Meal Planning on Pinterest

For all the unrealistic expectations Pinterest sometimes gives me--I should definitely have a spotless, perfectly decorated home, luxurious hair, a flawless manicure, and well-behaved stylish children who are reading by age 2 and eat salads out of mason jars!--I really love it. I love getting inspiration from pretty photos and discovering new resources for home decor or clothing. But the biggest thing I use Pinterest for is undoubtedly meal planning.

Of all the recipes I use, a decent portion are memorized or improvised, a handful are written on 3x5 cards or in the Better Homes and Gardens Cook Book I was given as a wedding gift, and the rest are from Pinterest. I pin recipes directly from food blogs I follow or I browse Pinterest itself and repin recipes that look good, but either way, the pins on my "Foods" board are by far the ones I revisit most.

Which would be fine if that board wasn't getting a wee bit cumbersome. Sometimes as I'm meal planning at the beginning of the week, I know exactly what recipe I want and exactly what image I'm looking for, but have to scroll through a bajillion others just to find it. Ugh.

So I've done some reorganizing, both for my sake and yours!

First, we have "Foods". Along with my various treat boards this is where I put recipes for main dishes, snacks, sides, and other things I want to try. (At the moment, it also holds a lot of pins of meals I have made and liked but we'll get to that in a minute.)

Next, I created a board called "Last Week's Menu." This board has only a handful of recipes and changes frequently. I update it every Sunday evening/Monday morning to reflect the things my family ate the previous week. In the description, I'm including any adaptations I made, my family's opinion of the results, and any other notes that may be relevant.

Finally, there is the "Menu Rotation" board. Anything that was on "Last Week's Menu" that we liked and want to eat again will be moved into this board. (I'll just delete pins from anything we didn't like.) As I use old favorites from "Foods", they will be moved here to find more easily later.

TLDR? Here's the short version: When planning my weekly menu, I can get new ideas from "Foods" and find old favorites in "Menu Rotation". Then  at the beginning of the following week it will all get moved into "Last Week's Menu" for a week, until those pins get replaced by the following week's recipes.

And how does this benefit you?

I've added a widget to my left sidebar so you can see what was on our menu last week. If you need any ideas for meal planning, that's a great place to start. Since you know I've tried everything in "Menu Rotation", that should be your next stop. If you follow me on Pinterest (I'm Jen Bosen...shouldn't be hard to find!) you can see the other boards I'm working from as well, including those for cookies, cakes, pies, and other sweet things.

Basically, when you're stumped on what to do for dinner (and dessert!) I've got your back. You're welcome.

***

What about you guys? What do you use Pinterest for? Anyone else have a massive stockpile of recipes they intend to use "someday" but still get stuck when meal planning? Just me?