Running out of dinner ideas? Take a look at these Meal Planning Ideas for Families. Over sixty dinner ideas so you can easily go two months (or longer) never repeating the same entree. Personalize and add your own family recipes to the Meal Planning Template for a quick and easy reference.

Meal Planning Ideas

For busy moms, meal planning is a challenge. For me, I lack ideas. We tend to repeat the same dinner ideas over and over creating a boring rut.

This Meal Planning printable provides some unique recipe ideas. For example, when was the last time you made an Italian Calzone? We have an easy recipe from Pillsbury. Or what exactly is chicken biryani? We have another easy Indian recipe to add to your dinner rotation.

By following these meal planning ideas, you hold the ability to have a different dinner recipe, every night, for over two months. Add your own ideas to the list and never repeat a recipe for up to three months!

Meal Planning Ideas for Families

Our meal planning ideas are categorized by Meatless, Chicken, Pasta, Mexican, Italian and Salads. Take a look below at some examples and ideas.

Meatless Meal Ideas

• Baked Eggplant Parmesan
• Mushroom Risotto
• Healthy Three Bean Chili
• The Cheesecake Factory Korean Fried Cauliflower (Seen in our Easy Asian Recipes too)

Plenty more options in our Meatless Monday Dinner Ideas.

Chicken Meal Ideas

• Creamy Lemon Parmesan Chicken
• Chicken and Dumplings
• Easy Chicken Biryani
• Chicken a la King

Visit our Low-Carb Chicken Recipes.

Pasta Dinner Ideas

• Chicken Carbonara
• Beef Ragu
• Rachael Ray Spaghetti and Meatballs
• Mac and Cheese

Mexican Dinner Ideas

• Easy Chicken Taquitos
• Chicken Enchilada Soup
• Fish Tacos
• Taco Boats

Get inspiration from our Cinco De Mayo Recipes and Taco Tuesday Recipes.

Italian Dinner Ideas

• Tortellini Soup
• Creamy Tuscan Chicken
• Easy Pillsbury Calzones

Salad Dinner Ideas

• Taco Salad
• Mediterranean Chickpea Salad
• Chicken Caesar Salad

Visit our 25 Summer Salads you can make today!

Meal Planning Tips

These meal planning ideas will save money, keep your pantry organized and provide a variety of meals.

Menu planning tips for Families:

• Print. Download and print Frugal Coupon Living’s menu planning template PDF.
• Sales. Plan your meals around grocery items that are on sale. If beans are at a low price this week, stock up on cans and make a taco soup.
• Save. Save money by eating one Meatless meal a week. We enjoy these Meatless Monday Dinners.
• Stockpile. Plan dinner based on the stockpile in your pantry, fridge or freezer.
• Leftovers. Save leftovers and declare one night a week a leftover night to empty the fridge.

Freeze. Our favorite meal prep idea and tip comes from our Busy Mom Hacks. Chances are if you are here Family Menu Planning, you consider yourself a busy mom.

This Busy Mom Life Hack came to me from a friend and it is great for creating a quick and easy stockpile of freezer meals. I personally have used it and have found it very helpful. One night a week, double or triple a recipe. Take that extra recipe and freeze it. On an incredibly busy night, pull that frozen meal out of the freezer. Bake it as a quick and easy family dinner recipe. If you do this each week, your freezer meals will grow!

Meal Ideas Printable

One last menu planning tip is saving our Meal Planning Ideas for Families. Download this menu planning template and personalize to your family. Keep your family from getting bored of the “same ‘ole dinner.” Try checking off every recipe before beginning again.

Download Your Free Printable

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How to Print at Staples

I have a video to show you how I print my PDF documents at Staples.

Print from the Staples Printing Services Online. Ship or pickup at the store.

Our Pinterest community and I would love to see how this worked out for you. Share your final meal planner and show us the recipes you made!  Leave a comment and/or add a photo here on Pinterest!

We have made a Pinterest recipe board of all of these Meal Planning Ideas for Families.

Need to hop on a meal train? Planning meals for others can be hard. Take a look at these Bake and Take Recipes as well as Meal Train Ideas. Pin to Pinterest.

Want more tips? Visit our Busy Mom Life Hacks. Pin to Pinterest.

You will love this Busy Mom Printable Binder. As quoted from one user “Oh my goodness! This makes my mama heart so happy. After every page I thought ‘this is perfect, I wish it had xyz’… and then it showed up! ” We including a grocery shopping list, weekly meal planner and more!  Pin to Pinterest.

WHAT’S TRENDING? Take your kids on a BACK TO SCHOOL SCAVENGER HUNT for their school supplies.


Also access our Free Frugal Coupon Living Printables to help you find joy through embracing the chaos of motherhood more easily!



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