How to you come up with ideas for dinner?

I find a couple of things I might like to use up from the freezer and then jump on pinterest.

I use Pinterest. I will search for recipes using whatever meat I want to cook with. I will do this over the weekend, and then pin them twice - once in my Dinner Ideas board but I also have a board called 'dinners this week'. The dinners this week board gets all the pins deleted after I have used them and I start over every week.

I tend to use a few favourite every day recipe books. Not fancy complicated things just staples with a twist, or a new version of something, along side some standard choices we like.

I use pinterest as well.  I will note that I usually search for something like, "Quick weeknight dinners" because my family seems to be ravenous right when I come home.  

Then around Thursday or Friday, I look at that folder and see what our schedule looks like...pick out a few meals and add the ingredients to my shopping list.  

Do you own an instant pot?  Game changer for me.  

I made One Skillet Chicken w/ Lemon Garlic Sauce  a few nights ago

And I made Potato Soup in the Instant Pot yesterday.  It was good.  

It's the most stressful part of my day, coming up with dinner ideas!

I usually purchase the main protein from what is on sale at either the grocery store or butcher's shop.

I have been cooking since I've been 8 years old (3-gen home) and have many cookbooks.  I rarely use the internet to get recipes to cook.

I first think about what flavors/textures I'm craving. If nothing really jumps out, I go to a blog called Half Baked Harvest. It comes through in a Bloglovin' digest on Sunday with a week of meals, along with other stuff. I peruse that Sunday morning over coffee and pin stuff that interests me. I like this blog because she uses flavors and ingredients that appeal to me, and the recipes aren't overly fiddly. She also has recipes for Instant Pot.

I like budget bytes too.. the recipes are simple and don't take a million ingredients.. and I have been happy with the dozen things I have tried.

Lately I've had good luck with the recipes on Skinny Taste and Barefoot Contessa (Ina Garten).

One thing I did years ago is create a Word document of favorite meals. I have the meal ideas grouped by protein type.

It has our family favorites and on some recipes I tag out what specific items I need on hand to make it.

So for instance under Ground Beef I list everything from albondigas soup (Mexican meatball soup), to spaghetti to Korean beef. All those three I know what I need to have on hand to make, but it's a memory jar 'okay I've got the veggies for the soup, I'll make that"

Under Pork tenderloin, I do the same, but for a specific pork tenderloin recipe we love I tag out that I'll need snow peas/Chile sauce and red peppers to make it.


This helps me a lot when meal planning, I usually have a copy handy in the kitchen. Its easy to scan and reference if I'm stuck for dinner.

Another thing I love is I follow a Homemade Mexican food group on Facebook. People are always sharing what they are having for dinner and it's stuff I would cook, as that's our style of eating. Someone posts that they are having 'fideo con queso and frijoles on the side' gets me thinking 'ah that's a good idea!' You all probably have no idea what that is, lol. You can find a group of cooks that are similar to your tastes, your region of cooking or ethnicity. I hope I'm making sense. Find YOUR comfort food and look for your group.

Even for those of us that love to cook, the daily drudge of making dinner every night gets old quickly.

I have a rough plan for the week and am lucky to have a family that loves leftovers. DD is heating a tortilla right now to use leftover Korean beef taco meat from Saturday night for her breakfast. 

My plan is to mix up protein and starches for the week so it might look like this one week:

• Day 1 beef + rice
• Day 2 chicken + pasta
• Day 3 pork + potatoes
• Day 4 fish + rice 

Beef + rice can be anything from a Chinese or Thai flavored vegetable heavy stir-fry to Mediterranean flavored stuffed vegetables.

Chicken + pasta could be a lemon/garlic broth with spinach & asparagus or a baked cacciatore or skillet puttanesca.

Pork + potatoes might be a pork tenderloin with roast potatoes & vegetables or ground pork in a unstuffed cabbage roll casserole.

Fish + rice might be an Indian flavored kedgeree or simple grilled salmon & vegetables with steamed rice.

I have a chalkboard in the kitchen and write the next four meals I'm making so I don't get irritated by the "what's for dinner?" question. Right now it says Korean tacos, burgers, pasta chicken lemon artichoke and roast vegetables quinoa, so I'm halfway through. At least one night will be leftovers and cleaning out the fridge and I'll start thinking about the next four meals before grocery shopping.

If I'm looking for something different, I do a Pinterest or Google search with my ingredients, flip through a cookbook or magazine. Although I might roast or bake something that takes a bit more time, I really gravitate to fast cooking meals so grill and saute a lot. I haven't touched the crockpot in 4-5 years and don't own an IP.

ETA I've used so many recipes from Damn Delicious that I often check her out first when looking for new ideas.