There are a variety of preferences for menu planning. Some moms like to do it all themselves, others want it all laid out for them, while many fall somewhere in between. Whatever your preference, you are sure to find help online. Start with some of the sites, books, and articles below to help you find the tools for your favorite way to plan meals.
Subscription-based online meal planning services
Meal planning articles
A Beginner's Guide to Once a Month Cooking
10 Top Ingredients for No-Cook Meals
Meal planning websites
Menus 4 Moms free menus contains 5 nights of menus with recipes and grocery lists, including free grocery list software.
MealsMatter is a large site with several great functions. If you want to plan your own meals but like to try new recipes, this would be a good site. You can create a personal start page and once you have a free account with the site, you can plan your menus and create grocery lists. This site includes some health and nutrition features, as well as ways to contribute your own recipes.
AllRecipes is another large site that exists mostly as a community to share and review recipes. The site offers excellent search capabilities as well as nutrition information and several printing formats for the recipes. There is a free version of the site, but some of the recipe collections are only available by paid subscription.
Recipezaar is similar to Allrecipes in that it offers a place to share and review recipes and also has both free and paid accounts.
Cut the Hunger is very similar to The Grocery Game but is free. It is not available in all areas, and where it is available not all stores may be listed. This is a section of The Coupon Mom's website. Click on Best Grocery Deals by State to find the recommended purchases.
Meal Planning Software
Mastercook is the most popular recipe software and is a powerful solution with integrated menu planning and grocery list creation tools. Most other software and online recipe services offer the ability to import or export recipes in Mastercook format.
Cook'n Recipe Organizer is a complete system to help you manage recipes, plan meals and menus, import and export recipes, create shopping lists, and even suggest meals based on what you have on hand.
EzyEating is a very affordable meal planning software solution with similar functionality to the more expensive programs. EzyEating offers a free demo version so you can try before you buy.
Subscription-based sites
Dine Without Whine - A Family Friendly Weeky Menu Planner (You can get a free sample menu at the website.)
Healthy Menu Mailer - Your Secret Weapon for a Healthy Eating Lifestyle (You can get a free sample menu at the website.)
More Thyme - I found this amazing family menu planning system recently called More Thyme. For as little as $1/week (when you pay annually) you can get menus, recipes and shopping lists for your home meals. What's really unique about More Thyme is that it can learn your taste in food and provide menu suggestions for you that not only match your taste, but your diet as well. You can use a standard balanced, low-carb, or low-fat diet, or create a custom diet. The shopping list not only contains what's in the recipes on your plan, but you can also add additional items (like napkins, cleaning supplies, etc.). You can pay monthly, quarterly or yearly (big savings). Check it out!
My Online Meals - Weekly menus with easy-to-follow recipes, a weekly shopping list organized by department, and cooking and timesaving tips. You get the recipe and shopping list for 2, 4, & 6 servings so you don’t have to do the math. So no matter what size your family, you’re covered!
What's Cooking Weekly - Your family meal planning solution! Subscribers get recipes, grocery lists and nutrition information for 5 healthy and seasonal meals every week. Recipes include a "Call the Kids" section that will help you get the kids involved! Give our sample menu a try. Tell a friend and get a free month when they sign up!
Menu Mailer is an online version of Saving Dinner by Leanne Ely, a nutritionist who plans dinner menus. Menu Mailer is by paid subscription and is also available in low carb, kosher, frugal, vegetarian, and Southern Hemisphere versions. You can get a free sample menu at the website.
Menu in a Box is a PDF download-able e-book that includes delicious, fast, fresh and family friendly recipes along with corresponding shopping lists and meal plans, plus great time saving, budget & organisational tips. You will save time and stress with 80 meals and 20 weeks all organised for you.
The Grocery Game is the hobby turned business of Teri Gault who is currently offering franchises of The Grocery Game. "TERI'S LIST reveals the 'rock bottom' prices on hundreds of products each week and matches them up with manufacturers' coupons for the best possible savings at your local supermarket. The Grocery Game has exclusive databases that track manufacturers' coupons along with weekly sales and specials, both advertised and UN-advertised. With TERI'S LIST, the days of time consuming work required for effective coupon-ing are over... Members log in, spend a few minutes with a pair of scissors, and they're off to win The Grocery Game! " Only available in some locations. The site claims that most members save an average of 67% each week.
Meal planning books
Saving Dinner is a popular book by Leanne Ely, a nutritionist who plans dinner menus. She has an online version of Saving Dinner by subscription called the Menu Mailer which is very popular. Saving Dinner is also available in low carb and holiday versions, and the Menu Mailer has low carb, kosher, frugal, vegetarian, and Southern Hemisphere versions.
Frozen Assets is small in stature, but jam-packed with meal-planning advice. It contains recipe ideas, plus detailed instructions on how to get the maximum value from your food dollar, while also slashing meal preparation times.
Once a Month Cooking is one of the most popular bulk cooking books ever published. This easy-to-follow, family-tested cookbook explains how to: plan ahead, spend less time in the supermarket, cut down on prep time, group similar kitchen tasks together to get them all done at once, make kitchen clean-up more manageable, use the freezer, computer, and our head to create a month full of delicious, nutritious meals and actually have enough time to relax and enjoy them.
Mega Cooking: A Revolutionary New Plan for Quantity Cooking is another popular book for bulk cooking based on the idea that cooking in bulk saves time and money.
Month of Meals is from the American Diabetes Association. Each menu planner has 28 days worth of new menu choices; pages are split into thirds and are interchangeable. It is spiral bound for ease of use.
The What's For Dinner Cookbook contains lists of favorite meals, weekly and bulk shopping lists, seasonal menus at a glance, time-saving tips, and meals that can be prepared in 30 minutes or less.
Make and take meals
A new phenomenon to hit the Pacific Northwest is the concept of make and take meals. You go to a central kitchen where you make meals with other women and bring them home and freeze them. The kitchen provides the recipes and ingredients, you provide the labor. Some of the ones I have found are listed here but if you know of others, please let me know about them. Look for this concept to expand to the rest of the country quickly as entrepreneurs see its potential.
Easy Meal Preparation Association - lists locations of member shops by state