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How to create a menu for the week yourself
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From personal experience in creating menus:
One of the most important and necessary habits that has greatly simplified and made my life easier is creating a menu for the week. I wrote more about why you need to create a menu and what it gives. And today I want to tell and show exactly how I do it.
I’ll immediately show you a few examples of what my weekly menu looks like (the cards are on the refrigerator door):
Example No. 1
Example No. 2
I didn’t make it in this form right away. Developing a menu plan that was convenient for me took almost a year. But now the process has been brought to almost automaticity and does not cause any difficulties.
Stage one, preparatory.
To begin with, I took a piece of paper and a pen and wrote down all the dishes that I can cook in categories: soups, main dishes, salads and desserts. To my surprise, in reality this list turned out to be much shorter than I had imagined (which later became a great incentive for learning new recipes).
Stage two - the scheme of the week. Using a simple table of seven columns corresponding to the days of the week, I began to compile a menu for the week in paper and then electronic versions. Without fail, I prepare breakfast every day, and on the other days I alternate: on even days I prepare soup and dessert for two days, and on odd days I prepare a second course (also for two days) and a salad. This simple alternation saves a lot of time and effort. And in the refrigerator there is always (!) ready-made food, which is very helpful in situations when “guests are on the doorstep” or “I’m too lazy to cook something today.”
Roughly my menu for the week looked like this:
Note: “New” is what is being prepared on this particular day. “In the refrigerator” are ready-made dishes that were prepared in advance for several servings.
Monday
Breakfast – Scrambled eggs with tomatoes (new)
Lunch – Burrito (in the refrigerator)
Afternoon snack – Grapes
Dinner – Gazpacho (new) + Blueberry pie (new)
Tuesday
Breakfast – Rice porridge (new)
Lunch – Gazpacho (in the refrigerator)
Afternoon snack – Berry pie with blueberries (in the refrigerator)
Dinner – Zucchini and potato pancakes (new) + Fresh cabbage salad with garlic dressing (new)
Wednesday
Breakfast - Semolina(new)
Lunch – Zucchini and potato pancakes (in the refrigerator)
Afternoon snack – Jam pie (new)
Dinner – Eggplant cream soup with baked tomatoes (new)
Thursday
Breakfast – Oatmeal (new)
Lunch – Eggplant cream soup with baked tomatoes (in the refrigerator)
Afternoon snack – Jam pie (in the refrigerator)
Dinner – Bitochki from crab sticks(new) + Pepper rings stuffed with cottage cheese and herbs (new)
Friday
Breakfast – Corn porridge with water (new)
Lunch – Crab sticks (in the refrigerator) + Pepper rings stuffed with cottage cheese and herbs (in the refrigerator)
Afternoon snack – Apple strudel (new)
Dinner – Cauliflower soup (new)
Saturday
Breakfast – Buckwheat porridge (new)
Lunch – Cauliflower soup (in the refrigerator)
Afternoon snack – Apple strudel (in the refrigerator)
Dinner – Pork with orange glaze (new) + Chinese salad with Chinese cabbage and chicken (new)
Preparing for future use – Frozen eggplants
Sunday
Breakfast – Egg in bread (new)
Lunch – Champignon puree soup (new)
Afternoon snack – Lemon cake (new)
Dinner – Pork with orange glaze (in the refrigerator) + Chinese salad with Chinese cabbage and chicken (in the refrigerator)
However, there were several disadvantages to this scheme. For example, separately from the menu, it was necessary to make a list of products for the week - look for each recipe from those that were planned for the week, and write out necessary ingredients. In addition, I am a visual person, so for me remembering dishes only by their names is not very easy. So after a few months I moved on to the next stage:
I wrote down all the recipes that I know how to cook in electronic form and provided them with a photograph (in finished form). Then, in the Word program, I drew an A4 sheet into rectangles measuring 5x9 (corresponding to the size of a regular business card). In each rectangle I wrote the name of the dish, the ingredients it consists of, and added a photo. In total, I got 12 cards on one sheet. Separately, I made small rectangles with the names of the days of the week.
A4 sheet with cards
Next, I checked the telephone directory and found out where in our city there is a service for printing on magnetic sheets. It turned out that in the nearest computer center. There they printed all these cards for me on an inkjet printer. For each sheet I paid an amount equal to approximately $2. I cut the sheet into cards with regular scissors.
Since the cards correspond to the size of a business card, I store them in a regular business card holder, sorted into categories: soups, main courses, salads and desserts.
Example No. 3
Example No. 4
The advantages of such a system:
Firstly, creating a menu for the week takes minimal time; you don’t need to write or draw anything.
Secondly, each card has a list of ingredients. Therefore, I do not make a separate grocery list for the week. When going to the store, I simply take the cards with me, put them in my wallet and, checking them, buy everything I need.
Thirdly, the cards hang on the refrigerator while cooking. I can see at any time exactly what ingredients and in what quantities I need.
And finally, it's fast and convenient. I'm very pleased.
To get free templates for magnetic cards, a training book on menu planning, an electronic magazine “Menu of the Week”, forms for creating menus, a table for freezing ready-made dishes, as well as recipes, tips for rational organization of home nutrition, menu options, etc. Just subscribe to our newsletter.
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Today I’ll tell you how to create a weekly menu for a family, based on my experience. Earlier in articles, I already mentioned that once a week I set aside time to create/plan a menu for each day for the whole family, but I did not go into detail. Today I want to talk about this in more detail.
Creating a weekly menu for a family has many advantages - mom (that is, me) does not stand in front of an open refrigerator every day and wonder what to cook? The family's meals become varied and healthy, saving time, money, and nerves. The family eats healthy, homemade food every day, rather than store-bought convenience foods.
Why do you need to create a weekly menu for your family?
First of all, let's figure out why plan a menu for a week, month, day? Isn't it easier to cook spontaneously without planning anything? Why waste time on creating menus, lists, etc.?
I admit, before, before the birth of children, I didn’t bother with creating a menu or planning purchases; the decision about what we would eat for breakfast/lunch/dinner came spontaneously and was decided together with my husband. They could also eat sausage rolls, store-bought dumplings, and pizza. And what? I want to eat. Have a snack, and then start preparing the “proper” food.
But after the birth of children, life changed and my views on nutrition changed, because I wanted my family, children, and husband to eat tasty, healthy and varied food. In addition, it was a pity to spend time every day going shopping, standing in long lines, extra money (without a list, without any idea of what we would eat in the next week, many thoughtless purchases were made), nerves (well... with a small with a child or two, a trip to the store turns into a little adventure - after all, you not only need to stand in line and choose/buy groceries, but also drag them home + child + stroller, and so on every day).
- Save time. Many people give up on menu planning because they believe that creating a menu will take a lot of time, which can be spent on something else. But I assure you that this is far from the case. It doesn’t take much time to create a menu, especially when you get the hang of it and have a layout scheme worked out (you can even leave the old menus and just alternate them week by week).
In addition, this time soon pays off, since I don’t have to stand in front of the refrigerator every day wondering what to cook for lunch or dinner, I don’t run headlong to the store because at the most inopportune moment I discovered that I don’t have refrigerator beets for borscht. I just start cooking right away. - We save money. I'll tell you by own experience that after we started planning the menu for the week, our unplanned expenses decreased significantly. Because we now go to the store with a pre-compiled list of products that are necessary for preparing meals for the coming week (thanks to it, we are saved from unplanned purchases in the supermarket, from filling the basket to the brim with unnecessary goods). Thanks to menu planning and a weekly inspection of the refrigerator, I can include in the menu products that lie unused until they become unfit for food. We always know that there is something to eat at home, so there is no need to buy dumplings for the third day in a row, since it’s a mess at home and we still want to eat.
- We eat right. On the day of drawing up the menu, you can make sure that the menu for the coming week is as healthy and varied as possible, including vegetables, fruits, meat, fish, dairy products and other benefits. The family will eat properly, varied and balanced.
1. Select a day of the week on which you will plan your menu for the week each week. This day for me is Thursday, because it is on this day that I take care of the refrigerator according to FlyLady’s weekly plan (I wrote more about this plan in the article), carry out an audit of it, throw out the excess, write down what needs to be purchased on the shopping list. So I can immediately add to this list the products that need to be purchased for preparing meals for the coming week.
For example:
Tips for creating a daily menu for the whole family
1. Select a day of the week that you will do weekly menu planning for the week. This day for me is Thursday, because it is on this day that I take care of (according to FlyLady’s weekly affairs) the refrigerator, inspect it, throw out the excess, write down what needs to be purchased on the shopping list. So I can immediately add to this list the products that need to be purchased for preparing meals for the coming week.
2. When inspecting the refrigerator, I write down everything that is in it on a piece of paper. Eg, chicken fillet, frozen chopped eggplant, half a pack of frozen raspberries, a couple of pears, half a pack of kefir, etc. Next, opposite each product found in the refrigerator/freezer, I write a dish that I can prepare from this product and include it in the menu.
For example:
chicken fillet – potatoes with chicken and vegetables
frozen eggplants - vegetable stew
raspberries - raspberry pie, etc.
3. When planning the menu, ask your family for their opinion on what they would like to eat in the next 7 days and include their wishes in the menu for the next week.
Making a list of dishes
First of all, make a list of dishes that you know how and love to cook, dividing them into categories (breakfasts, first and second courses, side dishes, desserts, salads). In parentheses, it is advisable to write the ingredients that are needed to prepare each dish (this will help you in the future, when you create a menu for the week, to navigate the ingredients included in a particular dish and when compiling lists of missing products).
Yes, this will take time. You may not immediately remember all the dishes you know how to cook. No problem. Gradually, as you remember new dishes, add to the lists. Take this point seriously, because in the future this list will make it easier for you to create a weekly menu for your family, saving a lot of time. The end result should be something like this:
Breakfast
Cottage cheese casserole
Omelette
Rice milk porridge
Buckwheat milk porridge
Milk soup with noodles
Oatmeal milk porridge
Semolina
Millet milk porridge
Wheat milk porridge
Barley milk porridge
Corn milk porridge
Scrambled eggs, etc.
First meal:
Chicken soup
Borsch
Beetroot
Rassolnik
Cabbage soup with sauerkraut
Pea soup
Mushroom soup
Fish soup
Buckwheat soup
Meatball soup
Vegetable soup
Kharcho soup, etc.
Second courses
Stuffed cabbage rolls are lazy
Meatballs
Fish in batter
Pilaf
Fish cutlets
Meat cutlets
Nuggets
Chicken in French
Stuffed peppers
Goulash
Bolognese
Solyanka
Chicken pancakes
Baked chicken
Chicken on a can, etc.
Side dishes
Rice
Buckwheat
Mashed potatoes
Pasta
Boiled potatoes
Pearl barley
Vegetable stew, etc.
Dessert
Pancakes
Pancakes
Cookie
Baked apples
Charlotte
Sponge cake
Pizza
Buns
Fruit pie
Pies with various fillings etc.
Salads
The vinaigrette
Beet salad
Carrot salad
Fish salad with rice and eggs
Olivie
Sunflower salad
Mushroom glade salad, etc.
How to create a weekly menu for a family
So we got to the most important point - creating a menu for the week for the family. You can create a table consisting of 3 columns (breakfast, lunch, dinner) and 7 rows (list the days of the week, respectively) and in each cell write down the dishes that you will prepare on a given day.
When creating a menu, I adhere to free planning. So in the menu I don’t prescribe specific days of the week tied to this or that dish: on Monday my family will eat buckwheat with meat, and on Tuesday French potatoes and nothing else.
I simply list the meals my family will eat next week by category (breakfast, lunch, dinner), but I don’t assign them a specific day of the week.
Next, every day I choose for each of the categories (breakfast-lunch-dinner) what I want to cook from the compiled menu and start cooking (the dish I prepared is crossed off the menu and I don’t cook it again this week). This approach has become more convenient for me than strict planning tied to a specific day of the week.
I cook breakfast and dinner every day (dinner sometimes remains for the next day, but this is very rare). We usually have enough soup for 2 days. From these features I create a menu. There should be 7 breakfasts and dinners, and 4 first courses. I also include salads and desserts in the menu, which I plan to prepare. In parentheses, next to each dish, I write down the ingredients that are necessary to prepare the dish, but are not available). 
Breakfast:
rice porrige
buckwheat
oatmeal
cottage cheese casserole (cottage cheese, semolina, milk)
omelette (eggs)
milk soup with noodles
corn porridge
Dinner:
Borscht (beets, cabbage)
Rassolnik (pickled cucumbers)
chicken soup (chicken)
pea soup
Dinner:
pilaf with chicken
battered fish and mashed potatoes (fish)
cutlets with buckwheat
pasta with Bolognese sauce
vegetable stew
French meat (cheese)
rice and lazy cabbage rolls(cabbage)
Next, I rewrite the products that are in brackets on a separate sheet and on my husband’s next day off (I can’t plan the exact day, since he has a flexible schedule), we go shopping.
How to design a weekly menu for a family
Design the menu depending on your preference: electronically (in Word, Excel, programs), write it by hand, or print it out and hang it on the refrigerator. It depends on how convenient it is for you and your family.
These are all the secrets of how I create a menu for every day for the whole family. Try it too - I’m sure you will succeed! If you have any questions, ask in the comments, I will answer. If you have your own ideas for creating a menu for the week, please write in the comments.
I found the article useful: How to create a weekly menu for a family? Share with your friends. In order not to miss new interesting and useful articles, subscribe to blog updates!
Best regards, Olga
Cooking is a routine process that takes too much time, especially if your plans include breakfast, lunch, and dinner at home, with variations for children and adults. It's time to optimize the process and spend the saved time on recreation or hobbies.
Why create a menu for the week?
This will help you:- spend less time at the stove, which is especially tiring in the summer, in the heat;
- run to the store less often to buy more products needed for cooking;
- spend less money on purchasing products and throw them away less often;
- eat tasty and varied food with health benefits.
Step 1. Inspect everything in the refrigerator and get rid of spoiled foods. Analyze whether it is worth purchasing these products in the future, and if so, in what volume. Make a list of foods that have not expired and think about what you can cook from them next week.
Step 2. Find the right tools to plan your menu for the week. It is convenient to use tables printed from the Internet and enter the names of dishes in them or mobile applications. For example, "EasyMeny scheduler balanced menus» will count calories, proteins, fats and carbohydrates, and will also automatically create, based on the dishes you have chosen, a grocery list for the week ahead, with which you can go to the store; The “FoodPlan: menu every week” application has similar functionality and is suitable for those who only have breakfast and dinner at home.
Step 3. Now create a menu for the coming week. Keep in mind the following tricks:
- You can prepare two or three dishes from one product. For example, cook a little more meat broth than usual. Then it will become the basis, but also for risotto.
- Boiled meat accompanied by the right sauce and side dish is a completely independent dish for dinner or lunch.
- Some people find it easy new life. Oven-baked chicken can be useful for making rice or Asian noodles, salad, sandwich or wrap for a hearty snack, morning omelet or lunch potato casserole. Yesterday's base for a refreshing summer okroshka easily turns into a hearty salad, unclaimed pancakes into a pancake cake, uneaten mashed potatoes into potato zrazy or casserole, unfinished compote into jelly or berry jelly for dessert.
- Choose recipes simple dishes, which take no more than 30-40 minutes to prepare. In the end, the more gentle heat treatment food is subjected to, the healthier it is (it is not at all necessary to fry carrots or pre-simmer tomatoes for soup, which wastes not only time, but also vitamins). Leave culinary feats for the holidays.
- Cook in the oven or slow cooker more often. The cooking process will not require minute-to-minute monitoring from you, which means it will save your time.
- Prepare a couple of days ahead. On Monday and Tuesday the soup may be the same. You can diversify the taste with the help of greens. In addition, alternate between appetizers and main courses.
When creating your weekly menu, consider the needs of the whole family. If, for example, it would be nice for your household to lose a couple of kilos, at least plan light dinners. Replace spaghetti with boiled or steamed vegetables, fatty fried meat with diet fish from the oven. Eliminate foods with mayonnaise from your diet, and minimize starchy and sweet foods.
Step 4. Make a list to take to the store. In addition to the products necessary for preparing the selected dishes, it would be a good idea to stock up on fish, meat, and some semi-finished products that can be stored in the freezer and that will help you out in case of an unforeseen situation (unexpected friends or relatives) or an irresistible desire to deviate from the planned plan.
Step 5. During the week, try cooking less often, but in slightly larger portions than usual - you can freeze excess food (it’s easier to make 20 cabbage rolls than 2 times 10). The same broth is perfectly stored in the freezer (when freezing, you should leave a little free space in plastic containers so that they do not crack) and becomes an excellent lifesaver when you have very little time to prepare soup, and a hungry tiger has taken up residence at home. The already mentioned homemade cabbage rolls, dumplings, and some chopped vegetables (for example, carrots are an indispensable ingredient in many dishes) also freeze well. Any supplies made are time saved in the future.
Creating a menu for every day for the whole family is a confident step towards proper nutrition. Good habit allows you to think through the diet of your household and enrich it as much as possible with the necessary vitamins. Taking into account the necessary products also becomes an effective prevention of unnecessary expenses; money is saved without compromising the quality of nutrition. Plus, time costs are reduced, since many dishes are prepared for 2-3 days.
Day No. 1 – Monday
Planning home menu the week for the family starts on Monday. On this and all subsequent days, four meals a day are expected. If you wish, you can exclude afternoon tea from the list.
Buckwheat porridge is a healthy breakfast that gives you energy in the morning. The product can be prepared with water or milk. Those with a sweet tooth are allowed to add sugar.
Chicken soup is a lunch that is easy on the stomach, thanks to which the functioning of the digestive tract is restored and immunity is improved. Prepared with vermicelli (you can use homemade noodles).
The afternoon snack is limited to a vitamin salad, which is prepared with carrots and dried apricots. Optimal filling – vegetable oil.
Dinner depends on individual preferences. You can stew fish or chicken in sour cream. The salad is prepared from any vegetables except potatoes.
To prepare dried apricot salad (afternoon snack), you need 2 handfuls of the main product, 3 carrots. The dressing is created using 1.5 tsp. vegetable oil, 1.5 tbsp. l. lemon juice, a small amount of honey. Carrots and dried apricots are chopped and mixed with whipped lemon juice. The dish is seasoned with butter and honey.
Day No. 2 – Tuesday
How to create a weekly menu for your family on Tuesday? The program for Tuesday includes semi-finished products (sausages), which you can, if desired, refuse in favor of a natural product.
The first meal includes scrambled eggs and sausages. An alternative for those on a diet is boiled eggs.
Lunch is limited to low-calorie zucchini soup, the recipe for which is offered below.
A fruit salad is served as a snack; instead, you can offer fresh fruit to your family.
Vegetable mix, fish cutlets– options for dinner. Pollock is optimal for making cutlets.
To create puree soup in economical menu for a week for the family it is necessary to include such ingredients as potatoes (300 g), zucchini (700 g), carrots and onions (one piece), sour cream (a third of a glass). You also need seasonings, herbs, garlic, vegetable oil, everything is added to taste. The oil is heated in a saucepan, chopped carrots and onions are fried in it. Add water, peeled and finely chopped potatoes.
Ten minutes later, add chopped zucchini (with skins) and salt to taste. Sour cream is added after 15 minutes, then the dish is boiled for another 3 minutes, cooled and pureed using a blender. The final touch is adding greenery.
Day No. 3 – Wednesday
A weekly menu for the family with recipes is also offered for Wednesday. Breakfast consists of steamed porridge with raisins, you can have stewed vegetables and rice for lunch, and for dinner they have meat cutlets with potato dressing. For cutlets you need the following products:
- minced meat (0.8 kg);
- onion (2 pcs.);
- yolk (2 pcs.);
- White bread(200 g);
- milk (0.5 tbsp.);
- crackers (or flour).
The bread is soaked in milk, finely chopped and onions are fried. Minced meat is mixed with these products. After thorough mixing, add egg yolks, salt and spices by eye. The cutlets are molded, rolled in flour or breadcrumbs, and placed in a frying pan with heated oil. It is necessary to fry until golden brown, then simmer for a short time over low heat.
Other days
A budget menu for a week for a family on the remaining days can repeat the dishes described above or include new ones.
On Thursday, you should have a cottage cheese casserole for breakfast, and make a pie with cabbage for lunch (it is also offered for an afternoon snack). For dinner, you can fry mackerel and complement the dish with potatoes or pasta.
Friday breakfast includes dumplings, which can be filled with any ingredients and eaten with sour cream. A healthy lunch is borscht or other soup. Fruits are served as a snack, and beef chops with any side dish are served for dinner.
A sample menu for the week for a family on Saturday starts with an omelet for breakfast. Lunch consists of chicken salad(for example, “Caesar”), for an afternoon snack you should prepare pancakes, filling them with any filling. You can have dinner stewed cabbage and any meat.
Sunday breakfast consists of toast with an egg, you can make it sweet or salty. Homemade hodgepodge is served as lunch. For an afternoon snack, pie with any dressing is an excellent choice; dinner includes salad and potato casserole.
The program is given only as an option; it can be modified, focusing on the tastes of household members. It is important to use dishes with low calorie content, exclude fried, smoked and highly salted foods, and also give up soda, chips and other unhealthy snacks.
It’s worth adding fruit to any day’s menu. Their number can be very significant. Or you can replace an afternoon snack, late dinner or even breakfast. And adding it to different dishes will make the taste more original.
Today most young people married women They are interested in mastering home time management. Keeping up with everything, trying to run a household economically and at the same time remaining attractive is not an easy task. Every housewife knows how much time it takes to cook and run around supermarkets after work. By learning how to create a weekly menu for your family, you will immediately solve several problems: save time, money and get rid of unnecessary workload.
Organizing and planning your family diet helps you save time and money.
Planning a menu for several days will save you from having to decide every day what to cook for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. This approach to cooking has a number of advantages - saving time and money. At the same time, you will be able to fulfill a long-standing dream - to switch your household to a healthy diet.
Save time
Switching to purchasing products according to a list saves a lot of time. How does it usually happen? An inexperienced housewife makes spontaneous purchases, and then decides at home what can be prepared from it. In addition, he spends time searching interesting recipe in the Internet. As a result, we spend most of our free time near the stove.
You need to do everything the other way around. First, we create a weekly menu for the family with recipes, and then we buy the necessary products for it. This way you can prepare some meals ahead. You won't have to run to the supermarket again if you forgot to buy something in a hurry. Cooking will turn into a deliberate process. Thanks to this planning, you can arrange a more gentle work schedule in the kitchen.
Financial benefit
Spontaneous grocery shopping has another unpleasant side. Have you noticed that when you enter the store just to buy bread and dairy products, you take out a whole cart? And then it turns out that only part of the contents will be eaten. And the rest will deteriorate. After all, each product has its own expiration date.
Sometimes women, tired after a day of work, in the desire to cook something quickly, buy semi-finished products or all sorts of “goodies”. They are not cheap. And their health benefits are questionable. Such unplanned expenses always hit the family budget.
If you create a weekly menu for your family in advance and make purchases based on it, the savings will be significant. For example, a year of such a deliberate approach to expenses will allow you to save for a long-awaited vacation, which was previously not available due to lack of finances.
Balanced and healthy diet
Another important advantage in diet planning is the ability to create more useful menu for all family members to join a healthy lifestyle. For those who wish to reset excess weight, it's just a necessity.
When compiling sample menu for the week it is important to consider several factors
If there are only healthy foods in the refrigerator, then you will not have any opportunity to eat something that is not permissible.
A balanced menu for the week for the whole family is a chance to switch to a healthier diet. It will be easier for you to control the amount of food you eat. You will be able to plan your menu for the whole day so that your diet will become more varied. After a few months, you will notice that giving up chaotic eating will have a beneficial effect on your health and appearance.
Planning weekly menu includes 3 key points:
- Selecting recipes suitable for a specific family. Based on the selected recipes, create a list of dishes. Here you can enter dishes that are especially popular among family members. Ideally, for everyone. If you're unlucky, you can cook your favorite dishes one at a time. You can choose the recipes you want to master. In order to save time, it is worth alternating complex dishes with simple ones that will take a minimum of time.
- Make a list of ingredients using ingredients.
- Decide on their quantity and the required amount. Take this list to the supermarket. It is worth timing this event to coincide with the time when there are promotions in stores. Under no circumstances change the list on the fly. Subsequence - important point in planning.
You can do it differently. Conduct preparatory work. For a month, write down every day all the products you purchased, their quantity, and cost. At the end of the month, analyze the information received. You will immediately notice which products were extra, where you spent more than you needed (spontaneous purchases). It will become clear to you how often you buy, for example, dairy products and cereals. Inspect the refrigerator, all kitchen cabinets, and take into account all remaining supplies that have not expired.
Once you get used to shopping from a list, you can adjust your entries over time.
Making a grocery list
After drawing up a menu plan, you need to make a list of products necessary for its preparation.
When creating a simple weekly menu for your family, focus on the tastes of your household. Family income also needs to be taken into account. The time of year plays an important factor in compiling the list: it is better to buy fruits and vegetables that are in season. If you want not only to save money, but also to accustom your household to a healthy lifestyle, then give preference to healthy products.
Your cart should contain:
- low fat fermented milk products;
- eggs;
- meat (preferably chicken or turkey);
- fat sea fish, seafood;
- various cereals;
- vegetables, herbs, fruits, berries;
- spices, herbs;
- vegetable oil;
- whole wheat bread;
- nuts, dried apricots, raisins;
- low-calorie sweets, honey.
If holidays are planned or guests are planned, then you need to draw up an additional list of products.
Selecting a convenient menu form
Now on the Internet you can download various programs with a calorie calculator or recipes indicating the quantities of ingredients. Use them to save time. A ready-made menu for a week for a family can become decor for the kitchen if you decorate it like in a restaurant. More practical housewives will opt for an electronic menu or one written down in a diary. For ease of planning, it is worth combining the list of dishes with the recipe.
Each family has its own taste preferences. Therefore, we offer one of many options.
| Monday | oatmeal with any seasonal fruits or berries |
pickle, mashed potatoes with boiled chicken, fresh vegetable salad |
potato zrazy with champignons (use leftover mashed potatoes from lunch) |
| Tuesday |
cheesecakes with sour cream and berries |
beetroot, stewed chicken liver, sliced vegetables |
fish baked in foil with vegetables |
| Wednesday |
buckwheat porridge with milk |
chicken noodle soup, carrot and cheese salad |
vegetable salad, boiled beef |
| Thursday |
oatmeal pancakes with sour cream or honey |
creamy mushroom soup, boiled beef salad with vegetables |
fish stewed in tomato sauce with bell pepper |
| Friday |
cottage cheese with berries |
fish cutlets, cabbage and cucumber salad |
vegetable ratatouille |
| Saturday |
pancakes with apples |
bell pepper stuffed with rice, minced meat |
vegetable salad, stewed chicken liver |
| Sunday |
cottage cheese casserole with pumpkin |
vegetable soup, pilaf with champignons, |
chicken stewed in sour cream with pasta, vegetables |
From the presented weekly home menu for the family, we will select several dishes that can be prepared in a matter of minutes.
Oat pancakes
Ingredients (for 1 serving) - 1 egg, 3 tbsp. spoons oatmeal, 1 tbsp. spoon of sugar.
Preparation – Grind the flakes, add egg, sugar, beat with a mixer. Leave for 5-10 minutes to swell. Then fry as usual pancakes.
Champignon puree soup
Ingredients – 300 g champignons, 3 potatoes, 2 onions, 300 ml 20% cream, vegetable oil, salt, black pepper, ground nutmeg (optional).
Preparation – Boil the potatoes. Peel the onions, mushrooms, chop everything coarsely. Fry the onion until transparent, then add champignons and spices. Fry, stirring, until the mushrooms are ready. Combine boiled potatoes, a glass of potato broth, fried mushrooms with onions, and cream. Beat with a mixer. If the puree soup is too thick, add a little more potato broth.