Meal Planning With Build A Menu {Giveaway!}
Meal planning has never been my greatest strength. It’s probably one of my least-favorite homemaking tasks. So, when I heard about Build A Menu I couldn’t wait to try it out!
Build A Menu to the Rescue
I was especially excited when I saw that Build A Menu also has a Trim Healthy Mama option. That was one of the things I was struggling with–not just planning regular meals, but specifically planning Trim Healthy Mama-friendly meals. Build A Menu has really been a life-saver for my meal planning dilemma!
I’ve been using Build A Menu for about a month now, and we have found so many new family favorites!
We loved the Broccoli Quiche, the Kale and Cabbage Stir-Fry (shown above), the Shepherd’s Pie, and the Cheddar Herb Drop Biscuits (shown below). And all of these are Trim Healthy Mama-friendly!
The delicious Cheddar Herb Drop Biscuits contain coconut flour and they’re a THM–S. They were so easy to make, and everyone really liked them.
Build a Menu With These 3 Simple Steps:
- Choose your favorite grocery store (Walmart, Safeway, Aldi, etc.–if you don’t see your grocery store listed, you can pick “any grocery store”)
- In Step 2, you choose from the Build A Menu recipes to create your menu. I usually pick from the Trim Healthy Mama recipes, but sometimes I’ll choose another category for my children. You can pick from several categories as you make your menu.
- In Step 3, you print your shopping list and recipes. Build A Menu does all the work of putting together the shopping list and compiling your recipes for you. They also calculate about how much your menu will cost!
Two of My Favorite Features
Build A Menu rotates their recipes, so each week there are different recipes to choose from. But if you tried something and really liked it, you can add it to your “favorites,” and then it’s available to you all the time! I use this feature regularly.
Another favorite feature is the option to add your own recipes. I’ve added several recipes that I use on a regular basis that I wanted to have on my weekly menu. For instance, we regularly have scrambled eggs for breakfast. We get eggs from my parents, so we usually have a large supply of them. It’s easy for my girls to make, and it’s nourishing. So, I typed in a quick and simple scrambled egg “recipe.” Now I can include it on my weekly menu. It’s a pretty simple feature to use, especially once you’ve done the initial work of typing it in.
But Does It Work for Large Families?
This was one of the questions I had. And the answer is yes! Our family is on the smaller side of “large” with seven people. Many of the recipes list the serving size as 4-6. Usually I aim for at least 8-10 servings, to make sure there’s enough for everyone with a decent-sized serving. So, what I do is I select the recipes that serve 4-6 twice. When you select them twice, it will add the doubled amount of ingredients to the total cost, and it will also add the doubled ingredients to your shopping list. This has worked out perfectly for us. Occasionally there are recipes available that serve 8-10, but the Trim Healthy Mama ones usually are for 4-6.
Plan a Menu, Help a Child
And in case I needed one more reason to love Build A Menu, here’s one more. For every member who joins their site, they donate to one of their selected orphan care charities. And not just once, but every single month that member stays with them! And, you get to select from a list of charities where you’d like your donation to go. I love this! Lisa and Karee, the Build A Menu founders, have 5 adopted children between them, so they really have a heart for orphans.
The Giveaway
Would you like a chance to try out Build A Menu? Today I’m excited to be giving away a FREE 6 month Classic Membership, with the bonus Done-4-U plan! (The Done-4-U plan is just what it sounds like–every week they send you a menu plan and shopping list that’s already done!)
If you’d like to try out Build A Menu for free, simply enter the giveaway via the Rafflecopter form below. If you don’t want to wait for the giveaway, you can get your own membership here!
Disclosure: I received a free Build A Menu membership for review purposes. The opinions expressed here are my own. This post contains my affiliate links. Your support is a huge blessing to our family–thank you!
I would love to try this Build A Menu because I too hate menu planning… not too crazy about cooking either… so it needs to be simple if I am going to get on the Trim Healthy Mama plan…. I’m afraid I’ll get overwhelmed with the constant cooking of real meals. the males in my family don’t like to try things but my daughter has been pleading with me to get us to eat more healthily. I was a picky eater as a child so food has never been important to me… hence the avoidance of cooking. HELP!
Barbara, I found the Build a Menu plan to be very helpful, especially where THM meals are concerned. They do all the work of planning meals for you! 🙂
Menu planning is SUCH a struggle for me. I dont really enjoy cooking to begin with, so finding recipes and planning ingredients is always a bit stressful. I would love to try this!
I enjoy meal planning, and the only shopping I enjoy is grocery shopping, but planning a weekly menu takes more time than I really have to give. On top of that, I search out coupons at target.com, use their Cartwheel app, and also look for coupons at coupons.com. It takes a lot of time! I would love to have something that helps me get it done more quickly. Thanks for being the guinea pig, Joy! 🙂
Menu planning is a bit of a struggle because I always over think it. I'm always looking at new recipes to try and it overwhelms me.
yemidotbrownatyahoodotcom
I seriously struggle with menu building! It's probably my most dreaded and hated task as a homemaker. We follow THM and I would love to win this!
Rebecca
5langfordatcomcastdotnet
It's great when I do it, but I'm terrible at following thru!
I like the planning aspect – it's the implementation that gets me.
AND we now have some dietary restrictions, so that is making it quite a challenge.
Oops I didn't answer the question 🙁 I am terrible at menu planning … and I mean terrible. So this looks really helpful especially with the THM compatability!
Wow this looks really helpful!
It's a struggle for me because my tastes usually change day by day and I may no longer want the food I prepared the night before.
This sounds like a really neat system to try. I like how it will calculate the quantities for you. Sometimes, when I shop I don't quite buy enough – even though I think I've figured it right.