Every few months I create a weekly meal plan that features recipes on the Cooking for Kids site.

Each meal plan has it’s own ‘strategy’ so that you can find the style that’s right for you.

For this week’s meal plan, I focused on using leftovers to make a different meal later in the week. For the recipes that do not involve leftovers, I tried to keep the ingredients down to a minimum.

If you are cooking for a large family, or have hungry teenagers, I suggest taking advantage of buy one get free sales on meat and chicken. Instead of relying on leftovers, go ahead and cook the extra meat, and consider that to be your leftovers for the next recipe later on in the week.

1. Sunday: Slow Cooker Chicken

Items Needed: 1 or 2 whole chickens, carrots, celery, onions, fresh rosemary

Grab extras of each, so you can use them again on Tuesday night. Leftover chicken from this recipe will be used for Tuesday’s chicken and dumplings.

2. Monday: Slow Cooker Lasagna

Items Needed: Lasagna noodles, marinara sauce, ground beef, cottage cheese, shredded cheddar cheese blend, mushrooms, Italian seasoning

Leftover ground beef from this recipe will be used for Wednesday‘s calzones. Be sure to set aside the extra ground beef for the calzones before adding the seasoning for the lasagna meat sauce.

3. Tuesday: Chicken and dumplings, with leftover chicken from Sunday’s dinner

Items Needed: Biscuit dough and chicken stock

Items to have on hand : Cooked chicken, celery, onions, and rosemary (all leftover or extras from Sunday)

4. Wednesday: Calzones, with leftover ground beef from Monday’s lasagna.

Items to have on hand: Browned ground beef, dough, cheese, pizza sauce

5. Thursday: Grilled Steaks and potatoes

Items to purchase: Steaks (or thaw out ones that you have on hand in the freezer), baked potatoes, and ready to eat salad.

Items to have on hand: Your favorite steak seasoning, salad dressing and croutons if desired.

Leftover or extra steak from this recipe will be used for Saturday’s steak fajitas.

6. Friday: Fish Filets and Shrimp Cocktail

Items to purchase: Your favorite fish filets, and ready to eat shrimp.

Items to have on hand: Cocktail sauce, seafood seasoning, dried herbs.

Season fish filets and then bake or grill according to directions on package. Place cocktail sauce in tall glass (wine glasses are perfect), and place shrimp around the rim as they do in restaurants. Place glass on small plate, and line up the rest of the shrimp around the glass rim. Kids love something out of the ordinary!

7. Saturday: Steak fajitas, with leftover steak from Thursday

Items Needed: Flour tortillas, lime juice, bell pepper and onion stir fry, sour cream, cilantro, and fajita seasoning if desired.

Heat steak with bell pepper and onion stir fry while tortillas are warming in the oven. Combine and add lime juice, sour cream, and cilantro if desired.

The recipes above that are featured on Cooking for Kids can be found by clicking on the Cooking for Kids link below.