menu plan. Maybe you need to switch things up a bit, but how about this…write down the flavor and/or meat of each recipe in a plan, then swap out a few that have the same flavor or meat?
Let’s try an example. Maybe you have beef enchiladas in your plan…could you swap that out for tacos? Also Mexican, also beef. Maybe you have pizza on your plan…could you maybe swap out red sauce pizza for a white sauce pizza on a pita, zucchini or cauliflower crust?
Or maybe you’re going from hot to cold weather. Swap salads out for soups with the same meats…chicken salad to chicken noodle soup! The point is to be creative but not reinvent the wheel…just have fun with it!
Using a menu matrix
Many people also use what I’ll call a menu matrix framework by giving each day of the week a theme. Meatless Monday, Taco Tuesday…you get the gist. Just plug in a recipe that fits the framework! (It’s definitely more fun when there’s alliteration, and FUN gets things DONE!)
Make sure you include Wild Wednesday where either anything goes OR you clean up all the leftovers so you can start out fresh!
Menu-planning…take a hike!
Yeah, you still gotta do the thinking to get yourself started…create 4 menu plans or come up with a matrix. But once you’ve done the basics, you could literally kiss menu-planning goodbye! Would that be a good thing for you? Lemme know in the comments!
Looking for those menu planning styles from the first paragraph? Here ya go!
