Need a little help or jumpstart with your menu planning? Below are several menu plans I’ve put together based on past menu plans I’ve used for my own family. I harp on it all the time, but menu planning saves my sanity and my grocery budget.
I tailored these menu plans the same way I create my own (which may or may not work for you): a nicer, larger dinner on Sundays, a miscellaneous/leftover night at least once per week, homemade pizza one night a week with a list of “Treats to Make” below the menu. I also included a list of our favorite breakfast options underneath the menu. As for lunch? Well, you are on your own because we keep things ultra-simple around here for lunch – leftovers, PB&J’s, crackers and cheese, you know…simple, as in no-recipe-needed!
The only real change from my actual menu plan is that I’ve created the menu plans for just one week at a time for better ease in mixing and matching. If you create a two-week menu plan, you can combine two menu plans and bada-bing, you are good to go.
You can download these menu plans as a Word (editable) or PDF (not editable) document and mix and match, delete, cut, paste, hack to pieces, or do whatever your little soul needs to get the menu plan you so desire. The corresponding grocery lists are blank since I don’t know what you have in your pantry and fridge, but when the document is downloaded into Word and as a PDF, the recipes are clickable so you can easily get to the recipes and compile a grocery list. Hold down the CTRL key and select the recipe and a browser should open with the appropriate recipe page.
I’ll be adding new menu plans every so often (and have some great entertaining menu plans up my sleeve) so check back if you are in need of fresh menu planning inspiration!
**ANYTIME MENU PLANS**
Weekly Menu #1
Word or PDF
Weekly Menu #6 {NEW!!}
Word or PDF
Weekly Menu #7 {NEW!!}
Word or PDF
Weekly Menu #8 {NEW!!}
Word or PDF
**SUMMER MENU PLANS**
Summer Menu #1
Word or PDF
Summer Menu #5 {NEW!!}
Word or PDF
**FALL/WINTER MENU PLANS**
Fall/Winter Menu #1
Word or PDF
Fall/Winter Menu #2
Word or PDF
I think I will try this as soon as my kids go back to school. Thanks so much for sharing all your recipes and ideas with the rest of us. I am sure it definitely takes some work and time. I greatly appreciate it!
Honestly – this just made me happy from the inside! I was sitting down to work out my meal plan for next week and -voila- there this is this post. Thank you for sharing!!!
This is too good to be true!!!! Thanks!
You rawk!
Thank you for taking the time to put these menu plans together, Melanie! I am so grateful to have stumbled on your blog years ago (how long has it been?). You are so creative and talented- thank you for sharing your love of great food (and great menus) with us!
This is Wonderful!!! Thanks so much for all of your work on this
I’ve really wanted to start menu planning so this will help me out so much!
Nice! I plan your recipes into my plan often, so this is right up my alley. Thanks for putting them together…
Thanks, I will def use this as a template!
I was wondering if you might know of a database or program that holds my recipes & then I could search for an ingredient or 2 that I want to cook with. A lot of time I find that I will make something new, and then have lots of those ingredients left & nothing else to make with it. It’s very hard to look through the 100s of recipes I want to try to find that 1 or 2 ingredient haha
I am a HUGE fan of meal planning! I really don’t know what I would do without it. It makes life so much easier. Thanks for these ready-made plans! They will come in handy once life gets busy again in the fall.
Even though I love to cook, making menu’s is always challenging for me. These are WONDERFUL!!!!!
Thank you for all you hard work, I love following your blog.
You do a GREAT job!!!!
Regina – I’m not familiar with a database of that sort but whenever I’m faced with the same conundrum, I use the SEARCH toolbar in my right sidebar and simply type in the ingredient I want (say, cilantro or black beans). The search function will pull up the recipes that have those ingredients. Any food blog that has a search toolbar should be able to do the same thing so that may help you a bit.
Very helpful – thank you!
This is great! I love menu planning. I always have a few things from your blog to try. This week we made Skillet Chicken with Mexican Green rice and we are going to try the Curried Cauliflower.
Thank you! Your recipes are fantastic! I have loved every one that I have tried!
Seriously? This is exactly what I needed! I go back to work (I’m a teacher) in a month and wanted to get meal planning under control, but I’m just not good at it. Now I can just use yours!
I just recently found your blog and we have loved every recipe we have tried! I can’t wait to use these menu plans. I am sure this took a lot of time and work to put together. Thank you for sharing!!
Has anyone ever told you that you’re brilliant? I can’t wait to take a look at this. I trust all of your recipes so it will be fun to use these!
Lovely. Just like your blog. Thank you. I’ve made no fewer than five dishes from your blog in the past week…coming back for more and then you present this – I meal plan, but it takes me soooooooooooo long and I despise it!
I love your blog! Menu planning has always been hard for me to do, but with your help it should make life easier! Thank you!
My mom was telling me that my kids are going to be sick of pizza because we have it once a week. So happy to see that Mel the Magnificent does that too!! Thank for the menus and ALL the fabulous recipes!!!
Thank you so much for taking your time to do this. You are awesome!!!!
This is great!!! I am a huge menu planner and will be using these menus without a doubt… You rock! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!!
You are my hero! Thank you for making my life a bit easier! I, too, believe in menu planning, but I’m on the “it’s the bane of my existence” side. Love that the menu includes sides, treats, and breakfast! You are wonderful!
You are WONDERFUL! Thank you so, so much! I am such a huge fan. I’ve yet to find a recipe that I don’t love. Thank you for sharing your talents!
THANK YOU for putting these in Word documents. I love printing your recipes, but the google documents don’t allow me to make any changes and sometimes I alter the recipes slightly. A word doc. allows me to keep your picture and recipe without having to retype them. I would love it if all your recipes went to word doc. as well.
You are wonderful.
[...] Free Downloaded Menu Plans ~ @ Mel’s Kitchen Cafe [...]
forgive my stupidity, but I can’t open your word docs. I have winzip, but am not very familiar with it. When I click on the word doc link it opens my winzip file and I don’t see any kind of word document in the zipped file. Any ideas?
So I’ve been looking for a website that you can just list ingredients you want to use and have it suggest recipes and finally found one: gojee.com I just started playing around with it and haven’t actually tried any of the recipes (they are from an array of various food blogs i think.) Anyway just wanted to let you know that something like that does exist (you can even list things you don’t like so they won’t show up.) Thanks for sharing your recipes and menu planning ideas. I’ haven’t been a planner but i’m trying to start. Many of my favorites have come from your blog!
Mel, you are a genius! Thanks for helping with this seemingly tedious task!
I can’t even tell you how much I love you right now. This is awesome! THANK YOU.
I like to echo all of these good sentiments! Thank you for sharing your talent and blessing our lives.
Wow, Mel, you are amazing! Thank you for sharing all your good work. I am pregnant right now and not feeling fabulous, so my meal-planning has been pretty lame lately–in fact, just sitting down to do it makes me nauseous. But when it comes time for dinner, I am HUNGRY for something GOOD! Your meal plans should carry me through the next few weeks of yuckiness, and I’m sure I’ll be back for more even when I’m feeling great just because these are so awesome. Thank you!
Thanks so much for these. They are incredible. My family is enjoying week 1!
Wow! These look amazing! Half of the dinner battle is deciding what to make. Thanks for doing this for your blog readers. You are great!
You read my mind! This is exactly what I was searching for this week – your timing is point on. Thanks
I am so excited to find this, I have been asked to teach a relief society class on menu planning and this is absolutely perfect, you have done all the hard work for me, and your recipes are wonderful, thank you for sharing your talents! Love your website!
I love you. This is such a help to me since when or if I make a menu they are usually all from your site anyway. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Thank you, thank you for sharing!! Every week I am on the search for healthy, kid friendly meals and this just made my night!
Oh my gosh I just found this menu post and am so happy. My real wish is that you would live at my house and cook for me, but I’ll take these menus as the next best thing.
More please!
regina, and mel, try Food.com. I love, LOVE their site, and you can search by ingredient to find a recipe or inspiration to make something new!!! It used to be recipezaar, but is now food.com NOT food networks’s site…
You’re a household name around my place thanks to these menus. I’ve been using them for three weeks and I no longer dread dinner time AND we rarely eat out anymore – because I already have aw plan for dinner and all the stuff to make it, or yummy leftovers. Thank you for being my Internet friend and bringing out rave reviews from my kids like tonight (over the honey lime fruit salad): “Mom, this salad is AWESOME.” that boy then proceeded to eat four helpings of salad and had an extra SW egg roll to snack on after dinner. Thank you for making me a menu plan believer. Big high fives from our family of five.
Mel, this site looks awesome! Just found it today. I’m a Mom of 3 boys and have been known to sneak chocolate chips, too
. Then you just go to your book (or the food blog) to look at the recipe. This works for all of the recipes they’ve indexed (that is, entered in recipe names and key ingredients).
Mel and Regina – If you’re looking to be able to search cookbooks, or food blogs, eatyourbooks.com is the place. You can enter your cookbooks, and save the food blogs they’ve indexed, on your bookshelf. Once you do this, you can search on whatever you want. I searched for Tiramisu one time and found I had 14 recipes for it
http://www.supercook.com/ is another cool, free website for putting in ingredients and finding recipes you need. =)
YAY to more menu plans. Thanks so much for creating and sharing these!!!
Thanks for sharing your recipes!! I was in a meal making funk and your blog jumpstarted my thought process. My family LOVED the sweet and sour chicken! Your blog is very user friendly!!! Thanks again!!
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you! You have inspired me to do a little menu planning at our house. We are now on week 5 and I can not believe how much simplier our lives are at dinner time. I work 4-10′s and our family does not get home until close to 6:00, making meals in themselves a struggle. On top of it we have a 1 & 3 year old who are HUNGRY! After reaching a point of complete frustration I decided to use your template and give menu planning a try. Never going back to the way things were before that is for sure! I can now plan simple fast things and do any necessary prep work the night before. Even better my husband or I don’t have to stand and stare into the pantry thinking “what should I make for dinner tonight”. So thank you from the bottom of the Hansen family’s heart!
I am a long-time menu planner (even post them on my blog to share with others!) but I am loving your menu plans – thank you for giving me some new ideas and recipes to try! I can’t wait… going to add the dinner rolls to the menu tonight as our family favorite beef stew is on the menu and in the crock pot cooking now.
This is really nice of you.
Ah love it! It’s new but familiar foods and right now I’m figuring out what works at 17 weeks pregnant! Thanks so much for the great ideas. Eating some homemade fajitas but really craving the pizza now!
So awesome! Thank-you for sharing your hard work and wonderful recipes and helpful menus. 10 thumbs up from my family!
Thank you so much for sharing your wonderful menus. I’ve wanted to do this for a long time, but have never gotten around to it. You have saved me so much time. I’m just sorry that I am just now finding your blog. (Thank you to someone on Pinterest!)
Before this I have used allrecipes.com. I even joined their membership to allow me to make weekly menus and shopping lists. Mel and Regina, you may want to try this out. I used it for years for free! This is the first time I have paid for a membership to use the meal planning part.
This is going to make my shopping and menu planning so easy thank you thank you thank you thank you!!!
Wow…this is wonderful!!! Discovered your website this week and I am loving it!!!! Planning my grocery list tonight and I am so glad I found this and some great recipes to try out!!!!!!
Thanks so much for posting these menus. I am trying out the first one this week and making a shopping list for all the ingredients i don’t have. Trying to stay on a food budget… stay away from processed food and make things healthy! I tweaked it a little and am so excited and looking forward to eating next week!
Oh and I’ve been making your parker house rolls as my “go to” rolls, even with wheat flour this week and they were a hit at the latest dinner party… even burnt a little..oops! 
Thanks again!
Meal planning is a the key to sticking with healthy items. Many times we just run to the store having no idea what we are doing and end up with processed foods which are not good for us. I do specialized meal planning and diets for diabetics, cardiac and renal patients and this is a great tool for anyone to use. This will help all persons on this site
Thank you so much for posting the refrigerator bran muffin recipe, I have been looking for it for years, it was a staple when my kids were growing up. Do you think there is a way to make waffles with this recipe? I have to follow all cooking directions, experimentation by me will run my family away so any suggestions you have would be greatly appreciated.
I’ve been missing in action lately but I’m so happy to see how far your website has come! These menus are great. I’m gonna use them for next week’s planning. I always have the problem of thinking of new stuff to cook. Melanie always knows!! Your so great at what you do
Hey Melanie,
I love your Menus. It would be awesome to have a summer menu. I love grilling and cooking in the summer, I would love to see a week of summer recipes. I hope you and Bri are doing well,
Amie
Thank you this is the best thing since sugar….lol. This is the answer to a lot of my problems for the magic question..”what will I cook tonight/today”. If I could give you an award I would…once again Thank You again.
Diana
Your recipes are the best! Thank you!
I’m so glad I finally found your menu plans! They are going to make life soooo much easier. I can’t wait to see more of these. Thanks, and a big hug!
I love these menu guides, perfect timing!
Just found your site and I love it! Thanks for sharing all these wonderful ideas.
I just stumbled upon your site and I am in love–this is probably the most well-organized cooking blog I’ve ever been to. Thanks for all your work putting it together and sharing!
Thank you so much for sharing these wonderful meal plans, I love your blog and am excited about cooking again, i can’t wait to try all your recipes. everything looks soo good. Thank you again for saving my sanity, I’m always tearing my hair out when I have to plan a meal for the week.
Wow what a site yaaaaa, i too just fell into here some how lol ..Dont ask me how I got here, but im here to stay. I live in New zealand..Will im trying to look at menu plans (yep this could be fatal) lol..Thanks Brenda
General suggestion is to try Evernote. It is a top rated app (IOS, Android, PC’s and Macs) and you can find your stuff from each device. Plus, if you tag your recipes, you can then search “mushrooms” and all the relevant recipes are there.
Great blog! I am impressed with this blog. Very much appreciate your good work.
I’ve been following your blog for a while, but I’m just now reading through your menu-planning tips! My mom was (and still is) a great example for making a homemade dinner every night, but I’ve just never been able to get it together on a consistent basis. We don’t have kids yet, and I just hadn’t been that motivated. You have really inspired me to do better! Thanks for all of the great recipes and tips! So- do I understand correctly that you make a hot breakfast most mornings? Do you plan a menu for those also? Do you make a grocery list for lunch items, or rely on your staples? Thanks!
Yes- thank you for explaining!
I think the recipes are great. I have two kids under the age of four I work full time. Your menu’s seem quick and inspire me to take the time to make dinners on more than a few nights a week for my family. I loved your editorial with the garlic alfredo recipe. Which I did make by the way and it was great. Thank you again for you time. Please continue to write.
Mel, I want to know what you serve when you have company. I keep trying to find some good menus for when we have company over, you know– impressive and delicious, not too different so everyone is comfortable, not too fussy so the host can have a good time too– is that too tall an order? I would love to know what menus work for you when entertaining friends and feeding your own family at the same time (I figure it’s the next best thing to actually being invited over to your house for dinner!)
I’m a newly devoted stay at home mother of two and have realized how neglected my poor husband has been all these years! I will basically be copying your menus to the ‘T’ every day of the week until I’m more comfortable to venture out! Thank you for your talent, dedication and very tasty palette!
You are a true answer to prayer…no seriously! I’m so tired of searching menu plan websites and trying to come up with order out of chaos.!! Something about your style and your blog, just hit me! I’ve found the one!!!! Yes, Let there be light!!
and provide my family with a nutritious…and ready to serve meal!
Thanks for letting me move on in life!!
Thanks so much for sharing these recipes. I love that they are simple….but look oh so good.
Diane
PS Your family is darling too!!! Love all those boys!