Family meal plan for the week. Menu for the week with proper nutrition

We are what we eat

When it comes to efficient organization of time and affairs, many copies break about. It would seem that this is the easiest and most affordable way. optimize cooking time, and even significantly save family finances. Even a sample menu allows you to eat more balanced and not break your head every time over what to cook from the products in the refrigerator. Planning a menu is very simple, and, most importantly, interesting. However, how many people write menus for the week in their daily lives?

Every day, we prepare food for ourselves and our families. Young mothers have to do this with particularly enviable regularity and cook fresh food 2-3 times a day. For freelancers working from home, cooking is also becoming an important task. Sometimes cooking is boring, sometimes tiring, and often, cooking at the last moment, we simply run out of ideas or lack the right products. As a result, food is boring, monotonous and not always healthy, and cooking brings unnecessary stress.

Planning a menu for the week will help solve these and many other problems.

Benefits of menu planning:

1. Saving money. By shopping for food on a list for certain meals, we will not buy extra products, fast food and other tempting snacks that beckon when we are hungry or do not have a clear shopping plan.
2. Saving time. By planning your diet in advance, you no longer have to puzzle over what to cook for breakfast, lunch or dinner. In addition, some dishes can be prepared in advance and frozen along the way, and some can be used as a preparation for the following dishes.
3. Reducing product consumption. Because you'll only be buying as much food as you're going to eat, you won't have to throw away excess or spoiled food. Menu planning allows you to significantly reduce the cost of food.
4. Balanced diet. It's no secret that homemade food is much healthier than store bought. However, not everyone thinks about the fact that monotonous food is also not the best way out. When making a meal plan for the week, we can include meat and fish dishes in it, add vegetables and fruits to our diet, as well as a variety of dairy products. And distribute all this in the order we need.

What else?

If you love to cook, with the help of planning, you can diversify your diet and experiment with new interesting recipes without spending a lot of time on it.

If you don't like to cook, you can reduce the amount of time spent in the kitchen, eating tasty and healthy.

A balanced menu for the week - is it easy or difficult?

You can create a menu and automatically calculate the required number of products (make a ready-made list for the store) here - plan-menu.ru.

2. Starting with recipes

You can think over the menu for 2 weeks at once, and then repeat them again until the end of the month. With this approach, we first select the desired recipes and write what we want to cook in these 2 weeks, and then we make a shopping list for the store.

3. At the beginning of the purchase

This approach is to stock up on groceries first, paying attention to discounts and "delicious" deals in stores. And only then make a menu, focusing on the products that are available.

4. Get the kids involved

Children are much more likely to eat cooked food if they are allowed to take an active part in the menu planning process. Invite them to look for recipes, think about what they would like to try. Also involve children in the cooking process itself.

5. Follow a cooking magazine or book

If you enjoy looking at mouth-watering pictures in cookery magazines and books, maybe it's time to try this recipe? If you like to experiment with new dishes, you will definitely like the way to use ready-made recipe catalogs by months or weeks, for example:

• Magazine "School of Gastronomer" - http://www.gastronom.ru/
• Book: The Artful Housewife. 365 menus for every day

6. stick to the system

If you like certainty and clarity, the next option is for you. This will make menu planning easier and at the same time give you the opportunity to get creative.

Set a theme for each day of the week or assign a dish of the day.

Monday– pasta

Tuesday- soup, salad and sandwiches

Wednesday- fish day

Thursday- dish in a pot

Friday- Pizza

Saturday- something new

Sunday- something simple

7. Down with perfectionism

Often, when you want to do it perfectly, we ... don't do it at all. Let's not do that when it comes to planning a rough menu for the week.

Use ready-made and choose only 1-2 new dishes for a week. The rest is better to cook friends.

Soup can be prepared immediately for 2 days, casseroles (vegetable, cottage cheese, cheesecakes) - for 2 meals (for example, evening and morning), cereals - rice for the evening, rice and cheese cutlets - for the next evening. Well, we do everything that can be done a little more along the way (for example, meatballs, rice hedgehogs, pancakes) for now and immediately select a part for freezing.

We write down the menu simply on a leaf or fix it in a printout.

This method helps to reduce high expectations from ourselves and from planning, which means that we are moving every day to increase our efficiency and make our life a little easier and simpler with small steps.

Menu planning sheets

What menu planning methods do you use?

Dinner should be 3 hours before bedtime. The menu should consist of a large amount of proteins, so meat or fish dishes should be included in the diet. Cooked food should not be heavy, overeating should be avoided. Garnish with potatoes, rice, pasta. As an addition, you can use salads and season with any vegetable oils.

The calorie content of the daily diet should be: breakfast - 40%, afternoon snack -10%, lunch and dinner 25% each.
The method of cooking can be any, but it is advisable to use alternative ones: stewing, boiling and baking. Eating fried and smoked food is permissible only in small quantities and in rare cases.

As a basis, you can take an approximate menu for the whole family for 7 days. Depending on the culinary preferences and habits, additions and changes can be made to the menu.

• Monday:

1. Breakfast: Buckwheat porridge, tea
2. Lunch: Fruit salad with yogurt
3. Lunch: Mushroom soup or cheese soup with sausage, vegetable pancakes
4. Dinner: Mashed potatoes with chicken or potato zrazy with liver
5. Tuesday:
6. Breakfast: Rice porridge with raisins and prunes
7. Afternoon snack: Berry-fruit smoothie or egg croutons
8. Lunch: Shchi with champignons and meat or Ukrainian borscht
9. Dinner: Pasta with tomato sauce, baked salmon fillet, fresh cabbage salad

• Wednesday:

1. Breakfast: Cheesecakes or squash pancakes with sour cream
2. Afternoon snack: Apples with yogurt
3. Lunch: Bean soup, cauliflower casserole
4. Dinner: Steamed fish cutlets with buckwheat

• Thursday:

1. Breakfast: Millet porridge with milk and butter
2. Afternoon snack: Pancakes with fruit or cottage cheese muffins
3. Lunch: Soup with meatballs or meatballs
4. Dinner: Zucchini vegetable stew

• Friday:

1. Breakfast: Semolina porridge with raisins
2. Afternoon snack: Strawberry jelly or vegetable smoothie
3. Lunch: Rassolnik or chicken kharcho soup
4. Dinner: Chicken chops with rice, vegetable salad

• Saturday:

1. Breakfast: Cottage cheese casserole, fruit smoothie
2. Afternoon snack: Apple ratatouille
3. Lunch: Chicken vermicelli soup or fish soup
4. Dinner: Stuffed cabbage rolls or veal roast beef

• Sunday:

1. Breakfast: Omelet with cheese or scrambled eggs with sausages
2. Lunch: Pancakes in batter
3. Lunch: Pea soup
4. Dinner: Stewed potatoes with meat, vegetable salad

Sample menu is designed for one person and four meals a day. Depending on how many family members, dishes from the diet should be multiplied by the required number.

Before going to bed, as a second afternoon snack, all family members can be offered to drink a glass of kefir or fermented baked milk. Dairy products should be in the diet every day. They contain, which is easily absorbed by the body, and vitamin D, which improves digestion. Before buying, be sure to pay attention to the expiration date.

A beautiful presentation of the dish on the table plays a secondary role in the cooking process. Beautiful and tasty dishes affect the increase in appetite, and this stimulates the secretion of gastric juice. Thanks to this, food is better absorbed. This should not be forgotten either.

If you follow the rules of a balanced diet, this will help maintain the health of all family members and improve the quality of life.

Proper, healthy and economical nutrition is the main task for every person who is interested in the appropriate use of available finances and the possibility of obtaining all the nutritional components. The regular increase in the price of a variety of food products leads to the fact that developing a menu for a week for a family of 3 with recipes and a list of products becomes a truly responsible task that must be dealt with without fail.

The experience of many families allows us to focus on standard products that are used in most cases:

• meat and chicken fillet;
• potato;
• a variety of cereals for making cereals;
• vegetables and fruits;
• pasta;
• eggs;
• butter;
• vegetable oil;
• various types of flour;
• dairy and dairy products.

You need to understand that the standard list of products cannot be tailored to each person and family. Despite this factor, you need to understand how best to organize food, taking into account your taste preferences. Moreover, if the family practices vegetarianism or is a raw foodist, additional nuances appear when developing menus and preparing dishes.

In order to successfully compose a menu for an ordinary family, it is advisable to follow the most popular and affordable dishes. Accounting for taste preferences and the desire to save money is often the best option for those who really understand the importance of proper nutrition.

A mandatory task is to take into account not only food habits, but also the lifestyle of each family member. For example, many people forget to take into account family dinners in a restaurant or cafe on Fridays, late work and training in sections or courses, fasting days. In addition, doctors note that fasting days are required not only for the fair sex, who care about their figure, but also for the rest of the family. Successfully compiling a weekly menu for a family of 3 with recipes and a grocery list is often not as easy as it might seem at first, but in fact, such a task can be done.

Brief overview of the daily menu
Breakfast is a mandatory meal. It is advisable to eat classic dishes in the morning without unnecessary frills.

Low-fat cottage cheese with sour cream and fruits or berries is one of the best options for people of any age. To add fruits, they are crushed in a blender, pre-mixed with sugar. Berries are allowed to be added whole, as they are usually small in size.

Pancakes with cottage cheese

Pancakes can be the perfect breakfast option. In order to maintain a good physical shape, it is advisable to use only wholesome flour to prepare such a delicacy.

Oatmeal is the best breakfast cereal. It is allowed to add a boiled or fried egg, sausage to oatmeal.

Without fail, on weekdays, you need to take care not only to prepare a nutritious and tasty breakfast, but also to take some of the food with you to work. To do this, each family member should have small plastic containers. For a snack, you can choose fruits, whole grain sandwiches with cheese or sausage, a jar of yogurt. Often, without such a snack during the day, it turns out to be extremely difficult, since the feeling of hunger leads to further violations of proper nutrition.

Lunch is the main meal of the day. Soups and borscht, stews and side dishes are prepared for him. For dessert, you can serve biscuit cookies, diet cake or fruit.

Often people return home quite late. Despite this, hearty and heavy meals should not be given, which will lead to disruption of the digestive tract, the appearance of extra pounds.

Taking into account the eating habits and characteristics of the life of each family member will help to develop the menu correctly and guarantee the opportunity to taste healthy dishes.

Family Menu Recipes

The ideal option is healthy and tasty dishes close to the classics. The variety of recipes allows you to understand that it is actually possible to correctly and successfully create a menu for a week for a family of 3 with recipes and a list of products.

Omelet with cheese

Ingredients:

• 3 eggs;
• 50 grams of hard cheese;
• a piece of butter;
• Dill;
• salt;
• ground black pepper.

Cooking method:

1. Egg yolks and whites are separated from each other. The egg whites are then whipped to peaks. After the proteins have darkened a little, add a pinch of salt and increase the speed for whipping. Proteins should approximately double their own volume.
2. Carefully place the protein mixture in the baking dish, which should retain its volume.
3. At the next stage, rub the cheese, chop the greens.
4. With a tablespoon, make three wells in the whites, into which the egg yolks are poured.
5. Sprinkle the base of the omelette with chopped herbs and grated cheese. Pieces of butter are laid out over the entire surface.
6. The omelette is baked in the oven for 20 minutes at a temperature of 150 degrees. Bon Appetit!

This omelet is perfect for breakfast on the weekend when you have more time to prepare a healthy meal.

Ingredients:

• 6 apples;
• 150 grams of cottage cheese;
• one egg yolk;
• 2 tablespoons of powdered sugar;
• a teaspoon of vanilla sugar;
• a teaspoon of starch.

Cooking method:

1. The apples are washed, the “lids” are cut off, the core with seeds is pulled out, leaving thick walls.
2. Cottage cheese, powdered sugar and vanilla sugar, starch and egg yolk are placed in a blender. All are whipped into a homogeneous mass. If desired, add washed raisins.
3. Apples are placed in a baking dish, which was previously greased with butter. Curd filling is placed in apples. Fruits are baked in the oven at a temperature of 190 degrees for about half an hour. Readiness is checked with a knife.

Baked apples stuffed with cottage cheese are one of the most delicious and healthy delicacies.

Ingredients:

• 300 grams of pasta;
• 2 zucchini;
• 6 tomato;
• 150 grams of salami;
• 2 cloves of garlic;
• basil leaf;
• 3 tablespoons of olive oil;
• salt, ground black pepper, oregano to taste.

Cooking method:

1. Garlic cloves are peeled and finely chopped, fried in olive oil. Cook the garlic until a pleasant aroma appears.
2. Zucchini is washed, cut into thick slices and added to the garlic. Sprinkle with oregano. Zucchini with garlic is fried, stirring constantly, until a light ruddy shade.
3. Tomatoes are washed and doused with boiling water, peeled and cut into thick slices. Tomatoes are added to zucchini. Vegetables are salted and peppered. Cook for about a minute.
4. Macaroni is cooked according to the package instructions.
5. The sausage is thinly cut.
6. Pasta and sausage are added to vegetables. Remove the pasta with vegetables and salami from the fire, salt and pepper. Sprinkle with basil if desired. Bon Appetit!

This variation of cooking pasta guarantees a tasty and nutritious dish that will be appreciated.

A properly composed menu for a week for a family of 3 with recipes and a list of products will allow you to eat tasty, nutritious and satisfying with guaranteed financial savings.

The proposed lenten menu for the week does not fully comply with the strict church charter. Although the ministers of the Church themselves say that strict observance of the prescriptions during fasting is the lot of priests and monks, for the laity, it is enough just to refuse animal products. How to spend Lent, you choose. And our site offers an approximate lenten menu for the week for those who decide to spend the upcoming post with minimal restrictions. ›

The lenten menu for the week brought to your attention is rather soft - it contains dishes with fish and seafood. Giving up animal products seems unbelievable to unprepared citizens, so it makes sense to include seafood in your lean menu once or twice a week. ›

When you know in advance what and in what sequence you will cook not only tonight and all week, this significantly saves time, effort and the family budget. We offer you a menu for five days. ›

The frantic pace of our lives is increasingly forcing us to cook meals for ourselves and our family from store-bought semi-finished products, use the so-called “just add water” quick meals, or even eat fast food. All sorts of "homemade" dumplings, "grandmother's" cutlets from who knows what, instant noodles and mashed potatoes, sausages, sausages and sausages have firmly settled in our refrigerators. And everything would be fine, but for some reason, such food does not add health to us and, most importantly, to our children ... ›

Meals during Lent are strictly structured by days and weeks. So, Monday, Wednesday and Friday are days of dry eating, when you can eat only black bread, fruits and vegetables, and drink only compotes and water. On Tuesday and Thursday, hot food without oil is allowed, such as vegetable soups, porridges boiled in water, and stewed vegetables. On Saturday and Sunday, you can afford to add a little vegetable oil to your food, which allows you to diversify your diet. ›

Do you want to receive menu options for every day, learn how to make a menu yourself? By subscribing to the newsletter, you will not only receive ready-made menus and recipes, but you will be able to cook faster, easier and more economically! Gifts, recipes, electronic magazines - in the very first letters! Subscribe:

Special children's menus for the week

+ holiday recipes

How to make your own weekly menu

To obtain is free a training book on menu preparation, an electronic magazine "Menu of the Week", forms for compiling menus, templates for magnetic cards, a table for freezing ready meals, as well as recipes, tips for rational organization of home nutrition, menu options, etc. just subscribe to our newsletter.

From personal experience with the menu:

One of the most important and necessary habits that has greatly simplified and facilitated my life is compiling a menu for the week. I wrote more about why you need to make a menu and what it gives. And today I want to tell and show exactly how I do it.

I’ll immediately show a few examples of how my menu for the week looks like (the cards are on the refrigerator door):

Example #1

Example #2

I did not make it in this form right away. It took almost a year to develop a menu scheme that was convenient for me. But now the process has been brought almost to automatism 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 know how to cook in categories: soups, main dishes, salads and desserts. To my surprise, the list actually turned out to be much shorter than I imagined (which was a big incentive to learn new recipes later on).

Stage two - the scheme of the week. With the help of a simple table of seven columns corresponding to the days of the week, I began to draw up a menu for the week in paper and then electronic versions. Without fail, I cook breakfast every day, and on the other days I alternate: on even days I cook soup and dessert for two days, and on odd days - the second (also for two days) and salad. Such a simple alternation saves a lot of time and effort. And in the refrigerator there is always (!) Ready-made food, which helps a lot in situations where "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 that particular day. "In the refrigerator" - these are ready-made dishes that were prepared in advance for several servings.

Monday

Breakfast - Scrambled eggs with tomatoes (new)

Lunch - Burrito (in the fridge)

Snack - Grapes

Dinner - Gazpacho (new) + Blueberry Berry Pie (new)

Tuesday

Breakfast - Rice porridge (new)

Lunch - Gazpacho (in the fridge)

Afternoon – Blueberry Berry Pie (Refrigerated)

Dinner – Zucchini and potato pancakes (new) + Fresh cabbage salad with garlic dressing (new)

Wednesday

Breakfast - Semolina porridge (new)

Lunch - Zucchini and Potato Fritters (Refrigerated)

Snack - Jam Pie (new)

Dinner - Eggplant Creamy Soup with Roasted Tomatoes (new)

Thursday

Breakfast - Oatmeal (new)

Lunch - Eggplant Soup with Roasted Tomatoes (Refrigerated)

Snack - Jam Pie (in the refrigerator)

Dinner - Crab sticks (new) + Pepper rings stuffed with cottage cheese and herbs (new)

Friday

Breakfast - Corn porridge on the 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 (Refrigerated)

Afternoon snack - Apple strudel (in the refrigerator)

Dinner - Orange Glazed Pork (new) + Chinese Salad with Chinese Cabbage and Chicken (new)

Harvesting for the future - Frozen eggplants

Sunday

Breakfast - Egg in bread (new)

Lunch - Mushroom soup (new)

Afternoon snack - Lemon cake (new)

Dinner – Orange Glazed Pork (Refrigerated) + Chinese Salad with Chinese Cabbage and Chicken (Refrigerated)

However, this scheme had several drawbacks. For example, separately from the menu, it was necessary to make a list of products for the week - to look for each recipe from those that were planned for the week, and write out the necessary ingredients. In addition, I am visual, so it is not very easy for me to remember dishes only by their names. So after a few months, I moved on to the next step:

All the recipes that I know how to cook, I wrote down in electronic form and provided them with a photograph (in finished form). Then, in the Word program, I drew an A4 sheet into 5x9 rectangles (corresponding to the size of a regular business card). In each rectangle, I entered the name of the dish, the ingredients of which it consists, 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

Then I checked the telephone directory and found out where in our city there is a printing service on magnetic sheets. It turned out that in the nearest computer center. There they printed out all these cards for me on an inkjet printer. For each sheet, I gave an amount equal to about $ 2. I cut the sheet into cards with ordinary scissors.

Since the cards correspond to the size of a business card, I store them in an ordinary business card holder, sorted into categories: soups, main courses, salads and desserts.

Example #3

Example #4

The advantages of such a system:

Firstly, it takes a minimum of time to draw up a menu for a week, you don’t need to write or draw anything.

Secondly, each card has a list of ingredients. Therefore, I do not make a separate list of products for the week. When I go to the store, I just take the cards with me, put them in my wallet and, checking them, I buy everything I need.

Thirdly, the cards hang on the refrigerator during cooking. I can see at any time exactly which ingredients and in what quantity I need.

And finally, it's fast and convenient. Very satisfied.

To get free templates for magnetic cards, a training book on menu preparation, an electronic magazine "Menu of the Week", forms for compiling menus, a table for freezing ready meals, as well as recipes, tips for rational organization of home nutrition, menu options, etc. just subscribe to our newsletter.