If you’ve followed me for a while, you know I talk a lot about my weekly and monthly meal planning. However, I’ve never really mentioned how it all starts–with my seasonal meal plan. This is a list of meals that I rotate throughout the season. Even with meal planning, if you’re not careful, you can get sucked into the Pinterest hole of endlessly searching for dinner ideas. The whole point of meal planning is to save time.
If your family is like mine, you have meals that you just love to eat. I don’t think we can go two weeks without eating jollof rice. What I did to save even more time when doing my weekly and monthly planning is to create a general meal list that I would start from. This is a list of about 20 dinner ideas that I rotate throughout the season.
Winter Meal List: December to February
Spring Meal List: March to May
Summer Meal List: June to August
Fall Meal List: September to November
Most of our meals stay the same throughout the year but there are some meals that are more seasonal. For example, in the fall and winter we eat more soups and in the summer we do more grilling. My seasonal meal list helps me account for those changes.
Once I have my meal list created, it’s easy to plug in meals for the week as opposed to starting from scratch with a Pinterest search. I use that list for three months before updating. During the month, I do like to throw in new recipes here and there but it’s usually just once or twice a month. Most of our meals come from our seasonal rotation.
Take a look at our spring meal list. I encourage you to create one that works for your family.
SPRING MEAL LIST
Assorted Meat Stew
- I cook this with any meat that we have at home (goat, shaki, cow feet, etc). When I cook my stews and soups I try to make enough for the week because this can be eaten with a lot of things– rice, swallow, beans, plantains, etc.
Baked Ziti (or any pasta)
- Baking tends to die down during the summer months but I’ll still use the oven occasionally during the spring. I usually serve this with a side of garlic bread and veggies.
Baked or Fried Fish
Chicken Alfredo
- My husband usually cooks this. Sometimes it’s chicken alfredo and sometimes it’s shrimp! It’s one of our go-to meals for simple nights.
Chicken Stew
- This is the same as the assorted meat stew. We just switch out the meats for chicken.
Curry Oxtail (or Goat)
- One of my favorite dishes to make! This is the recipe that I use. Serve with a side of plantain.
Efo Riro
- This is another family favorite. It’s a vegetable soup. I most commonly use spinach. We eat this with swallow, rice, or most recently, boiled plantain.
Egusi Soup
- This is a dish that we usually order from a local Nigerian restaurant or my hubby makes it. Serve with swallow.
Fish Stew
- This is similar to the assorted and chicken stew, just with fish. We commonly eat this with rice but if there’s some okra at home I’ll add that to it and eat this with swallow.
Fried Rice
- Nigerian fried rice is another dish that hubby makes. His fried rice is soooo good!!! But I’ll make it occasionally.
Gizdodo
- Gizdodo is a dish that is so easy to make. It’s pretty much a gizzard and plantain stir fry. We eat it alone or over rice.
Green Curry
- This is another hubby dish. My husband cooks on Wednesday nights so there are a couple meals in our rotation that are his go to dishes. This is one of them. I might be biased but I think his taste better than the one we order.
Jollof Rice
- The famous jollof rice. If you’ve been around any africans you’ve most likely heard of or even tried this dish. This is one that stays on our list year round.
Mac n Cheese
- I love making this dish. I use this simple two cheese recipe and normally serve it with chicken and cornbread.
Okra Soup
- We make okra soup two ways. Most times I just blend the okra and use it as a draw soup with my fish stew (or any stew that we have a home). Other times we eat it as a standalone and add assorted meats and seafood to the blend.
Sharwama
- I love chicken sharwama–especially when hubby makes it. You can find a recipe for it here. We normally eat this with some salad or fries.
Spaghetti and Meatballs
- Such a simple meal. Normally my go to when I’m not in the mood to cook.
Steak
- I normally leave steaks to wednesday nights for hubby. He usually serves with mashed potatoes and veggies.
Stewed Beans
- Recently, I’ve started making my beans in the slow cooker and I love it. I can throw all the ingredients in there in the morning and my dinner time we have our meal.
Stir Fry
- We do a variety of stir fries- it just depends on what we have at home. The basic ingredients is some type of protein and some type of veggie.
Tacos/Fajitas
- Taco Tuesdays! I like to use the Old El Paso taco kits and add tortilla chips and chip with some veggies (normally corn).
So there you have it. These 20+ meals are what I use to plan the spring months so I’m never starting from scratch. The only recipes I spend time looking for are new recipes that I incorporate once or twice a month to change things up. We also have leftover nights on Thursdays and every now and then we’ll eat out or order in. But with my meal list already created, planning dinners for the month is a breeze.
If you have any questions on seasonal meal planning feel free to leave them below or message me on Instagram.
