It happens to the best of us. Somehow, every week’s meal plan starts to feel eerily similar. Once you find those tried and true recipes, it’s a little too easy to repeat them just a bit too often. And before it, you’re wondering how to get out of the dinner rut.
It’s not bad to have some recipes on repeat. In fact, it’s a great way to get dinner on the table fast because you don’t even have to look at a recipe. But if you’re feeling bored (or worse, dreading dinnertime), that’s when it’s time to try something new.
Here are my top tips for breaking out of a dinner rut!
How to Get Out of a Dinner Rut
1. Try themed days, but make sure you do a different variation each week
It may seem counterintuitive, but adding some structure to your weekly meals can actually give you more room to experiment. It doesn’t necessarily have to alliterate, though that can be fun. Here are some different theme categories to consider:
- Type of meal: Casserole, pizza, pasta, tacos, soup, salad, bowls – whatever your family enjoys! Feel free to rotate seasonally too. Soups may be better in winter and salads in summer. Pizza can be extra special during football season. Bowls are especially great when kids go through pickier seasons.
- Cooking method or kitchen equipment: Roast, slow cooker, air fryer, instant pot, sheet pan, no cook – the sky’s the limit! If there’s something in your kitchen you wish you used more, this is a great way to experiment and find some good recipes for it.
- Cuisine: American, British, Mexican, Asian (Chinese, Japanese, Indian, etc.), Italian, German, African, etc. It can also be fun to rotate this category from time to time, especially if your kids are learning about a part of the world in school or you’re planning a trip!
- Dietary restriction: Meatless/vegetarian/vegan, pescatarian, kosher, low carb/keto, gluten-free, or any dietary restriction you’ve been considering. It’s a great way to try out a new approach to food, see if the dietary change improves your health, and experiment with new recipes. For our family, observing the tradition Christian abstinence from meat on Fridays has encouraged us to eat fish in a lot of new ways.
- Specific ingredient category: Is there something you want to eat more of, whether for health benefits, budget considerations, or other reasons? If you want to eat more veggies, seasonal foods, legumes, canned fish, offal, or any other ingredient category, pick one day a week to include it. In our house, we have a weekly (hidden) liver night!
2. Commit to one experimental new meal each week (or every other week)
You don’t have to add a bunch of new recipes to the family menu all at once. That can actually be very overwhelming. It can even lead to kitchen burn-out because new recipes can be harder and take longer to make.
Instead, just make one new recipe each week, or even every other week. Over the course of a few months, you’ll discover a dozen or so new recipes. And, hopefully, some of those will become new favorites that will work their way into the dinner routine!
3. Prioritize the proteins and produce on sale each week
One thing that keeps our family’s meal plan from growing stale is that we always prioritize whatever real food is on sale, especially meat and protein. And usually, those sales aren’t the same week to week.
One week, we might be eating a lot of chicken, then pork the next, then beef the following week. The sides or other ingredients in the meal often depend on the produce sales (or what’s growing in our garden). This naturally creates a lot of variety in our meals and keeps our food budget to a minimum!
However, our meals aren’t perfectly wedded to the sales. Sometimes I’ll end up cooking and freezing a lot of the meat (as shredded chicken or shredded pork) that was on sale rather than serving it for dinner, then using stuff from the freezer for the meals that week. It’s flexible, forgiving, and works wonderfully for our family.
4. Buy an ingredient you’ve never cooked with before (or grow it in the garden)
There’s nothing like a new ingredient to inspire me in the kitchen! This year, I’m growing some Swiss Chard and Chinese Broccoli in my garden, which were both new ingredients for our family. We also have started milling our own grains, so wheatberries are now a grain option in our kitchen. It has been so much fun to experiment with these new ingredients and find creative ways to work them into our diets.
Canned fish (especially canned mackerel and sardines) is also a relatively new incorporation in our meals plans and it has been a great way to get lots of healthy omega-3 fats for less money. A few years ago we also discovered new ways to cook cabbage and zucchini (things we previously weren’t huge fans of) that we really enjoyed, so we’re still having fun finding ways to cook them too.
It’s great to increase the variety in your diet. New foods often mean new nutrients (or at least nutrients in new combinations or quantities) so next time you’re shopping, keep an eye out for things you don’t normally buy. Rather than impulse-buying it without a plan, finish your trip as normal, then go home and research the new food. Once you find a way to use it, add it to your meal plan and shopping list!
5. Swap favorite recipes with a friend (or two!)
If you have a friend in a similar stage of life, swap your favorite recipes with one another! Everyone has their own go-to meals that work with their lifestyle, so if you know someone with a similar lifestyle to yours, why not trade recipes?
Even better, host a recipe swap party with a bunch of friends! You can set a theme (30 minute meals, one-pot recipes, sheet pan dinners, etc.) or not, whatever works best for you. Have everyone make their favorite meal, then bring it and the recipe. After a potluck dinner, everyone gets to take home a bunch of new recipes to add to their rotation. And since you’ve tasted the end result, you already know you’ll like it!
What are your favorite ways to get out of a dinner rut? Share your tips in the comments below!
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