There was a time when people used to prepare simple meals, i.e. sandwiches and snacks and guests would love them because the key focus was to get together, and eating something during that time wasn’t that important. These days, on the other hand, everything has changed. We are not talking about corporate dinners and officer Christmas parties where only important people are invited but even if you plan a housewarming party or dinner party at home, you will ask your guests to suggest what they would like to eat and if they are allergic to something so you can prepare something different for them. When creating meals and organizing meals for events is important, so is the planning for the meals.

Tips for Creating a Menu for a Party:

A menu planner enables you to plan your meals, like you plan your vacations, budget, other things, etc. By planning a menu, you can enjoy a healthy life. You can feed your family a healthy diet without wasting time thinking about the breakfast, lunch, and dinner of the day. With the help of it, you can create a plan for each meal of the day what you will eat, and what you will provide to your family. In this way, you don’t have to think too much about what you have to buy from the market daily. You can enlist all the items in the menu planner that you will buy for a week or month to prepare the meals.

Meanwhile, having a plan will streamline your grocery shopping. In this way, you can save time money, and effort. Whenever you create a menu planner, keep in mind that it should be flexible enough to manage any changes that can happen unpredictably. Fill your planner with delicious and healthy food to enjoy a healthy life. Take care of the calories that you will take in a day.

Free Menu Planner Templates:

Download these 10 Free Menu Planner Templates in MS Word Format to assist you in preparing your own Menu Planner easily.

Here we have listed some tips that you can use to create a menu for a party:

Select a Budget:

For a home party, i.e. birthday celebration or housewarming party, the most important thing is to set a specific budget and never go overboard with the set limit of expenses. You will be amazed to see how many people make the mistake of not deciding any budget for the party and once it’s all done, they realize how much they have spent on just a dinner. This is why you need to think of the budget first. It doesn’t mean you have a small or huge budget, but the important thing is to set a specific budget and then work out your meal arrangements while staying within the limits.

Confirm the Number of Guests:

Once you have decided how much you want to spend on the meals for a home party, the next step is to check how many guests you are going to invite to your party. A better approach is to create a list of the guests who have confirmed their presence at the party, along with the number of people or children they will come with. This way you can see exactly how many guests will arrive and you can prepare meals for them conveniently. Another benefit of creating a list of guests is that you can also ask for specific foods that guests are allergic to so you can make alternate meals for them.

Create a Timeline:

Whether you have a full-time job or you stay at home, if you are going to arrange a dinner party, it’s going to take more time than you can think of. A wise decision is to make a timeline of all the steps that you need to take from the point where you decide to have a party to where the last guest leaves your house after the party. This entire duration should be converted into a timeline i.e. 1 week before the party, you go out and buy groceries, 2 days before the party you buy meat and fish, 1 day before the meal you marinate the meat, and 12 hours before the party, you prepare the dessert and put beverages in the freezer.

Preparing a Menu Checklist:

If you ask any professional event planner about how they manage so many tasks regularly, most of them will say it’s because they keep a checklist. Keeping a checklist can be a great help to your event planning, even if you are in charge of only the meals. Don’t think of preparing meals as a task that can be done a few hours before the event, but a chef will tell you that for a special event, i.e. office holiday dinner or corporate dinner, the meal preparation starts weeks before the actual day. During this time, you will perform lots of tasks and it’s possible to forget one or two things to avoid that, create a checklist, and as soon as you complete a task, check it off on the list.

Below we have posted some free and wonderful menu planner templates. All of these templates are easily editable and modifiable. These templates are created by keeping the needs of the users in mind. So hurry up..! and download them, by just clicking on the download button.