For today's busy mom, balancing work and home management can be a chore, especially when it comes to menu planning. It would be very easy to just serve the same seven recipes week after week and make enough of each dish to allow a few nights of leftovers. However, after a while, the family can get tired of the same meals week after week.
Consider setting up a rotating quarterly family menu plan. Below is a list of several meal ideas. If one of these was served every night, the family would only eat the same dish about three times a year, and if planned well, it is possible that the family will never eat leftovers again, unless they want to.
Quarterly Family Menu Plan
This list represents over 90 different meal ideas. A few are made from the same main dish, so it would be easy to cook meat in batches, separate it in zip lock bags and freeze it until ready to use. This is just a representation of what might be served. Feel free to create a menu based on family favorites using the same basic idea.
- Beef brisket: Buy the largest one on sale. Bake and use for several of the following meals.
- Beef and broccoli
- Vegetable beef soup
- Shredded beef soft tacos
- Shredded beef enchiladas
- Chopped BBQ sandwiches
- Shredded beef and cheese nachos
- Roast beef: Buy the largest one available and use any leftovers for the following meal ideas.
- Roast beef sandwiches
- Beef tips and rice
- Beef tips and noodles
- Beef stroganoff
- Goulash
- Pork tenderloin: Purchase a whole pork tenderloin when it's on sale. Have the butcher slice it in half. Use one half as a roast. Have the butcher slice the second half in 1/4 inch steak slices to bread and deep fry chicken fried style later.
- Chicken fried pork tenderloin steak
- Chicken fried steak
- Grilled or broiled steak : When steak is on sale, stock up. To stretch steak for subs, pizza, quesadillas, etc., freeze it lightly and thin slice it very thin. Store in zip lock bags and deep freeze until ready to cook
- Steak and cheese subs
- Steak and cheese pizza
- Steak quesadilla
- Steak fajitas
- Steak kabobs
- Steak and corn chowder
- Steak and rice stir fry
- Roast chicken: Save time by buying roast chicken from the local deli supermarket. Use any leftovers on the following meals.
- Roast chicken sub sandwiches
- Roast chicken and rice
- Chicken salad: Whenever possible, buy boneless and skinless chicken. This makes preparing the following dishes so much easier than having to boil and de-bone a chicken.
- Chicken and dumplings: Serve with cornbread and crackers
- Chicken alfredo
- Chicken pizza
- Chicken spaghetti
- Chicken chili
- Chicken kabobs
- Chicken parmesan
- Eggplant parmesan
- Southern fried chicken
- Tempura chicken
- Tempura shrimp
- Shrimp alfredo
- Italian spaghetti: Spaghetti dishes, pasta, lasagna, casseroles and enchiladas all freeze well. Make several batches of these at one time on the weekend perhaps and freeze to use on those busy days.
- Baked ziti
- Rigatoni
- Vegetable lasagna
- Traditional lasagna
- Chicken lasagna
- Spinach lasagna
- Lasagna roll ups
- Spinach enchiladas
- Cheese enchiladas
- Cheese pizza
- Cheese quesadilla
- Turkey and dressing: When turkeys go on sale in October and November, buy several whole turkeys. One turkey, baked in the oven or oven roaster can be skinned, de-boned, broke down into several zip lock bags and used for numerous meals throughout the year. It freezes well. So does chicken. Consider buying chicken leg quarters when they're on sale and do the same.
- Turkey subs
- Turkey wraps
- Turkey meatloaf
- Turkey burgers: Ground turkey is usually cheaper than ground beef and is healthier and usually lower in fat than ground beef.
- Turkey tetrazzini
- Turkey cutlets (baked)
- Turkey cutlets (deep fried)
- Texas chili
- Southern fried chicken: on a busy night, consider buying fried chicken from the local deli supermarket. Average cost is usually $.50 a piece. It's hard to find chicken for less than $.39 a pound even on sale. So let someone else do the frying.
- Shake and bake chicken
- Chicken tenders
- Chicken poor boys
- Amish chicken corn soup: This is famous Amish soup recipe that easy to make and is great on cold nights.
- Chicken clam chowder: Also known as mock clam chowder. It's cheaper because it uses clam juices and pieces of chicken instead of clams, but taste almost the same.
- Fried catfish
- Fried fish
- Baked fish
- Baked salmon
- Salmon loaf
- Salmon croquettes
- Boiled shrimp
- Shrimp alfredo
- Coconut shrimp
- Fried shrimp
- Shrimp kabobs
- Shrimp poor boys
- Crab cakes
- Tuna croquettes: Tuna regularly goes on sale several times a year. Stock up. It has a good shelf life.
- Tuna casserole
- Jambalaya: Also known as Gumbo. Cheap and easy to make a lot of it. Serve over rice.
- Red beans and rice: Beans and rice are two of the most healthiest, protein packed carbohydrates on the planet. They also happen to usually be the cheapest. Consider these staple items and buy in bulk. Also consider buying dried black eyed peas and black beans for meal alternatives.
- Baked ham: Ham usually goes on sale around Christmas and Easter. They will freeze well for several months.
- Ham and potato casserole
- Ham and pineapple
- Baked ham
- Ham and cheese sandwiches
- BBQ ribs
- BBQ chicken: look for sales on chicken quarters, chicken legs and chicken wings during the summer months from May to September.
Cheap Eats
Most everything listed here has a cost of about $3 a person or less. Considering the average price of eating out is now $10 a person, this quarterly menu plan could save the family budget. Never assume that everything has to be made at home and from scratch. Utilize semi-homemade tips and tricks.
Buy chicken already prepared from the local supermarket deli. On pizza night, it is fine to buy a large one topping pizza from Little Cesar's for $5. Many families are learning to cheat on hamburger night too. Go buy the fast food place and order double cheeseburgers for only half the family. Order the burgers plain and dry. Take them home and with buns from home, split the double cheeseburgers into single burgers. it comes down to $0.50 a hamburger. With a little imagination and the proper planning, it is possible to eat well, save money, offer a variety of family favorites and never eat leftovers again.
Amy Wingfield - Amy, a freelance writer since 1999, has combined her passion for writing and for Christian music.There's always a story behind the ...
