There was a time when the phrases Taco Tuesday, Meatless Monday, and Fish Friday made me cringe. How boring, I’d think as I struggled every Sunday to plan out seven meals for the week, it leaves no room for creativity.
Then, I fell into some kind of kitchen burnout rut where making the deciding what’s for dinner became exhausting, so I adopted the day-of-the-week meal idea. At first, the idea was to try it for a little as a way to shake the kitchen fatigue.
Now, I’ve come to love Taco Monday and Pizza Tuesday. I have a meal for almost every day of the week and my husband and I have yet to get bored of it—in fact, he holds me to it.
It’s pasta night. The list has spoken.
I think a big part of why it’s so successful is because the dishes we rotate through are versatile. Meals like tacos, pizza, and pasta are easy to change up. You can swap out ingredients or side dishes to keep things interesting.
Why should you try it?
Ultimately, the top benefit is it takes the guesswork out of mealtime. In addition to that:
- Everyone in the house knows what’s for dinner—no questions asked.
- You know what to put on your grocery list—less food waste, better budgeting, you have what you need when you need it.
- You know ahead of time what you need to prep—no more forgetting to thaw the beef.
- You spend less time planning and more time cooking—(probably) reducing stress somewhere along the way.
- You don’t need to learn how to cook “whatever”—or any of its rage-inducing variations.
And if you’re not convinced it won’t be boring, you don’t need to do it every day of the week, you can simply use it to help with the busier ones.
Swap things out periodically or ditch them anytime you want if it’s not for you.
But if you’re looking for a way to take some of the stress out of mealtime, a day-of-the-week meal rotation may be worth a shot!