The main aspects of Menu Planning are that you have before you a list of the meals, most likely dinner meals, for at least a week. Included in that are all of the ingredients you will need for this menu and the shopping list organized by grocery store department. This will leave you to only have to go grocery shopping once a week and be assured that you will have everything on hand.

You can also menu plan for breakfasts and lunches but since dinner meals seem to be the most problematic to come up with and the most important for brining a family together they are usually the most focused on.

In this day and age we have access to so many kinds of foods that it makes perfect sense to have someone else do the menu planning for you. Many of us are closet gourmets but trying to combine that with menu planning can be truly time consuming.

Luckily several enterprising people have come to our rescue. They do all of the tough work for us. Picking family friendly, healthy, tasty, and yes innovative meals. Maping out the week's recipes. Creating a grocery list for us organized by department. Including suggestions for yummy side dishes and sometimes even breakfasts and lunches. You also get tips for even faster cooking and ideas for desserts.

Below you will find a list of some of the more popular menu planning sites on the internet (yes I have tried each of these and some of them I'm still using). I've given a run down on what each menu planning service provides and many times you can have access to a free week's sample or a very very low cost sample (think 1 cent here).

I've also uploaded a Menu Planning Comparison Chart in our Cooking Printables section.

Give some of these menu planning resources a try you will be so happy with the results...