• Variety is a key ingredient to a good menu.dinner dish image by Maria Brzostowska from Fotolia.com
  
  It doesn't matter whether you are having just family meals, a weekend reunion or a banquet dinner; the principles behind menu planning are essentially the same. Sitting down and charting out a menu seems time-consuming, but the result is an organized plan that will save you time--and probably money--in the long run.
  
  

Nutritional Balance

• Check for nutritional balance and variety in the protein, vegetable and starch categories. For a weekly menu, don't serve red meat more than twice a week, and try to mix in wild rice, brown rice, quinoa or polenta, instead of falling back on white rice and potatoes as a side. Same goes for vegetables; don't fall into a rut of frozen carrots and peas for several meals a week. Look for seasonal choices at the market, and work that into your menu over the course of the week. Fresh asparagus or corn on the cob will not take any longer to cook than frozen veggies and will taste much better.
  
  

Common Ingredients

• Use common ingredients. If the menu is top heavy with specialty items or contains several ingredients you will never use again, consider a different meal, or look to see if substitutions exist. One dish with an extra condiment or high-end spice is plenty. You may want to look at your condiment shelf and choose a meal based on something you already have that never gets used, like that fish sauce you bought two months ago for the Thai recipe.
  
  

Vary Cooking Techniques

• Change up the routine by utilizing different cooking techniques for the meals. Is every meal on your menu a combination of boiling and roasting? Try steaming the vegetables or stir-frying them instead. Fire up the grill during good weather, or poach the fish instead of frying it. Using varied techniques keeps meals from become dull and predictable.
  
  

Prep Time

• Keep in mind the time it takes to prepare certain foods, and make simple dishes on the more hectic days of the week. If Wednesday night is nuts for everyone, make that leftover night, and clean out the fridge from the previous two or three nights' meals. Try out a new dish on a day when you can enjoy working out the new preparation.