For a long time, I’ve scribbled down our family’s weekly meal plan menu on scratches of paper, used the “Notes” app in my iPhone, and well, you get the idea.
But as the years have progressed and I’ve tried to progress along with them.
Today, I’m sharing with you my latest developments in our family’s meal planning efforts.
Why you should consider a weekly meal plan menu
Like most moms, I’m cost-conscious and want to save $ where we can. And one of the best ways to do this is with your food spending.
Having a weekly meal plan menu helps ensure food doesn’t get wasted.
And rather than just whipping up dinner on a whim, you can really think about what recipes are going to be most budget-friendly, too.
How I structured our weekly meal plan
When it came to structuring out weekly plan plan menu, I thought first and foremost about this question:
“What ingredients do we already have, and have in large quantities, that need to get used up?”
And the answer was this:
All-purpose flour, corn masa flour, whole wheat flour, oats, walnuts, dried northern beans, dried garbanzo beans, tomato sauce, goat meat*, and rabbit meat*.
Try meal planning around what you already have
I recommend building the entire meal plan around the ingredients you already have and choosing recipes that you already know.
For me, this means choosing recipes that:
- A) our entire family likes eating (very important to make sure it’s toddler-friendly)
- B) is practical for me to make (I have a tendency to get overly elaborate in the kitchen)
What ingredients do you have in large amounts? If you aren’t 100% certain, I highly recommend doing an audit of your freezer, fridge, and pantry.
You might be surprised by what you find!
Our actual weekly menu
Here is our actual weekly menu at a glance (jump to the bottom for the free PDF downloads).
Monday: northern bean chili served with jalapeño corn bread muffins
Tuesday: butternut squash ricotta lasagna
Wednesday: “chicken” & dumplings (we use rabbit)
Thursday: goat tacos
Friday: pizza & salad
Saturday: enchilada casserole
Customizing your weekly meal plan menu
With just about any of these recipes I can dial up the protein or scale back depending on what we have available. I can also scale up the veggies, too, as well:
With chili, you can add zuchinni, bell peppers, kale and onions to really veggie-fye your meal.
With a butternut squash lasagna, I can add a pound of sautéed spinach to one of the ricotta layers Or, I can choose to do a meat & béchamel sauce instead.
As you can see, I may be making the “same meal” each week on our menu but I add a slight variation or twist to it each week depending on our mood.
Some days, I’m more ambitious in the kitchen. Other days, I will choose the simplest possible variation.
This is where there is some wiggle room to the weekly meal planning routine.
Going digital with our weekly meal plan menu
At first I insisted on having everything written down. I am a tactile person and generally more old-school than new-school.
But pieces of paper have a tendency to get lost.
Even a pre-formulated weekly meal plan menu that sticks to the fridge is at risk of getting torn to pieces by tiny little toddler hands.
So over the years and months, I’ve graduated from written meal plan menus to a digital one.
Building out our weekly meal plan menu in Canva
There are a lot of free templates to choose from in Canva that can help you hit the ground running.
However, this does require a Canva subscription. So today, I’m going to give you guys a couple of free downloads at the bottom of the blog post.
The first one is what I personally use and have completely customized with graphics.
It focuses on dinner as the big meal prepping effort for the day. And it has boxes for breakfast and snacks. These function more as a “pick-list” to choose from on any given day.
The next one is a pre-made one from Canva that has a little bit more modern of a look (if you prefer this).
Benefits of having a digital weekly meal plan menu
The great thing about having your meal plan in a digital format is that you can print it as many times as you need! So you get to have it on your phone and on your fridge if you want.
Best of both worlds!
It’s also a time-saver when you go to make edits to your menu later.
No need to swap out all the information but only the things you want to change or tweak.
Free downloads
Here is our real-life weekly meal plan:
And here is the menu meal plan template if you’d like to use what we have:
And here is another weekly meal plan template with a bit more of a modern look:
I love that template listed above, too, but miss not having boxes for breakfast, lunch and snacks.