Summertime really is a cook’s playground and this week’s 7 Day menu planner for Summer Meals is full of fun. There’s grilled fruit, a hearty salad, Friday night burgers and decadent ribeyes on Sunday. The meals are colorful and pretty and any one of them could be kept casual for family or dressed up for dinner party guests. It’s all your call. Because there are so many vegetable and fruit options in the summer, feel free to swap and make substitutions based on what you can pick up at your local grocery store or farmer’s market. If it’s delicious and in season, it will be delicious in whatever meal you’re making.
Don’t forget to “Grab Your Shopping List” by clicking the button above. I’ve listed everything so that you can be sure you have all you need.
If you like planning your meals for week, you might also like to check out other weekly menu planners, including a 7-day plan for your air fryer or another 7 -day plan for your pressure cooker (or Instant Pot®). You can find all the Weekly Menu Planners here.
Monday: Pasta Primavera
This classic pasta dish is made with a colorful array of sautéed vegetables in a light Parmesan lemon sauce. Primavera, actually means “springtime” in Italian but you can use any vegetables found in the spring and early summer. This quick and easy dinner may have a long ingredient list, but it can still be served up in about 30 minutes.
Tuesday: Grilled Panzanella Salad
You could make a meal out of this salad alone, or add a chicken breast – marinated and grilled or air-fried or breaded and pan-fried – or a simple salmon fillet. Either way, it is one of my favorite summer salads. When it’s summertime and you can grill the bread, it adds flavor and grill marks for added beauty points. The great thing about this salad is that it can sit for longer than most salads – it just gets better as the bread absorbs the vinaigrette.
Wednesday: Grilled Pork Chops with Peach BBQ Sauce
This delicious meal off the grill would go nicely with a side salad with perhaps some grilled peaches tossed in. The grocery list includes a range for the peaches (4 to 8) so that you can choose to buy more if you want to add the grilled peaches to the menu. It’s up to you, but if you find delicious peaches, buy 8. You can always have them in the morning with some granola.
Thursday: Summer Ale Chicken with Baby Potatoes and Summer Corn
This is a great one-pan meal with one of my all-time favorite spice rubs flavoring the chicken perfectly. Make a big batch of the rub and put it on everything you want to grill or roast. It works on steak and pork just as well as it does on chicken.
Friday: Bourbon Bacon Burgers and Cucumber Salad with Creamy Vidalia Onion Dressing
It’s Friday night! Have a burger, but not just any burger… this bourbon bacon burger is over the top good and only made better with a refreshing side of cucumber salad.
Saturday: Grilled Huli Huli Chicken with Basmati Rice and Grilled Vegetable
Take a few hours on Saturday to marinate this delicious chicken in the pineapple juice – soy marinade. Then, grill it outside and serve it over basmati rice along with any grilled vegetable you like. A few spears of grilled pineapple would be nice too.
Sunday: Smoke Spiced Grilled Ribeye with Baked Potatoes and Corn on the Cob
This steak is a meat-lovers dream. It’s full of flavor and can stand alone, or top it with a compound butter like this Gorgonzola Shallot Butter. As for the baked potato and corn on the cob, you can cook these any way you like. Here are 5 ways to grill corn.
Have you ever figured out how much you would have to spend, just to shop for your grocery list? And that is only for one week! We are in a recession here and I cringe just to think about the gasoline I use to get to the store.
You cannot buy 1/2 cup of wine. You have to buy the bottle. What a waste, if you are not a wine drinker.
I am a widow, live by myself, and am using my retirement money to feed myself and my dog. This weekly menu seems quite costly to me. And it sounds real yummy. If you can afford it….more power to you. Enjoy.
We realize things are tough for everyone these days, but this weekly menu is actually very budget friendly. The total cost of this grocery list is approximately $210 for 7 meals for 4 people. That is assuming you don’t have any of the pantry ingredients on hand. This comes to an average of $30.00 per meal or $7.50 per person, per meal. All the serving sizes for the recipes can be adjusted so you can adjust the amount for your needs, or have leftovers for another meal. Of course, you can always omit or substitute any of the ingredients in the recipes. You can also omit or substitute the wine in a recipe or purchase a non-alcoholic cooking wine for about $4.50 a bottle, which you can keep on hand for cooking.
Why do you show only curtain recipes
This menu planner is a collection of a week’s worth of recipes that are great in the summer months. You can browse all of Meredith’s recipes by clicking on the recipe tab and use the filters to narrow down your search.