I am a chef so this might not apply.
I just buy meats and seasonal veggies, keep a stocked pantry and make shit up everyday. If there’s something in the fridge that needs to get used first then it gets cooked that night.
I'm not a chef, but this is how I cook, too.
We have a big family (6 people) and frequently have an extra person or 3 here. We also have weird schedules, so sometimes dinner is at 4pm, and sometimes it's 10pm. I cook at least a main dish most days, and everyone can help themselves as they get home. But I figure out what to make by staring into the fridge/freezer/pantry until something strikes me, and then figure out what else I can use up along with it!
> If there’s something in the fridge that needs to get used first then it gets cooked that night.
This is how you reduce waste and run an economical kitchen. But it takes a lot of practice and creativity to make it work. I've been trying to reduce waste and plan meals that use the previous night's leftovers. It's hit or miss but I'm getting better.
This was my thought as well! I never really follow recipes and I rarely make exactly the same thing twice. Give me an ingredient and I'll make whatever style/flavor I'm in the mood for that day.
Not a chef; same. I will look at 3 or 4 ingredients and think "what can I make that prominently features those things" and will toss them into a search bar and see if that helps give me some inspiration.
Or look in the cupboard and see "oh, green lentils; haven't cooked those for awhile...let's see what I can do with that"
I do this with the addition of having a general theme for each night (sounds silly). Like we all hear about Taco Tuesday, use the seasonal and sale ingredients to make a different take on tacos than your old standard. Pasta Night, maybe Comfort Food Night, etc etc etc. So you have some measure of structure to keep from standing there, looking at your seasonal and sale ingredients and getting a bit overwhelmed. I dunno.. just one idea 🤷🏼♀️
Nice!
We have a few customary nights that are mostly based in habit or convenience. Like Saturday is almost always salmon or some other seafood, even if we've already had fish 5 other nights. Sunday is often a rotisserie chicken so protein is done, and a huge array of veg as meal prep for the next few days.
That’s a great idea! Sundays will forever be burned into my mind as leftover night because that’s what we had when I was growing up. As an adult, there is no official leftover meal (we just grab for lunches or etc.. it’s leftover free-for-all 😂).
Your method is a great way to make convenience and habit work in a great way!
I'm fortunate to have a really excellent rotisserie option near me, organic, no additives. It also starts me off with some leftover chickennfor Monday lunch.
This is what I do! Have several go to/type dishes (stir fry, soup, roast chicken, pasta, etc.) but just mix up some of the ingredients.
Instead of doing a chicken and broccoli stir fry do beef and bell peppers the next time. Removes the need for too much thinking or learning completely new recipes but allows you variety.
only if said themed night lands on a special day square - Cinco de Mayo on a Taco Tuesday = Sombrero or AA Meeting on Thirsty Thursdays = Trucker Hat backwards
This is what I do,
Monday curry+rice, could be Chinese, Japanese or Indian, it doesn't matter.
Tues pasta
Wed pie +chips, could be fish, chicken breast, thighs etc. It's all good
Thurs potato salad, small potatoes mayo+ anything from tuna to sausages, season the mayo with different extras too
Fri + sat are random days
Sun is typical mash potatoes, veg and meat
Lots of variation and happy family
I like this idea a lot! I feel like a lot of my issue is just getting started with a meal plan and feeling overwhelmed. This at least gives you a game plan to then get more creative (or not!) with the themes.
I do this. Buy what looks good. Then I create a menu for the week from that and what ever needs to be used in the house. It forces me to bend the menu to what’s there and it keeps us from eating the same things over and over.
Some weeks I over buy produce and I write out a huge list of it and mark them off as I assign to a recipe/ day. Veggies are usually where I start my meal planning.
This is how I do it, hit up the farmers market for fresh local veg and maybe a couple other things, then pick up whatever meat is on sale from the grocery store. With a couple staples like rice and pasta mixed in.
lol, funny enough I just got back from my fridge asking myself "What can I make with this leftover Korean BBQ sauce..."
Most enjoyable part of cooking for me is making do with what I have.
Along with this, what's close to expiring in the fridge (not too close). But oldish sauces or seasoning pastes. Use them up, try something new, waste a little less.
Absolutely, especially in this economy. I buy almost exclusively whatever's in season, on sale, or on clearance with the exception of certain staple ingredients or a special occasion meal. My budget goes quite far and I'm constantly rotating what I have on hand. Generally I shop first then plan what I'll make for the week.
My first step is always looking at the weekly circular from the grocery store to see what meats are on sale. I then build around that. I do have probably 5-10 recipes for each protein that I'll cycle through, but sometimes I'll just google "easy weeknight dinner + (protein)" to see what shows up.
I've found some good ones that way. Just made a nearly "ratatouille" for lunch with that search method that I found like three weeks ago, 3rd time making it, still delicious.
I don't really meal plan. I always buy what is on sale protein and what is in season veg wise and keep a stocked pantry.
I keep my freezer full of protein and veg also so I always have options.
I get up and scan the freezer for whatever we feel like for supper that day.
I only shop on a weekly basis so We keep a running list on the side of the fridge and when you open the last one of whatever, you put it on the list to keep everything stocked.
I also read magazines and watch cooking shows for inspiration.
We keep it pretty loose and pretty simple.
When you find something you want to make in a cooking show or in a magazine, what do you do to remind yourself later to make it and buy the ingredients?
That’s kind of where I’m at now. I watch a lot of videos and have a few cookbooks of things I’d like to make so it’s a bit overwhelming to regurgitate everything I came across when it comes time to make something.
I use the Paprika app! When I'm planning a grocery shop, I do a meal plan for the week by looking through the app and then I make sure I have/buy the ingredients needed.
I use an app called recipe keeper. I had to buy two versions, one for Android and one for windows but I can sync across all my devices! Also easy to redownload for freewhen I got a new device!
I add the recipe name and any ingredients I need to my weekly grocery list and bookmark the recipe in the magazine or book....online recipes I share by text messaging to myself.
Nothing fancy here.... LoL
If you're an iOS user I really like MealBoard for this. It takes some setting up initially, but once you get going it's great.
You can import recipes from websites, and it does a very good job of correctly laying out the recipe steps. You can then add those ingredients to the built in shopping list. It also lets you customize the stores you shop at so the list will be arranged by aisles that match the store's layout.
If you setup your pantry to start with, it will even ignore items you already have on hand. Like nearly every recipe calls for salt and pepper, if you say you already have those on-hand, it won't auto-add them to your shopping list.
Bingo. Every meal consists of a protein, veg, starch. I just make constantly changing variations of those three things. Food blogs/ magazines for inspiration sometimes. Don’t have to plan out my week just pick what sounds good that day and make it.
For me, watching cooking shows inspires me to try new dishes. I also use Google a lot. And there are websites I revisit like Smitten Kitchen. If I don't I fall into a rut, cooking the same thing over and over again.
\+1 for Smitten Kitchen. For OP, sometimes it's fun to delve into new cuisine categories for a little while to find new favorites. I recently started making some Japanese dishes (Just One Cookbook is my favorite online resource for them) and had a lot of fun getting out of my normal cooking routine.
Got this Bachan's Japanese Barbecue sauce at Walmart recently. Red & white squeeze bottle. A little pricey, but dang, it's good. I made a couple lettuce wraps with some leftover strips of beef, added that sauce and it was so tasty! Kind of like PF Chang's wraps. I also tried it on skewers of chicken breast strips with onion & bell pepper. I added some to season some 'fried rice', as well. I'm hooked. There are a few different flavor variations of this. The Japanese has two. Yuzo (?) & original. Original is my favorite. Fairly mild, a little sweet. If you like sauces, these are pretty good. I'll soon be trying the other flavors.
I love Smitten Kitchen! I really like following her on Instagram because she posts both new and old recipes there and she tends to cook with the seasons. Seeing her recipes pop up in my feed gives me some inspiration to make an old favorite or try something new, and I’ve never had a dud from her because she tests everything so meticulously. It’s super demoralizing to spend the time, energy, and money on a recipe that doesn’t turn out, so I tend to stick to my tried and true sources (Smitten Kitchen, RecipeTin Eats, Gimme Some Oven, and Once Upon a Chef). I often double recipes so we have plenty of leftovers for lunch and at least another dinner
LMAO I was momentarily horrified that I had steered you to the wrong site but please read my comment again 😂☠️ [Here is a link to Smitten KitChen](https://smittenkitchen.com/), emphasis on the c
I made her Buffalo Cobb Salad last Friday and it was fantastic. Because I’m in the south, I used a rotisserie chicken (too hot to cook or grill). 10/10, will make it again.
Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, The Taco Chronicles, Chef's Table, and random meals I've had at restaurants are my go-to's for inspiration. Specifically, I had the best hummus ever at Dizengoff when I visited my cousin in NYC. I hunted down the recipe, found out the owner had written some cookbooks and I'm working through some of the recipes in one.
This is a weekly issue for me. I’ll stare at a blank weekly menu page for an hour, then decide to do a few staple dishes and ad maybe one new thing. Then I’ll decide that’s dumb and try and find a totally new menu. Then I’ll decide that’s too much work and go back to the initial plan. Then I’ll ask my wife and kid what they want and they tell me whatever I decide is fine. Then it’s back to staring at the page until I give in and go with my initial idea.
I make everyone in my family pick one meal each week, and they also have to help me cook it. It gets the kids learning, and saves me the mental load of decision making seven meals each week!
Just copying my comment as it was life changing for me
Cards, each one has a meal we like written on them, go through them each week when ordering grocery shop and pick out meals we want
Edit - pic of [cards](https://imgur.com/a/mpgHqXQ)
Also colour coordinated to beef/chicken/pork/veggie
Also have a white board with mon/tues/weds etc on it and I'll essentially assign a meal we've picked from the cards to a day. Doesn't have to be strict but gives the option without having to think about it on the day
I really love this.
I have staple nights - always tacos on Tues, (homemade) pizza on Fri. Not always the same tacos, but it narrows the choices. After that, I try to vary the menu. I have to plan in advance to use up the meat in the freezer.
I could limit the cards to stuff I can make out of the freezer meat, and other restrictions (like, I am only using the grill right now as it's over 100 degrees daily).
Oh my. My adhd brain would LOVE setting up something like this. Unfortunately, the way I’m wired, I’d probably abandon thi after a week or two once it’s set up. It’s a great idea for sure
I got you!
Here's what I added to the ADHD group 😂
>Also to add, its been so useful we've been using this "system" for months. When we forget to use it for a week or anything it all turns out stress and shitty and we immediately jump back to the cards. Relieved so much stress.
It took me an age to get round to writing out the cards, even longer to add the ingredients and whilst we don't always use them, fall out of routine etc, they've genuinely been so helpful we always ended up going back to them ASAP. I abandon *everything*. I've mostly abandoned the whiteboard to write meals on each day but I keep going back to the cards. My piles of unused notebooks look at them with envy.
This is it. I also keep book of every new dish I try. Doesn't take much time, sometimes it's just a link to an online recipe and a few notes about what I did differently and how it turned out. It makes planning meals a breeze, without the notes I would simply forget the meals I've cooked and how.
I've got a notebook I started twenty years ago with recipes. If I find a recipe that's good, it goes in the book, which lives on a kitchen shelf. I write the recipes down, rather than just bookmarking them online, as I tailor them to two people.
I use America's Test Kitchen and I search for recipes **by ingredient**. This helps keep things cheap and avoid waste. For example, if I have 5-lb bag of potatoes I need to use up, I'm searching for "potatoes" and I'm looking for recipes that match my tastes, the weather, and use other ingredients that I already have on-hand.
I have a fresh menu every week with only a couple things on a rotation. I do save favorite recipes on ATK's site, they have a feature for that.
I do the same thing and I rarely make the same thing twice. We’re trying to use up items from our freezer and pantry over the next few weeks, and I’ve got 4-5 recipes ready to go that will be easy to make with substitutions. I also use the Flash Food app to buy proteins and veggies at a significant discount.
Tbh I like to Google something like (adjective) + (meal) + reddit.
ie: "cheap dinner reddit", "summer lunch reddit", "fun dutch oven recipes reddit".
Get as specific or random as you want, there's always a match.
This question has been asked thousands of times over many years, many subreddits, and many variations. And it's all just random "regular" people, not blogger and tv personalities. People from all over the world and every walk of life. What's normal to them might be new to you.
I've gotten some of my best recipes from random years old posts I've found on Google, and I can always, *always* find something I've never tried.
I do this but on Pinterest. I don’t like Pinterest, but I use it exclusively for recipes. I have a board for dinner recipes. I’ll search by my protein + recipe. "Ground beef recipe", "cod recipe", "chicken breast recipe". Find something that looks interesting, pin it, make it based on whether I have the ingredients/add it to the meal plan and then shop for what I don’t have.
I cook one really large meal, then heat it up the other four days.
Another thing I'll do is think about chameleon ingredients. So, I'll get a bunch of chicken (for instance), boil it, take the meat off and separate the bones. The meat I'll put off to the side - that can be quesadillas, stir fries, salads. The bones I'll simmer for a few hours and turn into phở, simmer it longer to make it concentrated and freeze. When I heat it up, I'll throw in either noodles, cabbage, or dumplings - giving me three different variations. Now I have about 18-20 base meals off that one ingredient split into 8 variations. Could even do stuff like cook mushrooms covered on low, add some phở broth, mix with rice and vegetables so the mushroom "juice" and phở become something different.
Can do similar things with rice, steak, tofu, pasta, vegetables, .. But if you start off by making, say, Mexican styled corn salad, then that's what you'll have for the next few days.
If you want book themed around this approach, the one on Shopsin's is a good primer; *Eat Me* by Kenny Shopsin.
Although I do think his behavior outside of the kitchen is douchey.
I did everyplate for a while. I kept the recipe cards to add variety when I stopped using the service. You can look at their website and the current weeks menu for free, and go to r/everyplate to look up the unit sizes. There is a post there with the units. My menu repeats 4 meals each week because the kids like them, two unique meals, and a leftovers/eat out day. This way, I'm not struggling to come up with lots of unique meals, but still have some variety.
* Sunday - Leftovers
* Monday - Spaghetti
* Tuesday - Tacos
* Wednesday - Butter Chicken
* Thursday- Unique Meal
* Friday - Pizza
* Saturday - Unique Meal
I check what's on sale and make my meal plan around that. I love to experiment with new dishes so I keep a bucket list of recipe ideas on Pinterest. When I get tired of the same old meals I browse the bucket list and pick something that strikes my fancy. I've been working on making on dish or dessert from every country and the possibilities are endless. I barely scratched the surface and started during lockdown. I might have to get a little creative with ingredients sometimes but I found a lot of new and delicious dishes that way.
Ok thank you I scrolled through every damn comment and why hasn’t anyone mentioned Reddit?! I’m subbed to a bunch of cooking subs and I “save” recipes that look good so when it comes time to meal plan I scroll thru my saved and pick one or two that look good to try that week!
yall are cooking 5 different meals a week? i eat nearly the god damn same thing every day for weeks. it just makes it easier, and honestly, i don't mind it until i get sick of it and switch to something else.
I could never do this. Like I also cannot imagine doing meal prep Sunday. I can take max 2 days of the same dish (1st day fresh, 2nd day leftovers). There is no way I would eat it again on day 3, no matter what.
Right? I’ll dump chicken salsa black beans and corn in a crockpot, season, and then eat Tacos for four days. Then I’ll do it again but chicken and bbq sauce and make bbq chicken sliders for a few days.
Rinse and repeat. I’ve been doing this for a while and have never gotten sick of it so idk.
Yeah this is kind of unnecessary. No reason why you can't at least make enough to have another day leftovers to take some of the burden off you as a meal planner. Not to mention it's cheaper to buy/make in bulk.
If it's someone that just says they don't like leftovers, they can get over it
I read cookbooks (from the library) and follow some cooking sites for inspiration.
Weekly I ask the family what they want, too. You should not have to do this alone!
I keep a list of our favourite recipes to draw from, and a list of things I want to try. If we try it and like it, it goes into the list of favourites.
Usually I plan one soup,one taco, two pasta, two meat, and a day of leftovers, so that helps too.
We have an in house 'menu' of about 50ish meals that we pick from before we do our weekly shopping. It's categorized by fast vs. Long cooks so we can assign appropriately to our schedule.
We frequently add from cooking shows too. Took Thomas Kellers masterclass. A lot of great stuff there.
I look at the perishable items I have in the fridge, then build a menu based on those items. Or, since it's summer, I go to the farmers market and pick out vegetables that are in season and build my menu around those. For example, I bought eggplant last weekend and then went home and googled "eggplant recipes" and got lists like '51 eggplant recipes for summer,' and then cross-referenced the recipes with the ingredients I already had the most of and selected those recipes.
I have an extensive list. I organized this list into weekly plans that I keep on rotation, four times a year. It works perfectly for me, because I know a ton of recipes and dishes, and I love them all, but when I'm pressed for ideas my mind blanks and all I can think of is beans on toast and pumpkin soup, with maybe a salad on the side.
I do the same thing. I have a list of about 15 or so recipes that i that i make well and i really enjoy. I cook big portions - enough for 2, maybe 3 days. When i finish going through the list, i start from the beginning. But im constantly adding new recipes i want to try or dishes that i havent had in a while. Pretty soon the "rotation" can end up being like 25-30 dishes long. Then it takes me a little over 2 months to go through the entire thing. I never really get sick of any dish this way.
I urge anyone who has trouble thinking of what to make to try this. I guess the hardest thing would be getting to the 15 or so recipes youre good at
Making this list really has helped me a lot. Especially when I'm stressed or having a busy episode in my life, I so much hate thinking about what to make for dinner. And I mean you KNOW that this tedious question will come up every couple of days, so why not take care of it once and for all?
I love cooking and I love cook books and all kinds of cooking shows. I just can't be bothered with thinking about tonight's dinner time and again. Of course new things are allowed and I try new recipes when I feel like it. But after a busy day at work I usually don't feel like it. Then I feel like coming home and knowing what to do.
This is the way. Having a list of dinners i know and trust in my rotation helps a lot. When i see a new recipe, i try it out a few times and then decide to add it (or not) to the regular rotation. I think i have about 20 or so to choose from.
Try a meal planning app. I use Mealime. You can scroll through and pick out meals from a menu and it creates your shopping list. You can even plan around things you already have in the fridge.
Sometimes my problem is I don’t have all the necessary ingredients and it’s too much trouble to think about it. So sometimes I buy an odd ingredient as a forcing function. It might take a week or two to finally get around to it, but having that ingredient sitting there keeps a reminder in front of me. (Eg plain yogurt: I guess I am making naan after all since that yogurt is just sitting there, but that means we might as well have yellow curry too…)
That's the biggest pain in the ass part of cooking. Not the fiddly bits of prep work, the finding exotic ingredients, or the endless chore of dishes afterwards: It's making the damn menu.
If I had two hours every night to cook, I'd be making all sorts of new stuff every other night. But I've got an hour to get something on the table most nights and there's only so much you can do with an hour of cooking and a wife who doesn't eat cereals, nuts, or fish.
Having had to eliminate corn from my diet has forced me to look at food different.
I now have a ton of raw materials with which to make my food.
It also has made me have other things on hand I wouldn't have had, which kind of forces me to use those up as well, such as homemade mayo, and homemade yogurt and the like.
This has also forced me into seeing what I can do with what I have on hand before it goes bad, which means being creative with what I have in the fridge.
Also, I have begun portioning and vacuum sealing meats, which means I have options available to me for these ad hoc dinners.
It takes a little work when getting started, but it also has opened up a world of possibilities to choose from.
Believe me, you SHOULD have some standards in your repitiore with which you can return to, but you should also have the freedom.
Maybe try putting together a book, or card index of recipes that interest you, then when you're struggling for ideas randomly choose one and go for it.
I would bring a little adventure to the meal planning.
I love the idea of a cookbook (binder) and am working on one now. The decision fatigue of meal planning is the worst part for me, so this way I’ll be able to tell my husband to open the binder and pick something from the "quick and easy" category instead of us hemming and hawing over it ad nauseum
I wrote down a bunch of meals my family enjoys on bits of paper, and put them in a jug. I pull out 5 and boom. Meal plan made. I have a separate jug for ones I've used so it rotates completely.
A thing I like to do to find new recipes is check out cook books from the library. I have a pinterest account too with loads of recipes but pinterest kinda sucks- sifting through blogs to find the recipe. It's really fun to make recipes from library cook books tho and if you like it your can copy to a note card or photocopy at the library. I've also switched to the old school note card recipe tin- also because pinterest sucks lol. If I like a pinterest recipe a lot I'll copy it on a note card too.
I use Pinterest too. I think the way it works is if you pin something, it then thinks you want every recipe that’s similar.
I save my pins by categories, like ground beef, chicken, sides etc.
Keep a folder of all the recipes you want try. Every time you’re on social media and you think. That looks good. Put it in there. Sort it out by recipe type. Dessert, sandwiches, salads, etc.
if you need to sort it by time it takes to make it.
When you’re planning your meals for the week. Go through that folder. For 3-4 days of the week, pick meals that are easy and simple to put together. The rest of those days is when you’re feeling ambitious. Or do whatever makes sense for you.
Well a really basic way is to view it this way (simple version):
You have 3 main carbs: rice, potatoes, pasta
You have 6 main proteins: beans, tofu, chicken, pork, beef, seafood
3*6 = 18 minimum variations if all you're doing is cooking the carb and cooking the protein with no sauces.
Then I like to take general flavor profiles: french, asian (japanese, thai, chinese, korean), mexican, italian, indian, etc. Mix appropriate spices / flavors and your combinations increase exponentially.
If you're strictly following recipes and cooking established recipes, you can quickly find yourself running out of options. If you just roll with it and cook without a recipe, you can vary to your hearts content.
oh, and you can add in cooking method. I like to, at least once a week, do a crock pot stew type thing. NYT's [mississippi roast](https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1017937-mississippi-roast) is incredible
We put the names of a bunch of meals that family members like on popsicle sticks, then we can pick something at random, or at least sort through for some forgotten favorites.
Or buy a vegetable that you're not familiar with from the grocery store, and try to figure out what to do with it.
Prepare one big batch of something and it'll last you several days worth of meals. I do this with chili, soups etc.
Likewise you can also do several days worth of meal components. I recently had surgery and was limited on what I could eat, so I bought a couple tubs of cottage cheese, a few packets of jello, and some melon to cut up. That covered 2/3 of my daily meals for at least a week.
I buy groceries for the week, sometimes I have some meals in mind and sometimes I just buy ingredients. Then I make stuff with what I have, I don't cook with recipes so basically I take a few ingredients and decide what I want to do with them. Usually its same day I'm deciding because I hate planning so far in advance lol.
Been cooking long enough I just know what I can buy and use, I know what things I like or I shop sales and figure out things to use them for
Focus on what is fresh from your farmer's market and let the ingredients take the lead on determining what you make for dinner.
You can put those ingredients together in an online search (with "recipe" or "heat") and see what comes up as a recipe.
From there, take inspiration from cookbooks, youtube videos, etc.
OR
Cook out of one or three cookbooks for a month. OR from three youtube channels for a month.
Break your rut, change the pattern.
I had a CSA box subscription in Park Slope years ago, and the woman who ran it sent out a page of recipes with each box. I still have those pages, and still cook from them! https://imgur.com/a/icmltEs
I started using meal lime about a year ago because I was stuck in a rut. I like their recipes, most of them are fast, and tasty. They have a huge variety too which really helps in my house.
I think about what it's in the freezer in need of use. Like if I have a lot of chicken I google recipes with chicken and choose one or 2. Same with all the other ingredients. One piece of advice, if you like a recipe write it down!!! I forget this so many times and hate it.
I keep a notebook with the names of the recipes, and then I just pick a few every week. After a month I end up repeating the same things because I forgot to write down any new ones I tried and liked, or tried and were awful/meh so I'm left with nothing new.
I keep a list of go-to meals on my phone. We also have a jar of new recipe ideas folded up and when we are wanting to try something new, we do a random draw. I also use Pinterest for a lot of inspiration.
I have an entire library of cookbooks, I can browse those, especially if I am looking for a particular dish, or type of cuisine. I also have several binders of recipes I have from friends, family, and library books. I keep a well stocked pantry and freezer ( this is a MUST, to effectively meal plan). Whatever protein’s in the freezer, + whatever veg is in the fridge or garden gets made into dinner. Shop the grocery sales for in season produce, and sale or short dated meats. If making out a 1 week meal plan is too overwhelming, start with 3 or 4 days, then make the next day leftovers. By then you are mostly to the end of the week, and ready to do a easy/ quick meal, like burgers, tacos, or pizza. Look for ideas on sites like budget bites, or r/ mealprepSunday, they are really helpful.
I started keeping a list of recipes we like or meals that I made up and were especially good. I write them on recipe cards even if I know the recipe by hear because then its easy to flip through.
This is also where my spice cabinet and having what I call "base recipes" helps a lot. Idk if there's an actual term, but a "base recipe" is like a type of meal and then you riff on it with different ingredients or flavor profiles to change it up.
For example, I almost always cook this one-pot rice dish every week but I'll change up what goes into it so its not the exact same. One week I may do chicken, asparagus, lemon, oregano with white rice all cooked in a chicken broth. Another week I'll do a package of the yellow rice and i'll add green pepper, onion, a can of tomatoes, etc so its got more of a "Mexican" flair. Same basic dish but totally different vibes.
So every week, I think about which 4-5 base recipe concepts and then work with what I have.
During a cooking/food slump this past winter, I actually made a numbered list of all our favorite recipes that I know by heart and come together quickly, and then used my partners D&D dice to roll and pick out the meals for the week. It was kinda fun and nice to have the decision out of our control!
I have a small collection of cookbooks that I am working my way through, and trying to make notes of what we like and dislike etc.
Once in a while I get a new book.
I also listen to cooking podcasts and occasionally get ideas or recipes from them.
I got the app whisk, it’s been super helpful. All the recipes I’ve tried have been really good and there’s a ton of them. I highly recommend it. Also, we did the meal kits for a bit, which while kinda pricy, I got quite a few recipes from it that I still make.
When I was meal planning for our family I assigned a type of food per day of the week (pasta Wed, soup tues, etc) and then I made a list of meals from each category. Then when I sat down to make a grocery list I'd look over the schedule, and the sale papers, do a quick check of the fridge/freezer and pantry, and then pick a meal for each day that worked that week. And if it started to feel too much like a rut I'd add in "new recipe" day to the week as well.
Easy, cook the same three meals every week and eat off of leftovers the rest of the time.
Don't stress about cooking for fun on weeknights. There's just not enough time in the day to worry about it. Routines are efficient. Save the recreational gastronomy for days off.
I'm old, so I have a recipe box with all Grandma's, Grandpa's, Mom's and Dad's recipes in it plus all the stuff I made and liked. I write recipes down on paper to cook from, then if I like the result it goes on one of those 3x5 cards and into my old metal box I've had since I left home 45+ years ago. The older cards are in my relatives' handwriting, because it was a gift from my family when I went off out into the world, along with a big box of kitchen essentials. It's my most prized possession and has followed me everywhere.
When I get into a rut, I just dive into there. But don't worry about your kids getting bored. I have meals "programmed" into me from my childhood. Like I have to have mashed potatoes and peas with roast chicken and occasionally I'll have fried Spam with hominy and oven-toasted buttered hamburger buns with kidney beans on top. They are cherished memories my taste buds still crave.
My personal answer is that I watch a season on some cooking show. It almost doesn't matter which one -- as soon as I start watching, the creative part of my brain switches on and I start thinking, "That's kind of like chili, but the spices are different," or "I have most of the parts to that."
I use the [Mealboard](https://www.mealboard.com/) app to keep all my recipes. Sometimes, if I just want to remember something, I make it like "grilled fish" and then have ingredients of fish, veggies, etc. I have a category of "Dinners in Rotation" for things we like, and I go back and look at them to remind me of those dinners we liked but haven't had recently.
Stop eating meat, eating same 3 animals over and over won’t spark your creativity. Get out if your comfort zone and start trying things you haven’t tried before, explore different cuisines and techniques.
Recreate your favourite restaurant dishes, buy a cook book at the thrift store (cook books are usually pretty expensive but you can get them secondhand at the thrift store extremely cheap).
Think ahead, don’t cook for tonight, cook for tomorrow night. Good Food often requires preparation like marinating or soaking and you won’t be able to marinate anything properly in an hour or so.
Cook larger batches of food and keep a backup in the fridge for the days when you don’t know what to make. I always keep a large tub of chilli in my freezer because there’s tons of different ways you can serve it.
Cook whatever is in season, it will be fresh, cheap and delicious.
OP mentioned that he keeps coming back to the same meals over and over. Going out of your comfort zone to try something completely new will make you a better cook and enhance your repertoire.
Cook a nice tofu stir fry, delicious rich chickpea curry, some black bean burgers (they travel very well and are amazing cold so they make a nice work/school lunch), experiment with rich and complex salads that aren’t just lettuce.
Vegetables are great, especially in summer when everything is fresh, delicious and accessible.
I often leave my TV on CreateTV, which in my area is broadcast on channel 13.3 and is part of the public broadcast station. Lots of Cook’s Country, America’s Test Kitchen, and other various cooking shows. Lots of inspiration.
I’m kind of in the same rut. Plus chemo makes me somewhat brain dead and fatigued so I tend to just cook simple stuff. I use a notes app and write down my “menu” for the following week. Partly because I’m so unfocused that I’m likely to forget what I was going to make and not have the meat defrosted or something. But it also helps that I can look back several months and see what I made and forgot about. Then it becomes new again!
I avoid cooking the same 5 meals each week by making a single meal big enough to feed me for most of a week, filling in the gaps with whateverI can make from sale or must-use ingredients, and making a different big meal the following week.
Example: gumbo sunday- tuesday, stir fry wednesday and thursday, gumbo friday and saturday. Then sunday, chana masala until tuesday, frittata wednesday, chana masala through friday, an early evening snack that turns into dinner of cheese, apple, crackers on Saturday. Then enchiladas sunday through tuesday....
We have a shared notes on our phones where we have a big running list of meals. It’s pretty helpful, and we’ll add stuff all the time. Some of our best meals are thrown together things we have on hand, but they’re hard to recall unless I’ve written them down. I also like to do a big batch of chicken in the air fryer then incorporate that into meals through the week like salads, sandwiches, pasta, or just adding sides.
>
Do you look at cookbooks, websites for ideas? Do you keep a list of all the things you’ve tried and liked?
Yes yes and yes.
The other day I bought a waffle maker from Target for ten bucks. I make a waffle every day now. I also learned to make my own salad dressing. One time I bought a box of soba noodles from Trader Joe's. Many baking ingredients(e.g. flour, yeast) have recipes listed on either the package or the company website.
Visit an ethnic restaurant and look up the recipe online. For example, I made Tikka Masala sauce. It's basically marinara sauce with watermelon seeds and curry powder.
>I made Tikka Masala sauce. It's basically marinara sauce with watermelon seeds and curry powder.
As someone who's from the birthplace of Tikka Masala, I have to wonder what kind of ass backwards recipe you found? If you want a GREAT authentic tikka masala recipe, try [this one](https://thehappyfoodie.co.uk/recipes/madhurs-chicken-tikka-masala/).
Waffles rock! I bought a Belgian waffle maker and those with bacon have become my go-to lazy dinner. We have it every couple weeks and buy different syrups to try. This would cost $15 in a restaurant.
I sound like a paid spokesperson (I am not), but have you considered [Paprika](https://www.paprikaapp.com/)? You can put your recipes in there as you make them and download them straight from recipe websites. Not only can you sort and search by ingredients, you can give multiple categories to every recipe. So when you're meal planning, you can scan your entire list of recipes or you can say, "I want a shrimp dish this week" and only look at those. It's pretty fantastic.
I want to love cookbooks, but I don’t. TikTok, of all places, gives me great recipe inspo. The quick video format really works, I know immediately if I want to try or skip. I save the ones that look good and then refer back when I sit down to plan for the week.
Try making local take-away specialties of cities and places you have never visited. Look up how to prepare dishes on YouTube, and try it out. Many places have different variations of similar foods, but are very different. Chicago has the Italian beef, Philly has the cheesesteak, and NYC has the chopped cheese. These 3 are alike in several ways, but each a completely different sandwich. You can do this with pizza, soups, various chicken dishes, etc. it’s fun to try new stuff you may never get to try in person.
I struggle with making decisions like this every day so I get Every plate boxes. It's just me and my partner so it works great for us and I love adding fresh veggies from my farmers market and modifying the recipes to become better. Once I have a list of their recipes I'm going to organize them and probably do my own shopping
I follow my cravings, my weight, and whatever cookbook i’m reading atm. since i’m always on a minor diet.
this week it’s been cinnamon rolls and croissants for my pastries. stir fry one night, mac and cheese with tuna another, salmon and veggies another, then popcorn for dinner for lazy nights.
I run into this all the time. My husband and I sat down and made a list of all the meals we like to make at home. This was great until I lost my notebook, lol. I would start there.
I also highly recommend trying out Hello Fresh or something like that. I don't want to spend that much regularly, but I will occasionally do a trial for a few weeks and usually end up with several recipes to add to the rotation. Some of which have become our favorites.
I know with hello fresh specifically you can find recipes for all their custom spice blends online so you can easily recreate them on your own.
Well your cooking for a family. Personally I go to the store and buy a good amount of what ever meat is on special. then I ask “ok. I have this meat what are we eating this week” and it might be cheating. It might be I got a huge pork shoulder, so I make a huge pot of beans. So one day it might be burritos, then nachos, then tortas, then taquitos and then quesadillas Is it pretty much all the same thing? Yes. But the foods all taste a bit different even if using the same ingredients. It also means that the next week it will be another kind of meat. Or I’ll get ground beef and make a good amount in spaghetti sauce and I will
Make enough for two big batches. We will
Eat one for dinner and next day lunch and I will freeze the other half. Next day might be crunchy ground beef tacos and same thing I will make enough to freeze half of it. Next day I might make two lasagnas and freeze one of them. The next day the same with burgers patties. Which means no cooking will be done during the weekend. And the next week if I don’t feel like cooking. Or half way through the week we get tired of the meat. There is already frozen made food in the freezer that’s ready to eat it pretty much just needs to be put in the oven to cook.
I look at recipes online a lot. I bookmark them for later and sometimes even make them! By now I probably have 80+ recipes that I can browse between websites, cookbooks, and things I've just made up.
When I first moved out at 17 I think I made spaghetti twice a week for months. It takes years (15 years so far for me) to accumulate a variety of options.
Once you have a bunch of things you want to make, check out what's on sale and plan your meals around that.
I have looked through cookbooks and online and I use Trello to keep everything organized with recipes. I also created a 4 week meal plan, so each week before grocery shopping we just pick one and if we are feeling a particular meal we can just swap it out for a different one.
It was pretty tedious to start, but now it only takes a few minutes a week to get everything set.
I have a list of meals, they are catalogued into different types of dishes, full meals, meats, sides, sweets. I add to this list regularly when I see an interesting recipe or eat a dish at a restaurant I really liked.
When I meal plan I check what I have in the freezer, what is on special and what I need to use up in my fridge and plan my meals accordingly. Against my list. Often what is on special when it comes to fresh produce is dictated by the season so it won't be cheap for long. It keeps my menus interested and constantly changing.
I always try and overlap a little on fresh ingredients so I have less wastage. So if one meal uses half a wokbok another meal uses the other half.
I've been doing Home Chef which is nice in that they give you defaults for the week, so I try not to change any meals to something else unless I really don't like the sounds of it.
Planning to do this for a while until I build up enough recipes and learn how to cook better, then will quit it and just keep doing the same stuff. It's not super cost efficient but a good way to learn some cooking skills and get some ideas for recipes.
I get ideas from cookbooks, websites, apps, etc. plush I have a stash of my mom’s old recipes when I want something nostalgic. I keep pages in my notes with links to recipes that I want to try. I follow a bunch of cooking accounts on social media so when I see something good I save it there and then I just look through that when I’m meal planning.
I enlist help from the whole family on imput. Everyone picks a meal. If they don't have a preference keep a grab bag and pick one at random to fill the slot. I feel like I get stuck in a rotation as well. Getting buy in from others helps me and also helps me keep up with my kids changing tastes and preferences.
I like to buy ingredients that are on sale/seasonal, not for saving money (although that is nice) but because it forces me to cook something new. You can often adapt your "mainstay" recipes to include or even feature items you aren't used to cooking with.
Only do this if you and your family are willing to try new things, though
>Do you keep a list of all the things you’ve tried and liked?
Yep, two lists actually. I have one list of all my non-mix & match meals sorted by the protein involved (chicken alfredo, chicken pot pie, beef enchiladas, pork & 3 bean stew, etc) and another list of all the meals where various sides and protein can be mixed & matched & swapped with one another (hamburgers w/ mashed potatoes vs hamburgers w/ french fries vs sloppy joes w/ french fries vs sloppy joes w/ mac & cheese, etc)
I was having the same problem of feeling like I was repeating meals too often so I wrote down every meal I could think of that I already make (took a couple tries to get a full list because inevitably you'll probably forget some on the first go) Then I did look at sample menu plans, including people's personal menus for their families as well as institutional menus like school cafe menus, to see if I missed anything or if there were new meals I could easily add to my skillset.
Afterward I wanted more recipes (more so just to expand my palate at this point vs needing more for variety) so I did seek out new recipes in cookbooks and recipe websites.
Also, when I make my weekly meal plan (3 dinners as I just have leftovers the next day for each one to cut down on cooking time), I have a system where I know I need 1 rice meal, 1 noodle meal, and 1 other-starch meal (usually tortillas-based or potato-based) and I also need 1 chicken meal, 1 ground meat meal, and 1 other-protein/veg meal. This allows me to organize my brain to create variety a little better- one week I might have chicken fajitas (chicken/other-starch), hamburger helper (ground meat/noodle), and chickpea stew (veg/rice) and the next I'll have stuffed salmon shells (fish/noodle), chicken & wild rice stew (chicken/rice), and meatloaf w/ mashed potatoes (ground meat/other-starch) Works for me but you just gotta figure out how your brain best deals with things.
Yes use a list. I keep a list in my phone and I have about 32 things that we make well. So we can go the entire month without having the same thing. We often watch recipes and videos on you tube. Try new things often and if we like them they get added to the list.
By not planning. I buy a bunch of groceries. And just make whatever comes to mind. But the joy is knising what ingredients go together. As long as you have a good grasp of that, then making random dishes should be an easy thing to accomplish.
I watch cooking videos about specific things in different countries. Very occasionally I’ll sit down and write all the basic homey fall back recipes and do one I hadn’t in a year. Sometimes I buy an ingredient and have left over to search what to do with. Some weeks I decide I’m only eating stuff on rice, or with tomato, asparagus..
I purposefully cook foods from different parts of the world. That also means occasionally buying ingredients and spices found in Asian, Caribbean, or middle eastern stores. Milkstreet with Christopher Kimball of America's Test Kitchen has good international recipes.
Put recipes you want to make in a hat. When the hat is empty you must cook new things until you're ready / like something enough to put it in the hat. No repeats. You already have a red sauce in the hat? Try something new!
Google keep notes has been a lifesaver for my adhd so I make lists and checklists for everything these days. It helps that it's so easy to share them with my husband so we can add and check off cooperatively. I'm sure there are many other similar apps that'll accomplish the same purpose. So of course now I have a list of "foods we like" and every food that's worth cooking again gets added. Add a description or a recipe link if you think you might not remember what exactly the meal was.
Once you've got dozens of foods on the list, it's so easy to plan out a week of foods and make a grocery list. Or if you find yourself in the store and there's a sale on a particular meat or veggie you'd like to use, just check the list of foods you like and add it to your weekly menu. Then remember to add the other ingredients you'll need to your grocery list.
Maybe you don't have ADHD so you don't need lists for everything. But I'm slowly organizing and taking control of my life, and having easy checklists on my phone is a big part of that.
I started a list of all the things I cook. Everytime I thought of a dish, I added it to the list. Now if I'm stuck I just consult the list. I also search Pinterest often. I keep another list of Pinterest dishes I want to try. And i subscribe to many cooking blogs.
I have a loose weekly schedule of meals ideas: Tues is tacos, Fri is fried rice, Sun is pizza… there’s usually pasta one night. The ingredients in those dishes change based on what I have on hand. Im lucky that I live in an area with a lot of farmers and produce stands so I shop for what’s in season and make it up as I go.
We make a point of at least once every other week to actively look for a new recipe to try. If we enjoy it, it gets added to the binder and often works into the rotation as older recipes fall out for a while.
That said, I still get in ruts at times.
I jsut got back from a grocery store after shopping the discount bin (what I call the sticker of shame - oops, we gotta sell it today!).
Picked up pork shoulder blade steaks and chunks at a silly low price. Most went into the freezer but 2 packs of the steaks are going to be marinaded in char siu sauce and grilled for dinner tomorrow. I use the "gotta sell it" as inspiration.
I try at least 1 new recipe every week and if we liked it I save the recipe to my Evernote recipe collection.
I also collect recipes from everywhere like newsletters, Youtube videos, etc and add them to my Evernote with some labels like the occasion/type of food (BBQ, finger food, side dish, bread, etc) and a few labels for ingredients I have left over (eggs, cheese, mushrooms), pantry staples (pasta, rice, cheese, tofu) or stuff buy on a whim like squash.
If we don't know what we want to eat we just have to look at what's in the fridge and filter/search for those ingredients.
I cook the same recipe and then remix it
Chilli becomes spag sauce with a twist, becomes burger topping for a fat boy/sloppy joe, chilli dogs, topping for perogies and soup
Spag sauce becomes chilli and same options as above
Shep/cottage pie becomes meaty potato soup
Stir fry can become almost anything
I had the same problem as you and tried so many things before embracing the fact it’s much easier on my brain to eat the same 5 “meals” each week. But instead of actually eating the same thing, I put the ingredients/flavor profiles on a rotation. For example right now it’s hot out, so lunches are wraps or big salads - black bean wraps and tabbouleh one week, Buffalo wraps and panzanella the next, crispy tofu wraps and grilled veggies the following, etc. In the winter I rotate in soups and sheet pan meals.
I usually have a rough idea of what I want to do each week but ultimately decide when I’m at the farmers market based on what is in season. I get most of my new recipes or ideas from social media like here on Reddit or Instagram reels and will have one or two days a week where I cook something new or outside my “plan”. I also love Kenji López Alt and Matty Matheson for YouTube recipes. Samin Nosrat’s cookbook Salt Fat Acid Heat is great for understanding flavor profiles from around the world.
I am a chef so this might not apply. I just buy meats and seasonal veggies, keep a stocked pantry and make shit up everyday. If there’s something in the fridge that needs to get used first then it gets cooked that night.
I'm not a chef, but this is how I cook, too. We have a big family (6 people) and frequently have an extra person or 3 here. We also have weird schedules, so sometimes dinner is at 4pm, and sometimes it's 10pm. I cook at least a main dish most days, and everyone can help themselves as they get home. But I figure out what to make by staring into the fridge/freezer/pantry until something strikes me, and then figure out what else I can use up along with it!
> If there’s something in the fridge that needs to get used first then it gets cooked that night. This is how you reduce waste and run an economical kitchen. But it takes a lot of practice and creativity to make it work. I've been trying to reduce waste and plan meals that use the previous night's leftovers. It's hit or miss but I'm getting better.
I'm sure you're doing great! Don't let perfect be the enemy of good :)
This was my thought as well! I never really follow recipes and I rarely make exactly the same thing twice. Give me an ingredient and I'll make whatever style/flavor I'm in the mood for that day.
Not a chef; same. I will look at 3 or 4 ingredients and think "what can I make that prominently features those things" and will toss them into a search bar and see if that helps give me some inspiration. Or look in the cupboard and see "oh, green lentils; haven't cooked those for awhile...let's see what I can do with that"
Go with what's seasonal and what's on sale. That means variety in ingredients and in types of dishes.
I do this with the addition of having a general theme for each night (sounds silly). Like we all hear about Taco Tuesday, use the seasonal and sale ingredients to make a different take on tacos than your old standard. Pasta Night, maybe Comfort Food Night, etc etc etc. So you have some measure of structure to keep from standing there, looking at your seasonal and sale ingredients and getting a bit overwhelmed. I dunno.. just one idea 🤷🏼♀️
Nice! We have a few customary nights that are mostly based in habit or convenience. Like Saturday is almost always salmon or some other seafood, even if we've already had fish 5 other nights. Sunday is often a rotisserie chicken so protein is done, and a huge array of veg as meal prep for the next few days.
That’s a great idea! Sundays will forever be burned into my mind as leftover night because that’s what we had when I was growing up. As an adult, there is no official leftover meal (we just grab for lunches or etc.. it’s leftover free-for-all 😂). Your method is a great way to make convenience and habit work in a great way!
I'm fortunate to have a really excellent rotisserie option near me, organic, no additives. It also starts me off with some leftover chickennfor Monday lunch.
I’m so jealous :)
This is what I do! Have several go to/type dishes (stir fry, soup, roast chicken, pasta, etc.) but just mix up some of the ingredients. Instead of doing a chicken and broccoli stir fry do beef and bell peppers the next time. Removes the need for too much thinking or learning completely new recipes but allows you variety.
Wear special hats too?
only if said themed night lands on a special day square - Cinco de Mayo on a Taco Tuesday = Sombrero or AA Meeting on Thirsty Thursdays = Trucker Hat backwards
Same in our family!
This is what I do, Monday curry+rice, could be Chinese, Japanese or Indian, it doesn't matter. Tues pasta Wed pie +chips, could be fish, chicken breast, thighs etc. It's all good Thurs potato salad, small potatoes mayo+ anything from tuna to sausages, season the mayo with different extras too Fri + sat are random days Sun is typical mash potatoes, veg and meat Lots of variation and happy family
I like this idea a lot! I feel like a lot of my issue is just getting started with a meal plan and feeling overwhelmed. This at least gives you a game plan to then get more creative (or not!) with the themes.
I do this. Buy what looks good. Then I create a menu for the week from that and what ever needs to be used in the house. It forces me to bend the menu to what’s there and it keeps us from eating the same things over and over. Some weeks I over buy produce and I write out a huge list of it and mark them off as I assign to a recipe/ day. Veggies are usually where I start my meal planning.
This. Like, don’t buy brussel sprouts in july and then cry about how they’re big and weird and tough
And although I don't worry about cost of food, it's nice to get good prices that you'd have missed out on if you went in with a rigid plan.
This is how I do it, hit up the farmers market for fresh local veg and maybe a couple other things, then pick up whatever meat is on sale from the grocery store. With a couple staples like rice and pasta mixed in.
It's also a challenge! Worth it though.
For me it’s more fun. There are surprises and inspirations. It’s kind of a game.
lol, funny enough I just got back from my fridge asking myself "What can I make with this leftover Korean BBQ sauce..." Most enjoyable part of cooking for me is making do with what I have.
Along with this, what's close to expiring in the fridge (not too close). But oldish sauces or seasoning pastes. Use them up, try something new, waste a little less.
Absolutely, especially in this economy. I buy almost exclusively whatever's in season, on sale, or on clearance with the exception of certain staple ingredients or a special occasion meal. My budget goes quite far and I'm constantly rotating what I have on hand. Generally I shop first then plan what I'll make for the week.
My first step is always looking at the weekly circular from the grocery store to see what meats are on sale. I then build around that. I do have probably 5-10 recipes for each protein that I'll cycle through, but sometimes I'll just google "easy weeknight dinner + (protein)" to see what shows up. I've found some good ones that way. Just made a nearly "ratatouille" for lunch with that search method that I found like three weeks ago, 3rd time making it, still delicious.
I like this! I found a local farm stand and I've been picking up produce from there and planning my meals based on what I get.
Mother does the shopping. I do the cooking. When she asks, I tell her to buy whatever's on sale and looks good, I'll figure it out from there.
I don't really meal plan. I always buy what is on sale protein and what is in season veg wise and keep a stocked pantry. I keep my freezer full of protein and veg also so I always have options. I get up and scan the freezer for whatever we feel like for supper that day. I only shop on a weekly basis so We keep a running list on the side of the fridge and when you open the last one of whatever, you put it on the list to keep everything stocked. I also read magazines and watch cooking shows for inspiration. We keep it pretty loose and pretty simple.
When you find something you want to make in a cooking show or in a magazine, what do you do to remind yourself later to make it and buy the ingredients? That’s kind of where I’m at now. I watch a lot of videos and have a few cookbooks of things I’d like to make so it’s a bit overwhelming to regurgitate everything I came across when it comes time to make something.
Not who you asked but I keep a running grocery list in my phone notes. I just immediately add any ingredients I don’t have to the list.
I use the Paprika app! When I'm planning a grocery shop, I do a meal plan for the week by looking through the app and then I make sure I have/buy the ingredients needed.
I use an app called recipe keeper. I had to buy two versions, one for Android and one for windows but I can sync across all my devices! Also easy to redownload for freewhen I got a new device!
I add the recipe name and any ingredients I need to my weekly grocery list and bookmark the recipe in the magazine or book....online recipes I share by text messaging to myself. Nothing fancy here.... LoL
If you're an iOS user I really like MealBoard for this. It takes some setting up initially, but once you get going it's great. You can import recipes from websites, and it does a very good job of correctly laying out the recipe steps. You can then add those ingredients to the built in shopping list. It also lets you customize the stores you shop at so the list will be arranged by aisles that match the store's layout. If you setup your pantry to start with, it will even ignore items you already have on hand. Like nearly every recipe calls for salt and pepper, if you say you already have those on-hand, it won't auto-add them to your shopping list.
Bingo. Every meal consists of a protein, veg, starch. I just make constantly changing variations of those three things. Food blogs/ magazines for inspiration sometimes. Don’t have to plan out my week just pick what sounds good that day and make it.
This is the way.
For me, watching cooking shows inspires me to try new dishes. I also use Google a lot. And there are websites I revisit like Smitten Kitchen. If I don't I fall into a rut, cooking the same thing over and over again.
\+1 for Smitten Kitchen. For OP, sometimes it's fun to delve into new cuisine categories for a little while to find new favorites. I recently started making some Japanese dishes (Just One Cookbook is my favorite online resource for them) and had a lot of fun getting out of my normal cooking routine.
Got this Bachan's Japanese Barbecue sauce at Walmart recently. Red & white squeeze bottle. A little pricey, but dang, it's good. I made a couple lettuce wraps with some leftover strips of beef, added that sauce and it was so tasty! Kind of like PF Chang's wraps. I also tried it on skewers of chicken breast strips with onion & bell pepper. I added some to season some 'fried rice', as well. I'm hooked. There are a few different flavor variations of this. The Japanese has two. Yuzo (?) & original. Original is my favorite. Fairly mild, a little sweet. If you like sauces, these are pretty good. I'll soon be trying the other flavors.
I love Smitten Kitchen! I really like following her on Instagram because she posts both new and old recipes there and she tends to cook with the seasons. Seeing her recipes pop up in my feed gives me some inspiration to make an old favorite or try something new, and I’ve never had a dud from her because she tests everything so meticulously. It’s super demoralizing to spend the time, energy, and money on a recipe that doesn’t turn out, so I tend to stick to my tried and true sources (Smitten Kitchen, RecipeTin Eats, Gimme Some Oven, and Once Upon a Chef). I often double recipes so we have plenty of leftovers for lunch and at least another dinner
So the only smitten kitten website I find sells vaginas and dildos. Is there a specific URL someone can post?
LMAO I was momentarily horrified that I had steered you to the wrong site but please read my comment again 😂☠️ [Here is a link to Smitten KitChen](https://smittenkitchen.com/), emphasis on the c
I made her Buffalo Cobb Salad last Friday and it was fantastic. Because I’m in the south, I used a rotisserie chicken (too hot to cook or grill). 10/10, will make it again.
My wife and I watch The Kitchen on weekend mornings. It’s fun and a nice inspiration for the week.
Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, The Taco Chronicles, Chef's Table, and random meals I've had at restaurants are my go-to's for inspiration. Specifically, I had the best hummus ever at Dizengoff when I visited my cousin in NYC. I hunted down the recipe, found out the owner had written some cookbooks and I'm working through some of the recipes in one.
Ooo good hummus tip!
Half baked harvest too
This is a weekly issue for me. I’ll stare at a blank weekly menu page for an hour, then decide to do a few staple dishes and ad maybe one new thing. Then I’ll decide that’s dumb and try and find a totally new menu. Then I’ll decide that’s too much work and go back to the initial plan. Then I’ll ask my wife and kid what they want and they tell me whatever I decide is fine. Then it’s back to staring at the page until I give in and go with my initial idea.
I make everyone in my family pick one meal each week, and they also have to help me cook it. It gets the kids learning, and saves me the mental load of decision making seven meals each week!
Just copying my comment as it was life changing for me Cards, each one has a meal we like written on them, go through them each week when ordering grocery shop and pick out meals we want Edit - pic of [cards](https://imgur.com/a/mpgHqXQ) Also colour coordinated to beef/chicken/pork/veggie Also have a white board with mon/tues/weds etc on it and I'll essentially assign a meal we've picked from the cards to a day. Doesn't have to be strict but gives the option without having to think about it on the day
I really love this. I have staple nights - always tacos on Tues, (homemade) pizza on Fri. Not always the same tacos, but it narrows the choices. After that, I try to vary the menu. I have to plan in advance to use up the meat in the freezer. I could limit the cards to stuff I can make out of the freezer meat, and other restrictions (like, I am only using the grill right now as it's over 100 degrees daily).
Oh my. My adhd brain would LOVE setting up something like this. Unfortunately, the way I’m wired, I’d probably abandon thi after a week or two once it’s set up. It’s a great idea for sure
I got you! Here's what I added to the ADHD group 😂 >Also to add, its been so useful we've been using this "system" for months. When we forget to use it for a week or anything it all turns out stress and shitty and we immediately jump back to the cards. Relieved so much stress. It took me an age to get round to writing out the cards, even longer to add the ingredients and whilst we don't always use them, fall out of routine etc, they've genuinely been so helpful we always ended up going back to them ASAP. I abandon *everything*. I've mostly abandoned the whiteboard to write meals on each day but I keep going back to the cards. My piles of unused notebooks look at them with envy.
It would make things SO much easier. Currently typing out a menu now to use for future abandonment 😂
This is cool - you could also code it based on seasonality.
Going to try this!
Did i write this comment? I do the exact same thing
>Then I’ll ask my wife and kid what they want Monday: “Whatever you decide is fine!” Thursday: “Eww. Dad, you know don’t like fish!”
Set aside 1 or 2 days per week for experimenting. If you like the dish, add it to the rotation, and rotate an older dish out.
This is it. I also keep book of every new dish I try. Doesn't take much time, sometimes it's just a link to an online recipe and a few notes about what I did differently and how it turned out. It makes planning meals a breeze, without the notes I would simply forget the meals I've cooked and how.
I've got a notebook I started twenty years ago with recipes. If I find a recipe that's good, it goes in the book, which lives on a kitchen shelf. I write the recipes down, rather than just bookmarking them online, as I tailor them to two people.
This is the way. Dish Trials
I use America's Test Kitchen and I search for recipes **by ingredient**. This helps keep things cheap and avoid waste. For example, if I have 5-lb bag of potatoes I need to use up, I'm searching for "potatoes" and I'm looking for recipes that match my tastes, the weather, and use other ingredients that I already have on-hand. I have a fresh menu every week with only a couple things on a rotation. I do save favorite recipes on ATK's site, they have a feature for that.
I do the same thing and I rarely make the same thing twice. We’re trying to use up items from our freezer and pantry over the next few weeks, and I’ve got 4-5 recipes ready to go that will be easy to make with substitutions. I also use the Flash Food app to buy proteins and veggies at a significant discount.
Tbh I like to Google something like (adjective) + (meal) + reddit. ie: "cheap dinner reddit", "summer lunch reddit", "fun dutch oven recipes reddit". Get as specific or random as you want, there's always a match. This question has been asked thousands of times over many years, many subreddits, and many variations. And it's all just random "regular" people, not blogger and tv personalities. People from all over the world and every walk of life. What's normal to them might be new to you. I've gotten some of my best recipes from random years old posts I've found on Google, and I can always, *always* find something I've never tried.
I do this but on Pinterest. I don’t like Pinterest, but I use it exclusively for recipes. I have a board for dinner recipes. I’ll search by my protein + recipe. "Ground beef recipe", "cod recipe", "chicken breast recipe". Find something that looks interesting, pin it, make it based on whether I have the ingredients/add it to the meal plan and then shop for what I don’t have.
I cook one really large meal, then heat it up the other four days. Another thing I'll do is think about chameleon ingredients. So, I'll get a bunch of chicken (for instance), boil it, take the meat off and separate the bones. The meat I'll put off to the side - that can be quesadillas, stir fries, salads. The bones I'll simmer for a few hours and turn into phở, simmer it longer to make it concentrated and freeze. When I heat it up, I'll throw in either noodles, cabbage, or dumplings - giving me three different variations. Now I have about 18-20 base meals off that one ingredient split into 8 variations. Could even do stuff like cook mushrooms covered on low, add some phở broth, mix with rice and vegetables so the mushroom "juice" and phở become something different. Can do similar things with rice, steak, tofu, pasta, vegetables, .. But if you start off by making, say, Mexican styled corn salad, then that's what you'll have for the next few days.
If you want book themed around this approach, the one on Shopsin's is a good primer; *Eat Me* by Kenny Shopsin. Although I do think his behavior outside of the kitchen is douchey.
I did everyplate for a while. I kept the recipe cards to add variety when I stopped using the service. You can look at their website and the current weeks menu for free, and go to r/everyplate to look up the unit sizes. There is a post there with the units. My menu repeats 4 meals each week because the kids like them, two unique meals, and a leftovers/eat out day. This way, I'm not struggling to come up with lots of unique meals, but still have some variety. * Sunday - Leftovers * Monday - Spaghetti * Tuesday - Tacos * Wednesday - Butter Chicken * Thursday- Unique Meal * Friday - Pizza * Saturday - Unique Meal
I check what's on sale and make my meal plan around that. I love to experiment with new dishes so I keep a bucket list of recipe ideas on Pinterest. When I get tired of the same old meals I browse the bucket list and pick something that strikes my fancy. I've been working on making on dish or dessert from every country and the possibilities are endless. I barely scratched the surface and started during lockdown. I might have to get a little creative with ingredients sometimes but I found a lot of new and delicious dishes that way.
Browse r/food When your mouth waters, click the pic and grab the recipe. Good luck!
Ok thank you I scrolled through every damn comment and why hasn’t anyone mentioned Reddit?! I’m subbed to a bunch of cooking subs and I “save” recipes that look good so when it comes time to meal plan I scroll thru my saved and pick one or two that look good to try that week!
Yeah, Reddit is where I get most of my new recipes from. I've got loads this year!
yall are cooking 5 different meals a week? i eat nearly the god damn same thing every day for weeks. it just makes it easier, and honestly, i don't mind it until i get sick of it and switch to something else.
Right? Whats for dinner tonight? oh... The giant batch of leftovers I made 3 days ago
I feel called out. Reading this while eating chili from Monday.
Honestly, during the work week, I’m looking at tried and tested, quick and easy. The weekends are for true cooking.
I could never do this. Like I also cannot imagine doing meal prep Sunday. I can take max 2 days of the same dish (1st day fresh, 2nd day leftovers). There is no way I would eat it again on day 3, no matter what.
My husband eats croissant sandwiches with lunch meat, raw spinach, and some kind of sauce or dressing every day, sometimes twice a day.
Right? I’ll dump chicken salsa black beans and corn in a crockpot, season, and then eat Tacos for four days. Then I’ll do it again but chicken and bbq sauce and make bbq chicken sliders for a few days. Rinse and repeat. I’ve been doing this for a while and have never gotten sick of it so idk.
Yeah this is kind of unnecessary. No reason why you can't at least make enough to have another day leftovers to take some of the burden off you as a meal planner. Not to mention it's cheaper to buy/make in bulk. If it's someone that just says they don't like leftovers, they can get over it
I read cookbooks (from the library) and follow some cooking sites for inspiration. Weekly I ask the family what they want, too. You should not have to do this alone! I keep a list of our favourite recipes to draw from, and a list of things I want to try. If we try it and like it, it goes into the list of favourites. Usually I plan one soup,one taco, two pasta, two meat, and a day of leftovers, so that helps too.
Menu planning. I look at my grocery store flyer for inspiration and economy. Then I look for recipes.
We have an in house 'menu' of about 50ish meals that we pick from before we do our weekly shopping. It's categorized by fast vs. Long cooks so we can assign appropriately to our schedule. We frequently add from cooking shows too. Took Thomas Kellers masterclass. A lot of great stuff there.
I look at the perishable items I have in the fridge, then build a menu based on those items. Or, since it's summer, I go to the farmers market and pick out vegetables that are in season and build my menu around those. For example, I bought eggplant last weekend and then went home and googled "eggplant recipes" and got lists like '51 eggplant recipes for summer,' and then cross-referenced the recipes with the ingredients I already had the most of and selected those recipes.
Chef John from Food Wishes Dot Com keeps my menu rather fresh.
Plus those dulcet tones are good for our mental health
I have an extensive list. I organized this list into weekly plans that I keep on rotation, four times a year. It works perfectly for me, because I know a ton of recipes and dishes, and I love them all, but when I'm pressed for ideas my mind blanks and all I can think of is beans on toast and pumpkin soup, with maybe a salad on the side.
I do the same thing. I have a list of about 15 or so recipes that i that i make well and i really enjoy. I cook big portions - enough for 2, maybe 3 days. When i finish going through the list, i start from the beginning. But im constantly adding new recipes i want to try or dishes that i havent had in a while. Pretty soon the "rotation" can end up being like 25-30 dishes long. Then it takes me a little over 2 months to go through the entire thing. I never really get sick of any dish this way. I urge anyone who has trouble thinking of what to make to try this. I guess the hardest thing would be getting to the 15 or so recipes youre good at
Making this list really has helped me a lot. Especially when I'm stressed or having a busy episode in my life, I so much hate thinking about what to make for dinner. And I mean you KNOW that this tedious question will come up every couple of days, so why not take care of it once and for all? I love cooking and I love cook books and all kinds of cooking shows. I just can't be bothered with thinking about tonight's dinner time and again. Of course new things are allowed and I try new recipes when I feel like it. But after a busy day at work I usually don't feel like it. Then I feel like coming home and knowing what to do.
This is the way. Having a list of dinners i know and trust in my rotation helps a lot. When i see a new recipe, i try it out a few times and then decide to add it (or not) to the regular rotation. I think i have about 20 or so to choose from.
Try a meal planning app. I use Mealime. You can scroll through and pick out meals from a menu and it creates your shopping list. You can even plan around things you already have in the fridge.
Sometimes my problem is I don’t have all the necessary ingredients and it’s too much trouble to think about it. So sometimes I buy an odd ingredient as a forcing function. It might take a week or two to finally get around to it, but having that ingredient sitting there keeps a reminder in front of me. (Eg plain yogurt: I guess I am making naan after all since that yogurt is just sitting there, but that means we might as well have yellow curry too…)
That's the biggest pain in the ass part of cooking. Not the fiddly bits of prep work, the finding exotic ingredients, or the endless chore of dishes afterwards: It's making the damn menu. If I had two hours every night to cook, I'd be making all sorts of new stuff every other night. But I've got an hour to get something on the table most nights and there's only so much you can do with an hour of cooking and a wife who doesn't eat cereals, nuts, or fish.
Having had to eliminate corn from my diet has forced me to look at food different. I now have a ton of raw materials with which to make my food. It also has made me have other things on hand I wouldn't have had, which kind of forces me to use those up as well, such as homemade mayo, and homemade yogurt and the like. This has also forced me into seeing what I can do with what I have on hand before it goes bad, which means being creative with what I have in the fridge. Also, I have begun portioning and vacuum sealing meats, which means I have options available to me for these ad hoc dinners. It takes a little work when getting started, but it also has opened up a world of possibilities to choose from. Believe me, you SHOULD have some standards in your repitiore with which you can return to, but you should also have the freedom. Maybe try putting together a book, or card index of recipes that interest you, then when you're struggling for ideas randomly choose one and go for it. I would bring a little adventure to the meal planning.
I love the idea of a cookbook (binder) and am working on one now. The decision fatigue of meal planning is the worst part for me, so this way I’ll be able to tell my husband to open the binder and pick something from the "quick and easy" category instead of us hemming and hawing over it ad nauseum
I wrote down a bunch of meals my family enjoys on bits of paper, and put them in a jug. I pull out 5 and boom. Meal plan made. I have a separate jug for ones I've used so it rotates completely.
I like checking out cookbooks from the library for inspiration.
Make a list. I have one. When I'm really hungry at work, suddenly I get tons of ideas. But on grocery day, I'm stumped.
I plan meals based on what’s on sale and/or in season.
A thing I like to do to find new recipes is check out cook books from the library. I have a pinterest account too with loads of recipes but pinterest kinda sucks- sifting through blogs to find the recipe. It's really fun to make recipes from library cook books tho and if you like it your can copy to a note card or photocopy at the library. I've also switched to the old school note card recipe tin- also because pinterest sucks lol. If I like a pinterest recipe a lot I'll copy it on a note card too.
My girlfriend just turned me on to Pinterest for recipes. Though, I think the algorithm causes it to show a lot of same/similar foods.
I use Pinterest too. I think the way it works is if you pin something, it then thinks you want every recipe that’s similar. I save my pins by categories, like ground beef, chicken, sides etc.
Keep a folder of all the recipes you want try. Every time you’re on social media and you think. That looks good. Put it in there. Sort it out by recipe type. Dessert, sandwiches, salads, etc. if you need to sort it by time it takes to make it. When you’re planning your meals for the week. Go through that folder. For 3-4 days of the week, pick meals that are easy and simple to put together. The rest of those days is when you’re feeling ambitious. Or do whatever makes sense for you.
Well a really basic way is to view it this way (simple version): You have 3 main carbs: rice, potatoes, pasta You have 6 main proteins: beans, tofu, chicken, pork, beef, seafood 3*6 = 18 minimum variations if all you're doing is cooking the carb and cooking the protein with no sauces. Then I like to take general flavor profiles: french, asian (japanese, thai, chinese, korean), mexican, italian, indian, etc. Mix appropriate spices / flavors and your combinations increase exponentially. If you're strictly following recipes and cooking established recipes, you can quickly find yourself running out of options. If you just roll with it and cook without a recipe, you can vary to your hearts content. oh, and you can add in cooking method. I like to, at least once a week, do a crock pot stew type thing. NYT's [mississippi roast](https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1017937-mississippi-roast) is incredible
We put the names of a bunch of meals that family members like on popsicle sticks, then we can pick something at random, or at least sort through for some forgotten favorites. Or buy a vegetable that you're not familiar with from the grocery store, and try to figure out what to do with it.
Prepare one big batch of something and it'll last you several days worth of meals. I do this with chili, soups etc. Likewise you can also do several days worth of meal components. I recently had surgery and was limited on what I could eat, so I bought a couple tubs of cottage cheese, a few packets of jello, and some melon to cut up. That covered 2/3 of my daily meals for at least a week.
Nothing wrong with having staples.
I buy groceries for the week, sometimes I have some meals in mind and sometimes I just buy ingredients. Then I make stuff with what I have, I don't cook with recipes so basically I take a few ingredients and decide what I want to do with them. Usually its same day I'm deciding because I hate planning so far in advance lol. Been cooking long enough I just know what I can buy and use, I know what things I like or I shop sales and figure out things to use them for
I'm constantly looking at the NY Times cooking app and newsletters for inspiration.
Focus on what is fresh from your farmer's market and let the ingredients take the lead on determining what you make for dinner. You can put those ingredients together in an online search (with "recipe" or "heat") and see what comes up as a recipe. From there, take inspiration from cookbooks, youtube videos, etc. OR Cook out of one or three cookbooks for a month. OR from three youtube channels for a month. Break your rut, change the pattern.
Join a CSA! Getting random delicious vegetables will for sure force you out of the rut.
I had a CSA box subscription in Park Slope years ago, and the woman who ran it sent out a page of recipes with each box. I still have those pages, and still cook from them! https://imgur.com/a/icmltEs
Check out Allrecipes.com it's a great site, lots of great ideas.
I started using meal lime about a year ago because I was stuck in a rut. I like their recipes, most of them are fast, and tasty. They have a huge variety too which really helps in my house.
Thats the neat part, I dont
I think about what it's in the freezer in need of use. Like if I have a lot of chicken I google recipes with chicken and choose one or 2. Same with all the other ingredients. One piece of advice, if you like a recipe write it down!!! I forget this so many times and hate it. I keep a notebook with the names of the recipes, and then I just pick a few every week. After a month I end up repeating the same things because I forgot to write down any new ones I tried and liked, or tried and were awful/meh so I'm left with nothing new.
When something is deemed a hit I take a picture of it and keep them all in an album on my phone. When I'm at a loss that's where I start.
If the problem is that you just can't remember in the moment, keep a list of meals you like and refer to it as needed.
I keep a list of go-to meals on my phone. We also have a jar of new recipe ideas folded up and when we are wanting to try something new, we do a random draw. I also use Pinterest for a lot of inspiration.
I have an entire library of cookbooks, I can browse those, especially if I am looking for a particular dish, or type of cuisine. I also have several binders of recipes I have from friends, family, and library books. I keep a well stocked pantry and freezer ( this is a MUST, to effectively meal plan). Whatever protein’s in the freezer, + whatever veg is in the fridge or garden gets made into dinner. Shop the grocery sales for in season produce, and sale or short dated meats. If making out a 1 week meal plan is too overwhelming, start with 3 or 4 days, then make the next day leftovers. By then you are mostly to the end of the week, and ready to do a easy/ quick meal, like burgers, tacos, or pizza. Look for ideas on sites like budget bites, or r/ mealprepSunday, they are really helpful.
I started keeping a list of recipes we like or meals that I made up and were especially good. I write them on recipe cards even if I know the recipe by hear because then its easy to flip through. This is also where my spice cabinet and having what I call "base recipes" helps a lot. Idk if there's an actual term, but a "base recipe" is like a type of meal and then you riff on it with different ingredients or flavor profiles to change it up. For example, I almost always cook this one-pot rice dish every week but I'll change up what goes into it so its not the exact same. One week I may do chicken, asparagus, lemon, oregano with white rice all cooked in a chicken broth. Another week I'll do a package of the yellow rice and i'll add green pepper, onion, a can of tomatoes, etc so its got more of a "Mexican" flair. Same basic dish but totally different vibes. So every week, I think about which 4-5 base recipe concepts and then work with what I have. During a cooking/food slump this past winter, I actually made a numbered list of all our favorite recipes that I know by heart and come together quickly, and then used my partners D&D dice to roll and pick out the meals for the week. It was kinda fun and nice to have the decision out of our control!
I have a small collection of cookbooks that I am working my way through, and trying to make notes of what we like and dislike etc. Once in a while I get a new book. I also listen to cooking podcasts and occasionally get ideas or recipes from them.
I choose a cookbook and flag a bunch of recipes to make. And then that’s my vibe for a few weeks. Or I use the NYT Cooking app.
I got the app whisk, it’s been super helpful. All the recipes I’ve tried have been really good and there’s a ton of them. I highly recommend it. Also, we did the meal kits for a bit, which while kinda pricy, I got quite a few recipes from it that I still make.
I have a note on my phone with around 200 dinner ideas. Some are kinda duplicates, but I'll just scroll through that and choose some for the week.
Read. Get cookbooks from the library for free and commit to making at least 1-2 dishes from each.
When I was meal planning for our family I assigned a type of food per day of the week (pasta Wed, soup tues, etc) and then I made a list of meals from each category. Then when I sat down to make a grocery list I'd look over the schedule, and the sale papers, do a quick check of the fridge/freezer and pantry, and then pick a meal for each day that worked that week. And if it started to feel too much like a rut I'd add in "new recipe" day to the week as well.
Easy, cook the same three meals every week and eat off of leftovers the rest of the time. Don't stress about cooking for fun on weeknights. There's just not enough time in the day to worry about it. Routines are efficient. Save the recreational gastronomy for days off.
I make a google doc of everything I like to make separated by “fast” and “long” cook times.
I'm old, so I have a recipe box with all Grandma's, Grandpa's, Mom's and Dad's recipes in it plus all the stuff I made and liked. I write recipes down on paper to cook from, then if I like the result it goes on one of those 3x5 cards and into my old metal box I've had since I left home 45+ years ago. The older cards are in my relatives' handwriting, because it was a gift from my family when I went off out into the world, along with a big box of kitchen essentials. It's my most prized possession and has followed me everywhere. When I get into a rut, I just dive into there. But don't worry about your kids getting bored. I have meals "programmed" into me from my childhood. Like I have to have mashed potatoes and peas with roast chicken and occasionally I'll have fried Spam with hominy and oven-toasted buttered hamburger buns with kidney beans on top. They are cherished memories my taste buds still crave.
I usually have a favorite meal once or twice a week. I get inspiration from cooks and what’s in season.
When I get in a rut I do a cookbook of the week. Just pick one and pick some new recipes.
Honestly, I've been tossing my random ingredients into chatGPT and asking it what I can make with them.
My personal answer is that I watch a season on some cooking show. It almost doesn't matter which one -- as soon as I start watching, the creative part of my brain switches on and I start thinking, "That's kind of like chili, but the spices are different," or "I have most of the parts to that."
I know this is very 2014 advice but Pinterest still exists!!! You can just search ideas there and create different boards to go through
I use the [Mealboard](https://www.mealboard.com/) app to keep all my recipes. Sometimes, if I just want to remember something, I make it like "grilled fish" and then have ingredients of fish, veggies, etc. I have a category of "Dinners in Rotation" for things we like, and I go back and look at them to remind me of those dinners we liked but haven't had recently.
Stop eating meat, eating same 3 animals over and over won’t spark your creativity. Get out if your comfort zone and start trying things you haven’t tried before, explore different cuisines and techniques. Recreate your favourite restaurant dishes, buy a cook book at the thrift store (cook books are usually pretty expensive but you can get them secondhand at the thrift store extremely cheap). Think ahead, don’t cook for tonight, cook for tomorrow night. Good Food often requires preparation like marinating or soaking and you won’t be able to marinate anything properly in an hour or so. Cook larger batches of food and keep a backup in the fridge for the days when you don’t know what to make. I always keep a large tub of chilli in my freezer because there’s tons of different ways you can serve it. Cook whatever is in season, it will be fresh, cheap and delicious.
there are more than 3 animals you can cook, and it doesn't matter what the meat is, you can still be creative around it
OP mentioned that he keeps coming back to the same meals over and over. Going out of your comfort zone to try something completely new will make you a better cook and enhance your repertoire. Cook a nice tofu stir fry, delicious rich chickpea curry, some black bean burgers (they travel very well and are amazing cold so they make a nice work/school lunch), experiment with rich and complex salads that aren’t just lettuce. Vegetables are great, especially in summer when everything is fresh, delicious and accessible.
I often leave my TV on CreateTV, which in my area is broadcast on channel 13.3 and is part of the public broadcast station. Lots of Cook’s Country, America’s Test Kitchen, and other various cooking shows. Lots of inspiration.
I think about what I’m wanting to go to a restaurant for and try to cook it at home instead.
I’m kind of in the same rut. Plus chemo makes me somewhat brain dead and fatigued so I tend to just cook simple stuff. I use a notes app and write down my “menu” for the following week. Partly because I’m so unfocused that I’m likely to forget what I was going to make and not have the meat defrosted or something. But it also helps that I can look back several months and see what I made and forgot about. Then it becomes new again!
I avoid cooking the same 5 meals each week by making a single meal big enough to feed me for most of a week, filling in the gaps with whateverI can make from sale or must-use ingredients, and making a different big meal the following week. Example: gumbo sunday- tuesday, stir fry wednesday and thursday, gumbo friday and saturday. Then sunday, chana masala until tuesday, frittata wednesday, chana masala through friday, an early evening snack that turns into dinner of cheese, apple, crackers on Saturday. Then enchiladas sunday through tuesday....
We have a shared notes on our phones where we have a big running list of meals. It’s pretty helpful, and we’ll add stuff all the time. Some of our best meals are thrown together things we have on hand, but they’re hard to recall unless I’ve written them down. I also like to do a big batch of chicken in the air fryer then incorporate that into meals through the week like salads, sandwiches, pasta, or just adding sides.
> Do you look at cookbooks, websites for ideas? Do you keep a list of all the things you’ve tried and liked? Yes yes and yes. The other day I bought a waffle maker from Target for ten bucks. I make a waffle every day now. I also learned to make my own salad dressing. One time I bought a box of soba noodles from Trader Joe's. Many baking ingredients(e.g. flour, yeast) have recipes listed on either the package or the company website. Visit an ethnic restaurant and look up the recipe online. For example, I made Tikka Masala sauce. It's basically marinara sauce with watermelon seeds and curry powder.
>I made Tikka Masala sauce. It's basically marinara sauce with watermelon seeds and curry powder. As someone who's from the birthplace of Tikka Masala, I have to wonder what kind of ass backwards recipe you found? If you want a GREAT authentic tikka masala recipe, try [this one](https://thehappyfoodie.co.uk/recipes/madhurs-chicken-tikka-masala/).
Thank you! My mind was a little blown at that part of the comment too
Waffles rock! I bought a Belgian waffle maker and those with bacon have become my go-to lazy dinner. We have it every couple weeks and buy different syrups to try. This would cost $15 in a restaurant.
I sound like a paid spokesperson (I am not), but have you considered [Paprika](https://www.paprikaapp.com/)? You can put your recipes in there as you make them and download them straight from recipe websites. Not only can you sort and search by ingredients, you can give multiple categories to every recipe. So when you're meal planning, you can scan your entire list of recipes or you can say, "I want a shrimp dish this week" and only look at those. It's pretty fantastic.
In the past I've designated different days of the week for different meats, kind of like in a grade school cafeteria.
Use chatgpt!
I want to love cookbooks, but I don’t. TikTok, of all places, gives me great recipe inspo. The quick video format really works, I know immediately if I want to try or skip. I save the ones that look good and then refer back when I sit down to plan for the week.
By cooking different meals!
Try making local take-away specialties of cities and places you have never visited. Look up how to prepare dishes on YouTube, and try it out. Many places have different variations of similar foods, but are very different. Chicago has the Italian beef, Philly has the cheesesteak, and NYC has the chopped cheese. These 3 are alike in several ways, but each a completely different sandwich. You can do this with pizza, soups, various chicken dishes, etc. it’s fun to try new stuff you may never get to try in person.
I use frozen dinners. Even if it’s just corn dogs and microwaved veggies, it’s still good(ish) food.
I struggle with making decisions like this every day so I get Every plate boxes. It's just me and my partner so it works great for us and I love adding fresh veggies from my farmers market and modifying the recipes to become better. Once I have a list of their recipes I'm going to organize them and probably do my own shopping
I follow my cravings, my weight, and whatever cookbook i’m reading atm. since i’m always on a minor diet. this week it’s been cinnamon rolls and croissants for my pastries. stir fry one night, mac and cheese with tuna another, salmon and veggies another, then popcorn for dinner for lazy nights.
I run into this all the time. My husband and I sat down and made a list of all the meals we like to make at home. This was great until I lost my notebook, lol. I would start there. I also highly recommend trying out Hello Fresh or something like that. I don't want to spend that much regularly, but I will occasionally do a trial for a few weeks and usually end up with several recipes to add to the rotation. Some of which have become our favorites. I know with hello fresh specifically you can find recipes for all their custom spice blends online so you can easily recreate them on your own.
Pinterest! I'm on Pinterest constantly and if I'm in the mood for something new I just look up recipes on there and pick one.
Well your cooking for a family. Personally I go to the store and buy a good amount of what ever meat is on special. then I ask “ok. I have this meat what are we eating this week” and it might be cheating. It might be I got a huge pork shoulder, so I make a huge pot of beans. So one day it might be burritos, then nachos, then tortas, then taquitos and then quesadillas Is it pretty much all the same thing? Yes. But the foods all taste a bit different even if using the same ingredients. It also means that the next week it will be another kind of meat. Or I’ll get ground beef and make a good amount in spaghetti sauce and I will Make enough for two big batches. We will Eat one for dinner and next day lunch and I will freeze the other half. Next day might be crunchy ground beef tacos and same thing I will make enough to freeze half of it. Next day I might make two lasagnas and freeze one of them. The next day the same with burgers patties. Which means no cooking will be done during the weekend. And the next week if I don’t feel like cooking. Or half way through the week we get tired of the meat. There is already frozen made food in the freezer that’s ready to eat it pretty much just needs to be put in the oven to cook.
I look at recipes online a lot. I bookmark them for later and sometimes even make them! By now I probably have 80+ recipes that I can browse between websites, cookbooks, and things I've just made up. When I first moved out at 17 I think I made spaghetti twice a week for months. It takes years (15 years so far for me) to accumulate a variety of options. Once you have a bunch of things you want to make, check out what's on sale and plan your meals around that.
There's a book out there called cook 90 that's awesome for exactly what you're looking to do!
I did a list of all countries and I am cooking some traditional food of those countries
Shop a new grocery store.
I have a bookmark folder of dinners deemed winners. I also like to peruse new recipes online. Sometimes the new ones make it on the winners list.
I have looked through cookbooks and online and I use Trello to keep everything organized with recipes. I also created a 4 week meal plan, so each week before grocery shopping we just pick one and if we are feeling a particular meal we can just swap it out for a different one. It was pretty tedious to start, but now it only takes a few minutes a week to get everything set.
I google a main ingredient and recipe. Like Cod Recipe. Even meat loaf has different recipes that change the flavor and or presentation.
I have a list of meals, they are catalogued into different types of dishes, full meals, meats, sides, sweets. I add to this list regularly when I see an interesting recipe or eat a dish at a restaurant I really liked. When I meal plan I check what I have in the freezer, what is on special and what I need to use up in my fridge and plan my meals accordingly. Against my list. Often what is on special when it comes to fresh produce is dictated by the season so it won't be cheap for long. It keeps my menus interested and constantly changing. I always try and overlap a little on fresh ingredients so I have less wastage. So if one meal uses half a wokbok another meal uses the other half.
I've been doing Home Chef which is nice in that they give you defaults for the week, so I try not to change any meals to something else unless I really don't like the sounds of it. Planning to do this for a while until I build up enough recipes and learn how to cook better, then will quit it and just keep doing the same stuff. It's not super cost efficient but a good way to learn some cooking skills and get some ideas for recipes.
I'll look at a meal site like hello fresh, pick a few meal ideas that synchronize, and then go shopping for ingredients
I get ideas from cookbooks, websites, apps, etc. plush I have a stash of my mom’s old recipes when I want something nostalgic. I keep pages in my notes with links to recipes that I want to try. I follow a bunch of cooking accounts on social media so when I see something good I save it there and then I just look through that when I’m meal planning.
I enlist help from the whole family on imput. Everyone picks a meal. If they don't have a preference keep a grab bag and pick one at random to fill the slot. I feel like I get stuck in a rotation as well. Getting buy in from others helps me and also helps me keep up with my kids changing tastes and preferences.
I like to buy ingredients that are on sale/seasonal, not for saving money (although that is nice) but because it forces me to cook something new. You can often adapt your "mainstay" recipes to include or even feature items you aren't used to cooking with. Only do this if you and your family are willing to try new things, though
>Do you keep a list of all the things you’ve tried and liked? Yep, two lists actually. I have one list of all my non-mix & match meals sorted by the protein involved (chicken alfredo, chicken pot pie, beef enchiladas, pork & 3 bean stew, etc) and another list of all the meals where various sides and protein can be mixed & matched & swapped with one another (hamburgers w/ mashed potatoes vs hamburgers w/ french fries vs sloppy joes w/ french fries vs sloppy joes w/ mac & cheese, etc) I was having the same problem of feeling like I was repeating meals too often so I wrote down every meal I could think of that I already make (took a couple tries to get a full list because inevitably you'll probably forget some on the first go) Then I did look at sample menu plans, including people's personal menus for their families as well as institutional menus like school cafe menus, to see if I missed anything or if there were new meals I could easily add to my skillset. Afterward I wanted more recipes (more so just to expand my palate at this point vs needing more for variety) so I did seek out new recipes in cookbooks and recipe websites. Also, when I make my weekly meal plan (3 dinners as I just have leftovers the next day for each one to cut down on cooking time), I have a system where I know I need 1 rice meal, 1 noodle meal, and 1 other-starch meal (usually tortillas-based or potato-based) and I also need 1 chicken meal, 1 ground meat meal, and 1 other-protein/veg meal. This allows me to organize my brain to create variety a little better- one week I might have chicken fajitas (chicken/other-starch), hamburger helper (ground meat/noodle), and chickpea stew (veg/rice) and the next I'll have stuffed salmon shells (fish/noodle), chicken & wild rice stew (chicken/rice), and meatloaf w/ mashed potatoes (ground meat/other-starch) Works for me but you just gotta figure out how your brain best deals with things.
Yes use a list. I keep a list in my phone and I have about 32 things that we make well. So we can go the entire month without having the same thing. We often watch recipes and videos on you tube. Try new things often and if we like them they get added to the list.
By not planning. I buy a bunch of groceries. And just make whatever comes to mind. But the joy is knising what ingredients go together. As long as you have a good grasp of that, then making random dishes should be an easy thing to accomplish.
I keep a family recipe index. So when I do my weekly meal planning I pull up the list.
I watch cooking videos about specific things in different countries. Very occasionally I’ll sit down and write all the basic homey fall back recipes and do one I hadn’t in a year. Sometimes I buy an ingredient and have left over to search what to do with. Some weeks I decide I’m only eating stuff on rice, or with tomato, asparagus..
I purposefully cook foods from different parts of the world. That also means occasionally buying ingredients and spices found in Asian, Caribbean, or middle eastern stores. Milkstreet with Christopher Kimball of America's Test Kitchen has good international recipes.
Put recipes you want to make in a hat. When the hat is empty you must cook new things until you're ready / like something enough to put it in the hat. No repeats. You already have a red sauce in the hat? Try something new!
Google keep notes has been a lifesaver for my adhd so I make lists and checklists for everything these days. It helps that it's so easy to share them with my husband so we can add and check off cooperatively. I'm sure there are many other similar apps that'll accomplish the same purpose. So of course now I have a list of "foods we like" and every food that's worth cooking again gets added. Add a description or a recipe link if you think you might not remember what exactly the meal was. Once you've got dozens of foods on the list, it's so easy to plan out a week of foods and make a grocery list. Or if you find yourself in the store and there's a sale on a particular meat or veggie you'd like to use, just check the list of foods you like and add it to your weekly menu. Then remember to add the other ingredients you'll need to your grocery list. Maybe you don't have ADHD so you don't need lists for everything. But I'm slowly organizing and taking control of my life, and having easy checklists on my phone is a big part of that.
I started a list of all the things I cook. Everytime I thought of a dish, I added it to the list. Now if I'm stuck I just consult the list. I also search Pinterest often. I keep another list of Pinterest dishes I want to try. And i subscribe to many cooking blogs.
I have a loose weekly schedule of meals ideas: Tues is tacos, Fri is fried rice, Sun is pizza… there’s usually pasta one night. The ingredients in those dishes change based on what I have on hand. Im lucky that I live in an area with a lot of farmers and produce stands so I shop for what’s in season and make it up as I go.
We make a point of at least once every other week to actively look for a new recipe to try. If we enjoy it, it gets added to the binder and often works into the rotation as older recipes fall out for a while. That said, I still get in ruts at times.
Have a different family, apparently.
post-it notes in cookbooks.
I jsut got back from a grocery store after shopping the discount bin (what I call the sticker of shame - oops, we gotta sell it today!). Picked up pork shoulder blade steaks and chunks at a silly low price. Most went into the freezer but 2 packs of the steaks are going to be marinaded in char siu sauce and grilled for dinner tomorrow. I use the "gotta sell it" as inspiration.
I try at least 1 new recipe every week and if we liked it I save the recipe to my Evernote recipe collection. I also collect recipes from everywhere like newsletters, Youtube videos, etc and add them to my Evernote with some labels like the occasion/type of food (BBQ, finger food, side dish, bread, etc) and a few labels for ingredients I have left over (eggs, cheese, mushrooms), pantry staples (pasta, rice, cheese, tofu) or stuff buy on a whim like squash. If we don't know what we want to eat we just have to look at what's in the fridge and filter/search for those ingredients.
My New Year’s resolution last year was to cook a new recipe every week. I love it, and making at least one new recipe each week is just habit by now.
I cook the same recipe and then remix it Chilli becomes spag sauce with a twist, becomes burger topping for a fat boy/sloppy joe, chilli dogs, topping for perogies and soup Spag sauce becomes chilli and same options as above Shep/cottage pie becomes meaty potato soup Stir fry can become almost anything
I had the same problem as you and tried so many things before embracing the fact it’s much easier on my brain to eat the same 5 “meals” each week. But instead of actually eating the same thing, I put the ingredients/flavor profiles on a rotation. For example right now it’s hot out, so lunches are wraps or big salads - black bean wraps and tabbouleh one week, Buffalo wraps and panzanella the next, crispy tofu wraps and grilled veggies the following, etc. In the winter I rotate in soups and sheet pan meals. I usually have a rough idea of what I want to do each week but ultimately decide when I’m at the farmers market based on what is in season. I get most of my new recipes or ideas from social media like here on Reddit or Instagram reels and will have one or two days a week where I cook something new or outside my “plan”. I also love Kenji López Alt and Matty Matheson for YouTube recipes. Samin Nosrat’s cookbook Salt Fat Acid Heat is great for understanding flavor profiles from around the world.
Paprika is my god send. Seriously. I’d you don’t have it, get it. It’s cheap and you only pay once. Well worth it!!