The winter holidays are always a busy time, and Thanksgiving seems to be the holiday that pushes everything into overdrive. For many families, Thanksgiving is the time when everyone gets together to eat, talk, watch football, and discuss the upcoming Christmas season. For some, Thanksgiving dinner is the biggest meal they will eat all year, and quite a few people have favorite foods and drinks made by mom or grandma that they remember forever. In fact, Thanksgiving traditions are often started around the dinner table.

Many families come together and reflect on the good fortune that has happened to the family over the year and express feelings of gratitude. Traditions form as families come up with fun and unique ways to show their love and gratitude for other family members. So while food is a large part of Thanksgiving, it isn’t the only thing people think about when celebrating this holiday.

The focal point of most Thanksgiving meals is the turkey. Finding that perfect turkey, basting it with just the right blend of herbs and butter, and baking it until it’s crispy on the outside and moist on the inside is a challenge many home cooks look forward to each year. While the turkey may take center stage, there are common side dishes that people can’t live without on Thanksgiving. Yams with marshmallow topping, corn, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, bread, salad, and stuffing are commonly found on a traditional Thanksgiving meal table. These are often followed by an assortment of pies or cobblers, most commonly pumpkin, pecan, and apple.

While there is a traditional Thanksgiving meal that people are familiar with, there are quite a few variations also. As a family expands and new people are brought in, traditions start to evolve. Some families dine on pork or roast beef on Thanksgiving or serve ham instead of turkey. There are some families who like everyone to contribute something to the meal, while others have one or two people who cook the meal every year. The variations of a Thanksgiving menu are so widespread, that there’s really no correct way to prepare a Thanksgiving meal. As long as important traditions are incorporated and everyone is able to enjoy their favorite food, any Thanksgiving menu will be a success. Below is some sample Thanksgiving dinner menus for you and your family to enjoy.

Traditional Turkey Menu

• Spinach and apple salad
• French onion soup
• Herb roasted turkey with apple cranberry stuffing
• Green bean casserole
• Sour cream mashed potatoes and gravy
• Roasted baby carrots
• Rolls
• Caramel pecan pie with vanilla ice cream

Alternative Turkey Menu

• Fruit salad with vanilla dressing
• Herb rolls
• Roasted turkey breast with gravy
• Roasted root vegetables with olive oil and herbs
• Sweet potato casserole
• Pumpkin pie

Roast Beef Dinner Menu

• Mushroom soup
• Roast beef tenderloin
• Smashed red potatoes and gravy
• Broccoli in cheese sauce
• Buttered rolls
• Creamy corn casserole
• Cranberry apple pie

What traditions influence your family’s Thanksgiving Dinner menu? What’s your favorite dish to make, and which is your favorite to eat?

Menu in a Box, a membership site where all the work of menu planning is taken care of for you, is a great resource for menu planning — it does the work for you. If it saves you from eating out just once in a month, it pays for itself.

Monday: Lunch- Turkey, ranch, and dill wraps

Spread a thin layer of low-fat or fat free ranch dressing on your favorite kind of tortilla (Whole wheat and spinach ones work great.). Sprinkle some dill weed on the dressing, and then layer a few pieces of turkey slices on top. Add a slice of cheese and a piece of romaine lettuce for some extra flavor and crunch. Serve with chips and fresh vegetables or fruit.

Dinner- Chicken Parmesan with spaghetti and Caesar salad

Chicken Parmesan with spaghetti is a classic that is easy to make at home. It tastes great when you make it yourself using this recipe from Food Network. You could vary it up by making your own side dishes, and you can use whole wheat spaghetti to make the meal even better.

Tuesday: Lunch- Tostadas

Tostadas are quick and easy to make. By mixing ground beef with refried beans, the beef will go further, so it’s budget-friendly. The beans add a nice flavor to the tostadas, too. Top the tostadas with tomatoes, salsa, lettuce, and cheese to make a warm, crunchy lunch.

Dinner- Grilled salmon with red beans and rice and zucchini

Add your favorite herbs and spices to a marinade, and let your salmon soak up the flavors. Grill the salmon, and the juices and flavors will permeate through it. With some red beans and rice (homemade or out of the box), and fried zucchini squash, this spicy salmon dish will be sure to please everyone. Fry the zucchini in olive oil and add some herbs to achieve a savory flavor.

Wednesday: Lunch- Best Bean Salad

Several different kinds of beans combine in this chilled dish to make a great bean salad. Vinegar, salt, pepper, oil, and sugar add some extra flavor, and the onions and celery give the bean salad extra crunch. This meatless and refrigerated salad can be kept for lunch over the span of the week, making packing your lunch for work extra easy.

Dinner- Southwest chicken with long grain rice and fresh green beans

A sweet and spicy dinner of southwest chicken is a great mid-week addition to your weekly menu. Serving it with some tasty long grain rice and buttery green beans will complete the meal.

Thursday: Lunch- Vegetarian chili

This is a slow cooker recipe that can be spiced up by adding some jalapenos or cayenne pepper. This meal goes well with a thick slice of warm bread.

Dinner- Lasagna soup with salad and French bread

Lasagna soup is hearty and full of fantastic Italian flavor. Bay leaves, cheeses, garlic, oregano and other additions to this soup make it a favorite. This recipe calls for Italian-style pasta, but use any pasta type you wish to cater to your family’s particular tastes. A crisp and fresh Caesar pairs perfectly, and the bread will sop up all the good broth in the bowl when it’s almost empty.

Friday: Lunch-PB&G Salad

This is a quick and easy salad that you can make for lunch. Mix together some greens and a peanut butter/water mixture, add some raisins, and you have a protein-packed and sweet salad. It’s inexpensive to make, and it can be created in a short time, which is sure to make it a weekly favorite for lunch when you’re running short of time.

Dinner- Penne pasta and lentils

For a hearty but meatless pasta dish, try this meal. Penne pasta, carrots, lentils, garlic, thyme, onion, and celery are the main ingredients. This recipe is very flavorful, and it can be adjusted to fit anyone’s taste. This recipe is inexpensive to make, and it can feed a family of four for a couple of nights. It reheats well, too, and it makes a great lunch when there are leftovers. Serve with a salad and a slice of garlic bread to round out the meal.

Saturday: Lunch- Fiesta bowl salad

A zesty and quick salad will make your Saturday lunch this week great. Avocados and lime juice squeezed on top of the salad give this salad the taste you want. This is not an ordinary, run-of-the-mill salad. It’s geared up to give you the extra nutrition and energy you’ll need to get after your spring cleaning and springtime landscaping projects you’ve been planning all winter.

Dinner-Honey lemon chicken with herb roasted potatoes and cooked carrots

To make this sweet and tangy chicken dish, you’ll need a minimum of preparation time and 45 minutes to relax while the oven does the hard work. Honey and lemon mix together to make a delicious main course for this meal. Roast some potato cubes with herbs and olive oil on them and steam some carrots to complete this meal. Add some butter and brown sugar to the carrots to give them just a kick of sweet to complement the chicken’s honey.

Sunday: Lunch- Fusilli with herbed ricotta and grape tomatoes

Sunday’s lunch centers on corkscrew-shaped fusilli pasta and is highlighted by fresh oregano and basil. Ricotta and Romano cheese give this pasta salad a bit of kick, and the grape tomatoes add just the right amount of juicy flavor.

Dinner- Bagel pizzas
Bagel pizzas are an easy and relaxing way to end the week. Toast your bagels in the toaster, add your favorite pizza sauce, cheese, and toppings, and microwave for a minute or so. For extra crispiness, broil in your oven for a few minutes. This is a warm and quick dinner that can be customized to suit everyone’s individual tastes.
Recommended Reading & Resources:

• Weekly Menu Planning Made Easy: Blog post on how to navigate the challenges of menu planning to make it work for your family.
• Menu in a Box: Online meal planning that is done for you. What could be easier?
• Family Menu Planning: Tips on meal planning, with sample dinner entrees menu.

How do you plan your weekly food menus? Where do you look for ideas? Have you outsourced your menu planning to a membership site or newsletter? Tell us about it:

Lest you think I exaggerate, let me assure you that I speak from experience, as a (new) homeschooling mom of four kids, married to a man who both works from home and loves good food. We have a busy family life, extracurricular activities, wonderful friends, pet rabbits and backyard chickens, and our days are blessedly full.

When I plan menus, life is good.

When I don’t plan menus, life is stressful.

Okay, okay, weekly menu planning is not the only factor, or even the most important one, but all other things being equal, an organized meal plan for the week makes my life much easier and the dinner prep hour totally stress-free.

Maybe you know exactly what I mean. If you’re reading this blog, it’s safe to assume you are at least interested in the concept of menu planning. It just takes discipline each week — or once a month, or every other week, to sit down and make a list of meals you plan to cook over the coming days.

To get started, you should have a printed meal chart in your hands. There’s this free weekly menu planner, or you might prefer the two-week printable meal planner. Or just use an ordinary piece of paper. Write the days of the week along the left-hand side with enough space left to fill in your meal ideas next to the days.

Look over your family calender and regular activities and jot down anything that will affect meals, on your menu plan. If you’re going to a potluck supper, having dinner guests, packing lunches, or anything else meal-related, note this in the appropriate squares.

Next, fill in the remaining days with meal ideas, combining family favorites with new recipes you’d like to try. Consider ingredients on hand in your pantry and freezer, as well as seasonal foods and grocery store sales, when compiling recipes for the weeks ahead.

At a loss for good meal ideas? Browse your cookbooks, flip through magazines, watch a couple cooking shows for ideas, check out online recipe sites, and peek at restaurant menus online.

If you still get stuck, check out Secret Recipes for Your Favorite Dishes — a two-volume restaurant recipe collection you can print instantly upon purchase.

Another idea is to do some bulk cooking and both plan your menu and cook for it ahead of time. Intrigued? Check out Once a Month Cooking to find out more about saving time in the kitchen.

Do you do weekly menu planning? What’s your strategy for staying organized, and where do you get your recipes?

Still overwhelmed by the need to come up with 21 different meals? Here’s an idea: print several blank weekly menu planner sheets to have on hand and jot down meal ideas as you think of them. Collect menu lists from magazines, TV shows and Facebook status updates (friends who post what they’re making or eating for dinner) throughout the week. Menu planning made easy!

I’ve definitely found that using a weekly menu planner makes my life easier. I am better prepared each day and stay organized throughout the week much more easily when I have a good menu plan, for which I’ve gone shopping and located recipes in advance. A recipe plan makes cooking ahead easier as well. If we’re using ground meat in two recipes, I brown it all at once and save half in a glass container in the fridge for use later in the week.

In the days of the week boxes, I pencil in family activities or dinner guests so I know at a glance what’s going on around meal times that week that might change how much food I plan to make or what type of meal is served. On days we’ll spend afternoon at the pool, I start a crockpot recipe in the morning or pre-stage my ingredients (such as chop all the vegetables, soak the rice, make sprouted grain dinner rolls the day before).

Do you use a weekly menu planner? What’s on the menu this week?

In an effort to get serious about my weekly dinner menus, I sat down with a blank menu and my cookbook, my laptop in front of me for researching ideas online.

The twenty-one blank squares for breakfast, lunch and dinner every day for the next three weeks stared back at me and my creativity and culinary knowledge seemed to disappear. This was more challenging — and a bit more intimidating — than I’d expected.

Now that I’ve done it for some time, I can’t imagine going back to the stress of NOT having my weekly dinner menus prepared ahead of time. My husband (who was a big advocate of this idea) and kids love it. It’s easier for me, since  plan my menus and grocery shop all at once and then don’t have to worry about what’s for dinner each day — it’s already planned.

Frugal homemakers and families will appreciate the simplicity of menu planning because it really saves money as there is no last-minute rushing to the grocery store and succumbing to impulse purchases, or eating out because there’s nothing in the house to prepare for the next meal.