Weekly Menu Planner
One question: which days do you serve a day menu? Then fill in your week. The tool works out by itself when each dish has to be started — a braise begins the day before — and says straight away when you put the same thing on the table two days running, or when a day has no vegetarian choice. Print the door sheet for your guests and the kitchen sheet for the brigade.
How it works
- 1
Tick the days you serve a day menu
That is the only question up front, and everything hangs off it. A place that runs a day menu Monday to Friday cooks a completely different week from one that opens on Saturday too — and it is exactly why Tuesday's stew has to start on a Monday nobody is in the building.
- 2
Fill in your week: dish, what it is built on, how it cooks
One line per day and per course. The base and the cooking method are two clicks and they do all the arithmetic: the prep day comes out of them, and so does whether your week is repeating itself.
- 3
Read what the tool works out
When each dish has to be started, and whether that day is a day you are actually cooking. Plus: the same base two days running, three times in one week, a day with no vegetarian main, the same dish twice, and the slots still empty.
- 4
Print the two sheets
The door sheet is what your guest reads: the week, day by day, with prices. The kitchen sheet is what the brigade keeps: per day what goes out and what already has to be started for later in the week, with a box to tick off.
When does which dish have to start?
The prep day is not typed but derived from the cooking method. This is the table the tool reckons with — the conservative kitchen figures, not the theoretical minimum: a braise started on the morning of service is a braise nobody tasted before the first order landed.
| Starts | Cooking methods | Why |
|---|---|---|
| The same day | Served cold · Pan-cooked · Grilled · Oven-cooked · Steamed or poached | Quick work that comes off the pan or the grill: you make it on the day itself, in that morning's mise en place. |
| The day before | Braised · Drawn (stock or soup) | Anything that needs time to draw or to relax. A braise and a stock are better the day after than the day itself — and on the day itself they are simply not ready. |
| Two days before | Low and slow · Marinated or cured | Marinating, curing and long cooking at low temperature. These are the dishes that quietly fall off the card, because nobody remembered in time that they were already on it. |
The words on this sheet
Five terms, the way a kitchen uses them.
- Day menu
- A set menu that runs for one day only, usually at a fixed price and usually at lunch. Across much of Europe it is the heart of the business: menú del día, plat du jour, denní menu, dagens lunch, prato do dia.
- Weekly menu
- The five, six or seven day menus of one week together, as a single document. It is the sheet that hangs on the door and the sheet the kitchen buys and preps its week from.
- Base
- What the dish is built on — beef, pork, poultry, fish, vegetables. It is the one property a guest notices when they eat the same thing three times a week, however differently each version is named.
- Cooking method
- How the dish cooks: pan, grill, oven, steamed, braised, drawn, marinated, low and slow. It decides not only the flavour but also when the dish has to be started.
- Prep day
- The day a dish has to begin in order to be ready on the day it is served. For most dishes that is the same day; for a braise the day before, for a marinade two. If that day falls outside your week, in practice the dish does not happen.
Frequently asked questions
Is this free?
Yes, completely free, with no account and no installation. You fill it in and print straight from your browser. Everything stays in your own browser.
Why does the tool ask for the base and the cooking method?
Because those are the two things everything follows from. The cooking method gives you the day the dish has to be started. The base tells you whether your week is repeating itself — and the guest who eats here every Tuesday AND every Thursday is exactly the one who notices. The name of the dish says nothing about it: 'chicken breast with mash' and 'roast chicken' are chicken twice.
What does the amber or red chip behind a dish mean?
It is the day that dish has to be started. Amber means: a different day from the service day, so put it in your mise en place. Red means: you serve no day menu that day, so in practice nobody is there to make it. That is the quietest way a dish falls off the card.
Does there have to be a vegetarian dish every day?
Not by law, and the tool does not decide it for you either — you can switch the check off. But on a fixed day menu there is no second choice: whoever does not eat meat eats nothing. That is why the sheet says so when a day has no vegetarian main at all.
Why are there no quantities or cost prices in it?
Because this sheet is about the week, not about the figures. What a dish costs you work out with the free recipe calculator, how much of it to make with the mise-en-place list. This sheet answers the question that comes before those: what is on which day, and when does it have to start?
This is a house document, not a statement of law. What has to be declared about a dish, how a price must be displayed and which allergen information is compulsory differ per country — put those in your own procedures and on your allergen chart.