Weekly Menu Planner Ideas

Planning the menu on a daily basis is one of the toughest tasks for women. Especially, planning school and office lunch box is a challenging task, as it needs to have variety and be healthy as well. When my kid started school, I tried the idea of planning the week's menu beforehand. Based on the available vegetables and ingredients in my pantry I used to plan for tiffin and lunch dishes. This worked out very well and was really helpful in making life much simpler especially during the weekdays.

Based on my personal experience and our family's preferred options, I have listed below some of the weekly menu planner ideas. You can use this as a reference and create your own planner accordingly.  This type of pre planning might look to be a tedious task to follow,  but trust me, once you start to follow, it definitely works wonders.  I have also linked the recipes to the corresponding pages from my blog, wherever applicable.

• Week 1
• Week 2
• Week 3
• Week 4
• Week 5
• Week 6
• Week 7
• Week 8

   

Please check the below link for the weekly menu planner updates from my Instagram account.

More Weekly Menu Planner Ideas 

TIPS

1. When you plan the menu, keep a note of all the vegetables and other ingredients in your pantry.
2. Also while planning care should be taken so that the dishes include all vital nutrients required for our health like vitamins, proteins, carbohydrates, iron etc. I strongly believe that our traditional way of cooking as set by the ancestors,  includes all of the necessary nutrients by default, especially for vegetarians. 
3. You can prepare a list of tiffin and lunch dishes which you frequently make and is your family favourite. And then to prepare this weekly planner, you can choose from that list so that it is easier.
4. This menu planner need not be followed strictly as there will obviously be last minute changes to our plan. This menu planner is more of a guide to lessen our kitchen works in preparing the dishes.
5. Wherever possible, you can chop the vegetables and keep other needed ingredients ready before hand.
6. Also while planning the menu for a day, you can try to include dishes which can be reused across meal times - like same side dish for both breakfast and dinner, sambar of lunch can be reused for dinner etc.
7. If you are a working woman, you can try to prepare variety rice, pulao, roti varieties etc which require minimal effort on a week day.  
8. Try to plan your menu based on the vegetables or ingredients which need to be used earlier -for example greens, cauliflower, cabbage etc do not sustain longer shelf life period and hence need to be used first.
9. While planning for kids snacks, try to include fruits and raw vegetables like carrot/cucumber, sundal varieties etc. Once or twice a week, homemade snacks, sweets and baked items like muffins/cookies can be given.  It is always better to make at home rather than buying from the stores.
10. Wherever possible try to prepare steamed dishes like kozhukattai, idiyappam etc for snacks instead of deep fried items.

LINKS FROM MY BLOG

I have given below some of the important links to the pages from my blog based on the menu planner ideas that I have shared.

1. Breakfast/Dinner options
2. Chutney varieties
3. Sambar varieties
4. Rice varieties
5. Lunch Box ideas
6. Snack Ideas
7. More lunch box ideas from my Instagram page
8. 
   

DISCLAIMER


I have prepared this post purely based on our family's food preference. Since we have tiffin for both breakfast and dinner, I have included menu options accordingly. Please use this as a reference and modify accordingly. I shall update this page as and when applicable with new ideas and links to my recipes.