Dinner Theme Nights will transform your meal planning, not only making it simpler for you to plan, shop, and cook, but planning regular themed dinner nights each week will make meal times more enjoyable for everyone at your table, especially picky eaters!
Whether you put Breakfast for Dinner on repeat for the family or choose to host Taco Tuesday for friends on the regular, you’ll make meal planning easier and save money on groceries as well when you plan themed dinners. You’ll easily be able to stop eating out when you’ve got these dialed in.
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Is meal planning tripping you up? Is “lack of inspiration” your current mental gap? Do you wish that meal planning was a “no-thinking required” kind of activity?
Lucky for us all it can be!
Setting up a rotation of dinner theme ideas every season or so can really free you up in the kitchen.
Make a Weekly Routine with Dinner Theme Nights
We can all benefit from this classic way of planning meals. Each day of the week gets its own assigned type of meal. Back in Gramma’s days, it might have been hot dish or meatloaf instead of today’s ramen or Green Chicken Enchiladas.
The method still works — no matter your food preferences, dietary restrictions, or budget.
Why Do This
It reduces decision fatigue. When you put theme night dinner ideas on repeat, you don’t have to recreate the wheel when you plan meals. Instead, you just think within the parameters of that night’s theme. By reducing your choices, you are able to make a more solid choice.
It helps picky eaters manage expectations. It’s hard to meal plan for picky eaters; you know that surprises aren’t always well-received. However, if they know the dinner theme night ideas you’ve chosen (and maybe have some say in what they are), they have some nights to look forward to. And it will be easier for them on the nights when they might otherwise fuss.
It simplifies meal planning and grocery shopping. Once you’ve decided to have a burrito bar each Wednesday and grilled pizza every Friday, a lot of your meal planning and grocery shopping becomes easier. Your grocery list doesn’t change all that much and you can better predict what to do with leftovers.
It saves time and money. When you plan dinner theme nights, you’re making it easier to predict what groceries you’ll need in the coming weeks so that you can better shop the sales and meal prep in time efficient ways.
And no, YOU won’t get bored because you’ll be able to make little tweaks to side dishes, proteins, and condiments to keep things fresh.
In fact, there are so many different ways to make pasta, tacos, or sandwiches, just staying in the range of one particular genre still gives you lots of meal planning variety.
Sample Theme Night Dinners
Sundays – Grilled or Roasted Meats
Mondays – Pasta
Tuesdays – Tacos
Wednesdays – Sandwich Night
Thursdays – Stir-fry
Fridays – Pizza
Saturdays – Slow Cooker
At the face of it, you may think, Can I really have pizza every week?
Yes, yes, you can! There is so much variation in each of those categories! Think about all the different kinds of pizza bases, toppings, and sauces. You could make a different kind of pizza every week for months without getting bored!
Goat Cheese Pizza is my fave.
Possible Dinner Night Themes
There are loads of themes to choose from. Check these out:
Types of Protein:
Since proteins can vary on price, spreading them out over the course of the week can allow you to enjoy steak once in awhile, while serving hearty, less expensive proteins the rest of the week.
Be sure to stock the pantry (or freezer) with proteins you find on sale so you can stretch your grocery dollar.
Styles of preparation:
Depending on the season, you can plan weekly menus based on a certain type of cooking. On busy nights, plan a slow cooker recipe or an instant pot dinner. On more relaxed evenings, go for the grill.
- quick fix – 30-minute meals
- grilling
- roasting/baked/sheet pan dinners
- skillet
- slow cooker
- pressure cooker or instant pot
- air fryer
Types of foods:
- sandwiches
- burgers
- salads
- stews
- soups
- casseroles
- quesadillas
- tacos
- burritos
- wraps
- sautés and stir-fries
- rice bowls
- pizza
- pasta
- breakfast-for-dinner
Flavor profiles:
This list is obviously not exhaustive. Choose a cuisine you’ve been wanting to explore and put it on weekly repeat for several weeks. Or choose one that you know has tempting take-out. You’ll save money and satisfy your craving, making it yourself at home.
- Mexican
- Peruvian
- Italian
- Thai
- Chinese
- Filipino
- Japanese
- Korean
- Vietnamese
- French
- African
- Indian
- Mediterranean
There are so many meal plan theme nights to choose from, you could easily rotate them in and out every month and always have fresh inspiration and easier meal planning.
FAQs
Dinner theme nights can be drawn from the style of preparation, type of protein, type of dish, or flavor profile. Some common themes include pizza, tacos, breakfast for dinner, slow cooker night, sheet pan supper, and stir fry.
Fast food and take-out get pretty boring after awhile, and chances are you order the same things each time. No, once you get in a groove with themed dinner nights, you’ll have more time and creativity for other pursuits.
Nope. Plan as much as works for you. Three days is a good start. Remember there are leftovers and fend-for-yourself nights that you can include in your weekly meal plan, as well as planned take-out.
Our Favorite Meal Ideas for Family Dinners
Serving a buffet dinner for your themed dinner nights allows for lots of variety, but also lets all diners compile their meals exactly the way they like them.
Tell us what you think!
We love to hear your experiences with Good Cheap Eats. Click the STARS on the recipe card or leave a STARRED comment to let us know what you think of the recipe.
This post was originally published on August 16, 2010. It has been updated for content and clarity.
Bea
Another great post full if good recipes and ideas! Thanks!
Tammy
I’m so happy this post was at the top when I Googled “weekly menu plan theme nights”! So much inspiration and exactly the ideas I needed right now. Thank you, Jessica!
Jessica Fisher
Hey Tammy! Good to see you again! Glad I can inspire. 😉
Ali
I have been doing a monthly meal plan with theme for each night of the week in the last couple of years. I was skeptical of the monthly plans and started with weekly for a bit. It was working so well so it was easy to transition to the monthly plans. This has changed my world! I was strict for a while in the beginning to plan out the month but in the last few months I give myself a little more flexibility in doing the entire month all at once. I’m not sure why! But I have kept the same themes each night and it continues to work wonders for all of us, kids and adults. I still try new recipes, I still use ingredients on sale and I throw away significantly less food each week. And I use your monthly meal planning sheet every time, thank you!
Jessica Fisher
Yay! So glad to hear that you’re seeing success! Awesome job!
Jana
Thanks for the great ideas! I will be trying this over the next two weeks. I need to get better at meal planning. Can you please link a recipe to the beautiful pasta picture? It looks so yummy!
Jessica Fisher
That is an old recipe newly updated so I don’t have a link ready yet.
Sarah
Are those the beef enchiladas in the first picture up there?? They look amazing! Do you have the recipe on here?
Jessica Fisher
The cheese enchilada recipe is here: http://lifeasmom.com/2009/04/urs-meatless-main-dishes.html and the beef filling is here: http://lifeasmom.com/2010/08/favorite-crockpot-recipe-shredded-beef.html
Emily Davis
that is exactly how I mealplan…
I have nights… but a two week rotation… and leave room for leftovers (but we only have one child). Every 3rd day is leftovers unless it’s Sunday, then it’s pushed a day.
I have cookbooks and books on nutrition/meal planning from the 1940-‘s & 50’s. They ROCK! And they make sense even now…
Hugs…
Em
Lynette
I think haveing little kids who are so picky – makes the Grandma way of planning meals so much easier. They WANT spaghetti all the time, and pizza, and nachos/quesadilla’s…so when I’m doing my month long grocery shopping list and planning it all out – it really makes it easy to just asign nights whatever particular food and I can make the shopping list around that. I add a crock-pot meal in each week right now, and that allows me to have an evening off – so that I can go have some Me time, if it works out right with hubby’s schedule. And if Hubby happens to work late, I scrap whatever meal I had planned for that night and serve breakfast to the kids. It makes it easier to scrap it, if I have already precooked my hamburger meat, or have that chicken already shredded and stored in 1 lb bags in the freezer! If I end up making the casserol with chicken, and he doesn’t come home – I can skip cooking it that night, and cook it the next!
Julie
Is the picture at the top your shredded beef enchiladas?? Whatever it is – they look amazing! Do you have the recipe on either of your blogs??? I would love to have it !
Rona
I really love your serving plates. Especially the green one. And I see I’m not the only one who is a fan of the enchiladas. Yummy. The avocado salad looks delicious too!
I hope you and your family have a terrific weekend.
Dana @ The Coupon Challenge
Your meals sound so much better than mine!
http://www.thecouponchallenge.com/2010/08/menu-plan-monday-0815.html
I plan to try the Asian Noodle Salad-yum!
Judy
For years we have had “Taco Tuesday” now. I know the kids look forward to it and it one less thing to think about. If it’s Tuesday then it’s Taco night!!
FoodontheTable
This is a really great way of meal planning. I like the “theme” approach!