How Do You Plan Food for a Big Family Dinner?

Your family’s health is one of the most important priorities, and it all starts with what you feed them. Now, eating out is an option, but it is often expensive and not always healthy. Cooking dinner at home is a great way to ensure your family gets a healthy meal each night without going above your food budget.

However, most of us live a busy life where preparing basic meals such as dinner every day can be an overwhelming experience. Cooking is even more of a daunting task if you have a big family. This is where meal planning comes to your rescue. So how exactly do you go about planning a big family dinner? Here are a few family dinner tips you can borrow to make life easier and less stressful for you and your family.

Get Meal Ideas

The first and most important question when it comes to planning a family dinner is, “what are your family’s favorite meals?” Before you go out and start looking for meal recipes online, you’ll want to first create a list of what your family enjoys most for dinner. For those nights you know you’ll be completely exhausted from cooking a large dinner, you can have the meals prepped early to make cooking and serving easier. For instance, you can make a crockpot meal and put it in your refrigerator or freezer, so that all you’ll need to do is to reheat it and serve your family. With dinner recipe ideas listed down, it becomes easier to know what to cook when and when not to cook.

Know the Supplies You Need

Nothing can be more intimidating than getting home in the evening, only to find that you’re missing some kale or onions when you’re just about to cook for your family. You’re forced to head to the grocery store or make an order, which eats into your time. The last thing you want is to keep your family starving just because you forgot to buy groceries.

This means creating a list of the needed kitchen supplies, purchasing them, and keeping enough in the fridge to last you for a week or so. This is especially important when it comes to cereals, veggies, fruits, and meats. For meats, ground beef, specifically, is perfect for large family dinners. If you click here, you’ll discover how beneficial organic minced meat can be when planning for a large family cookout. Provided the minced meat is measured carefully, you can grill it, fry it, or top it up with some veggies and serve your family at dinner.

Delegate a Planning Partner

As already noted, planning meals for a big family is never a bed of roses. However, involving your family in the meal planning process makes it easier and even more fun. You can also choose a family member each week to help you, especially if you’re a busy mom or dad.

Make an Attack Plan

Meal-planning is a process and to successfully plan food for your family dinners, you’ll also need an action plan. Your action plan should basically comprise things you need to do to achieve the goal. Some factors to highlight in your plan of attack include:

  • When to buy groceries
  • Where to shop for groceries
  • What to make on busy evenings
  • Backup meal ideas
  • Do I need to make multiple meals for busy weeks?
  • When are crockpot meals ideal?

Once you answer the above questions, be sure to keep a dinner calendar for the week and you won’t regret it.

Set a Meal-Planning Time

Making a meal plan for a large family can be hectic. It requires proper time management. You’ll need to be smart to make it work without straining too much or inconveniencing your family. This is why you need to carefully pick and set a specific time of the week when you sit down and plan your meals. It could be over the weekend when the kids are outside playing or doing their homework, and your hubby is busy watching the game. You could also do it when everyone is relaxing in the living room on a Sunday afternoon. Just pick a time you’ll feel at ease and comfortable. Don’t forget to set a reminder on your smartphone, so you’ll know it’s time for meal planning even if you’re caught up doing something else.

Feeding your family requires more effort than just putting groceries on the table. Meal preparation and cooking are sometimes tiresome, tedious, and dreadful tasks, especially when you have a large family to feed. With the above tips in mind, planning the food for your big family dinners can be easier and less intimidating.