We’ve always done dinner themes, but @yummytoddlerfood taught me you could do a meal rotation for breakfasts and snacks, too. 🤯 AKA a system where you decide ahead of time a loose rhythm for your meals. And instead of reinventing the wheel, you repeat this loose rhytym.
The decision fatigue was killing me, so this solves, like, 473836 of my problems.
And it sounded like the ultimate way to take care of Future Haley. No more “What are we having for breakfast? lunch? morning snack? afternoon snack? dinner? etc etc ET FREAKING C!” The meal rotation has it alllllll figured out! BLESS!
Because let’s be real: the most exhausting part of menu planning is the blank slate. Doing a meal rotation gives us a starting point.
So that said:
Let’s make a meal rotation!
make a table
now think: what meals in your life could benefit from being a little more automated?
just your dinners, because you eat lunch out every day? just your breakfasts because daycare takes care of lunches and you’d prefer not to automate your dinners? just your lunches and dinners because you never eat breakfast?
you get the picture. what meals are we making a rotation for?
i personally wanted a meal rotation for three meals and two snacks a day, as we have a limited eating out budget, so I try to cook at home as often as possible. and we have a small child, so I’d like some help in the breakfast and snacks department. and i’d love a meal rotation for dinners, since that would make meal planning easier.
(Pre-Baby Haley would’ve also benefited from a meal rotation. Particularly when I was trying to pack lunches as a teacher. wooooo buddy.)
so I made a table in Google Docs. here is a link to my table, as well as a blank one - feel free to make a copy! I wanted something I could easily print out and tape to my fridge, but could also just as easily edit and change.
not into google docs? do whatever works for you!
evaluate your needs
now here’s the tricky part.
in my opinion, our dinner themes in the past have failed because I tried a theme (or a meal combination) that worked really well for someone else, but didn’t necessarily fit what we needed.
i’m going to walk you through a few things that we personally needed in a meal rotation to show you what i mean, and in the hopes it’ll spark some ideas for you, too.
brett works 100% from home, so he always eats at home. and with it being a pandemic (and us having a limited eating out fund), KK and I usually eat at home, too. so I needed meals and snacks that were appropriate for KK, but also that Brett and I could enjoy, too. i wanted it so i only had to prep, say, one snack - or one dinner - for all that were eating. so, if I’m hungry in the afternoon, I’m sharing that afternoon snack with KK, too. Done and freaking done.
we follow the Division of Responsibility for eating with KK. we can choose what/where/when we eat and she gets to choose which of the offered foods to eat and how much. i’m an extremely picky eater, so I follow this, too. (and that said, this is how I prep the same food for all of us and this is why we benefit from having multiple things offered at each meal.)
other things I kept in mind when choosing things for our meal rotation:
we’re usually out and about in the morning, and home in the afternoon - see our daily schedule here. this means our morning snack needs to be able to go in a purse, be eaten in a stroller, etc.
I usually meal prep three things each week: some sort of muffin/waffles/pancake, some sort of eggs, some sort of oats. this would be a great starting point for a breakfast rotation.
lately we’re trying a thing where we make muffins/waffles/pancakes for Sunday breakfast, and then making extra for that week (or for the freezer for future weeks) - let’s make that our Sunday breakfast theme since we already naturally do this. done!
I know I don’t like a weekly Pizza Night - I know, I know, I’m a monster. I also don’t like a weekly Pasta Night for the same reason I don’t like a weekly Pizza Night - I get tired of it. But I do crave these two items, and they make the best lunch leftovers (plus Brett and KK LOVE both pizza and pasta), so I’m wondering if I can turn that into a theme.
right now I’m really enjoying making a goooood salad once a week, and I’m really enjoying finding new side dishes to try so that we have more of a family-style meal where everyone can pick and choose what they want. (as i said earlier, this helps for the Division of Responsibility!) can this be incorporated into our meal rotation?
and, I know that by Friday and Saturday, I have ZERO energy to cook. so let’s create dinner themes that double as my rest days. Schedule your rest, y’all. And I will say this - I LOVE to cook dinner, because I get a BREAK from cooking dinner every Friday and Saturday night.
I loveeee to make a soup early in the week, and enjoy those leftovers as a lunch option, but Brett really doesn’t care for soup. how can we incorporate this?
the only way themes work for me is they have to be widely flexible. I can’t, say, eat the same darn thing each time. I need the starting point of a theme, but I need the possibilities within that theme to be pretty endless.
I like to swim earlyyy Saturday mornings, so Brett’s always in charge of Saturday breakfast - I’ll keep that day free of a theme so that Brett can choose whatever he wants.
we like working leftovers into our meal rotation as an option - it reminds us to use whatever’s lurking in our fridge, and it’s the ultimate “Cook Once, Eat Twice” strategy. but I also like to have a second option for the days that we either have no leftovers, or the leftovers don’t sound appealing.
brett likes to grill on Sunday, and I like to have him to grill any extra proteins that we could use for dinners that week. cook once, eat twice. i also have the most cooking energy on Sundays, so I do some meal prep. (but also, let’s keep all this in mind when creating that meal rotation.)
we like our current routines of Grill and Chill Sunday, Sandwich Night (+Soup/Salad, if we’re feeling it) Monday, and Snack Dinner Saturday.
also, at the risk of sounding like a monster YET AGAIN, you need to know i don’t eat a lot of meat. it’s not intentional - I just really don’t like the texture of it. but brett loves to have a meat option, and we want KK to have the option of eating it. so I needed meals where Brett and KK could eat meat if they chose, but I could easily eat the other components…or pick the meat out.
okay, I think I covered alllllll our needs (and our quirks).
create themes, create meal combinations
now’s the fun part!
keeping in mind the above things we soul searched, let’s create that meal rotation.
yes, searching “dinner themes” and “lunch ideas” on pinterest is a wonderful starting point. but don’t forget what works really well for someone, may be a flop with you. but, by all means, do what i do - pinterest for inspiration, and tweak to make it your own!
also. let me say this. yes, there are lots of fun dinner themes out there. but know that anything can be a theme. don’t limit yourself. for example, we decided for thursdays, our dinner theme is “Chicken, Fish, or Sausage.” and because it works well for us, it’s a successful dinner theme!
now let’s brainstorm our themes and meal combinations.
ask yourself:
what are things i/we really like to eat?
what are things i/we really don’t like to eat?
do i/we have any dietary needs or restrictions?
what are things i/we really enjoy making?
what are things i/we’d realistically like to eat more?
what are things i/we’d like to learn to cook?
where do i/we usually eat this meal?
when are my/our recurring commitments that may affect meals?
do i/we like leftovers?
do i/we like to meal prep?
how often do i/we like to cook?
how often can i/we afford to eat out?
etc
here’s our rotation*, if you need a starting point!
*our rotation has since been updated - you can always find our current rotation in my instagram feed!
and know that produce can be anything: apple slices, freeze dried strawberries, cucumber leftover from a salad, apple sauce, canned peaches, thawed frozen cherries, green beans leftover from dinner, yesterday’s leftover smoothie, whatever. It’s all game. Clean out whatever’s lurking around.
same goes with “leftovers” - could be leftover dinner, leftover morning snack, leftover meal prepped goodies. anything goes - clean out that fridge.
and it’s not written, but know we serve fruit at almost every dinner. (as well as some sort of veggie with most dinners.) it’s an easy side we all love, and I love using the leftovers for the next day’s breakfast and lunches.
also, before you think “sandwiches,” “toast,” or “quesadillas” are super limiting, hear me out. take that sandwich option for lunch. We could vary up the bread each time, we could vary up the cheese, or if we want it toasted vs. not toasted. We could do PB&Js, PB & Banana, PB & Honey sandwiches. We could add flaxseed to those PB sandwiches. We could do a grilled cheese - we could change up the cheese, we could add in little bits of spinach to the grilled cheese, we could add a smear of roasted sweet potato to the grilled cheese, we could add in tiny bits of broccoli to the grilled cheese. We could do a deconstructed turkey sandwich. We could do a cream cheese and jam sandwich. THE LIST GOES ON.
even that morning snack is super open to interpretation. maybe I made homemade breakfast bars with jam that week. maybe I’m splitting my perfect bar with KK. maybe she and I are sharing a smoothie. maybe i’m eating a mason jar yogurt parfait, and she’s eating yogurt in our favorite reusable pouch. anything goes!
you catch my drift now? I THRIVE on themes and meal rotations. but I can’t feel like I’m stuck with only one option - I need to have plenty of wiggle room and creative liberty within that theme.
again, it’s all flexible - there are no rules. you do whatever you need!
a meal rotation works for us because it makes meal planning SO much easier - it gives me a starting point. not to mention a starting point for meal prep.
and this will provide KK a sense of structure and familiarity - but, let’s be real, I need that just as much as she does.
run into some problems?
meal rotation not working?
no big deal, consider it a starting point. revisit the questions and brainstorm sessions above. what needs to be tweaked?
tired of a theme?
reevaluate and change it up. nothing is ever set in stone. the minute we dread a certain night’s dinner theme, we let it go and try something else, guilt free.
in a recipe rut?
here’s how i find new recipes!
can’t commit to a meal rotation for, say, Wednesday lunch because that’s the day you always XYZ?
no problem! leave it blank and theme-less. there are no rules.
don’t feel like tonight’s dinner, for whatever reason?
that’s okay! can we rearrange the menu plan so that we’re doing something else tonight, and move tonight’s dinner to another night?
(this is why we schedule a few nights of easy, no-brainer meals. they save us in instances like this!)
hit the drive-thru instead of making tonight’s dinner?
that’s okay - you’re doing great!
can tonight’s dinner be moved to another night so that it’s not wasted? can it be saved for next week’s menu plan? or, similarly, can anything be frozen and saved for Future You?
is there anything we could have done differently to make cooking tonight easier? is there anything we could tweak in the meal rotation?
(or, if it’s just an off night, that’s okay! our goal is always consistency, not perfection…and sometimes Chickfila solves all dinner woes.)
eggs in the fridge need to be used up, but today’s the day for oatmeal?
serve eggs! do whatever you need to do! the meal rotation is a guide, not a contract.
we’re going on a trip/on a date/out for an adventure, so-and so invited us to XYZ, we have a family function, we got hit with the stomach bug, there’s a chickfila next to the library/zoo/aquarium, we want to bring a special snack to the state park/football game/pool, etc etc etc. what do we do?
i always say, if a routine/rhythm/system doesn’t organically work for us today for whatever reason, we skip it. guilt free. we only follow the meal rotation when we need it. we never feel stuck with anything. life happens, and a meal rotation is supposed to make our life easier.
Create routines and systems that work for you in this current season of yours. Routines and systems that take care of you, your home, and your family - however that looks for you! For me, that meant simplifying meals and creating a meal rotation. You do whatever works best for you!
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