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Are you looking for a monthly meal planning printable? In this post, you’ll find few tips to help you make a monthly meal plan, meal ideas for the whole month, and a free printable!
Making a meal plan can help you get ahead for the week, and have a plan ready for dinner each night of your busy week.
Instead of overspending on fast food, pizza delivery, or takeout, you can provide a great meal at home for way less money.
Making a monthly meal plan is not hard at all, and you will be ready to serve great dinners and save money all month long.
Monthly Meal Planning + Free Month Meal Planner Printable
Let’s start with a few quick tips to help you make a monthly meal plan.
A few quick monthly meal planning tips:
Don’t feel like you have to make a unique meal every night. You can have the same meal once a week, or two times during the month.
Think about which nights will be busy for you, and plan simple meals those nights or plan to eat out.
Consider having “theme nights” to make it easier to come up with meal ideas. For instance, Fridays could be pizza night and Mondays be pasta night.
You can learn more about theme night meal planning here!
Print the free monthly meal planning printable:
Print your monthly meal planner here.
Use this simple monthly meal planner to plan your meals for the whole month ahead. You can plan only dinners, or plan all breakfast, lunch, and dinner meals.
When you plan your meals for the whole month ahead, you can shop ahead and buy groceries when you see a sale on an ingredient you will need.
You can also plan the same meal a couple times during the month, and make double the first time and freeze the second meal for a super quick dinner another night.
If you need some cheap, quick, and easy dinner ideas, be sure to grab your free copy of my favorite Quick, Easy and Cheap Meal Ideas here.
Print your monthly meal planning printable here.
If you need some ideas to fill out your monthly meal planner, here is a pretty basic sample plan.
Sample monthly meal plan ideas:
- Grilled chicken, green beans, roll
- Pork tenderloin, loaded mashed potatoes, salad
- Ravioli, salad, garlic bread
- Fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, green beans
- Cubed steak, mashed potatoes with gravy, peas
- Tacos, chips and salsa
- Grilled chicken on salad, croissants
- Burgers, fries, salad
- Chicken Parmesan, garlic bread, salad
- Pork chops, steamed vegetables, roll
- Steak, baked potato, green beans
- Chicken sliders, steamed vegetables, fruit
- Spaghetti, salad, garlic bread
- Chicken teriyaki, rice, steamed vegetables
- BBQ chicken on potato, corn on the cob, fruit
- Breakfast for dinner
- Slider burgers, grilled vegetables
- Grilled chicken on salad, croissants
- Pork tenderloin, fried potatoes, salad
- Poppyseed chicken casserole, salad, roll
- Flatbread pizzas, salad
- Chicken Alfredo, salad, garlic bread
- Crock Pot pulled pork sandwiches, steamed vegetables
- Potato soup and grilled cheese
- Spaghetti, salad, garlic bread
- Chicken and cheese quesadillas, chips and salsa
- Hawaiian style chicken, steamed vegetables
- Chili, cornbread
- Italian dressing chicken, corn on the cob, fried potatoes
- Flatbread pizzas, salad
- Pork chops, grilled vegetables, baked potato
There are so many different meals you can add to your monthly meal plan. These are just a few ideas!
Print your monthly meal planning printable here.
Think of meals your family loves and that are easy and quick to make.
You can plan more time consuming meals for the weekends or days when you will have more time to cook.
Don’t try to plan new recipes each day. Stick with what you know and what’s easy and quick to make. You can try one new recipe each month or one a weekend.
If you know you will eat out some nights, go ahead and plan for that. Write that in your monthly meal plan so you can plan ahead and budget for eating out those nights.
Having this monthly menu plan will help you eat at home more, save money, and save a ton of time.