If you're anything like me, you started out on Pinterest with a few general boards. Food. Drinks. Style.
I have been using Pinterest since it started and I now have literally thousands of pins and quite a few more boards than I started with.
Let's just ignore the fact that I am nowhere near as crafty or stylish as my boards suggest so the majority of those pins will never be put to good use!
Back when Google Reader was still in existence I didn't use Pinterest much for meal planning. Reader had a search feature, so I would just dig through the recipes there. When Google shut their reader down I realized I needed to save all those recipes somewhere...
Back to Pinterest.
The problem was the lack of a decent search feature. Find what you pinned depends entirely on finding the exact phrase you used in the caption. To counteract this, I sub-divided my food boards into Mains, sides, desserts, etc. This allowed me to look through a smaller batch of pins to find what I was looking for. Since I have a very visual memory, this works well for me. I'll usually recognize the pin I'm looking for with just a bit of skimming.
Next I added a secret board called Dinner Favorites. This is where I pulled all my tried and true recipes into one place. When I make something new that is a hit with the family, I re-pin it to this board. The only reason I used a secret board was to keep the re-pins from clogging the feed. I originally thought I might use it as an online menu, and change the pins from week to week. In the end, it's easier to keep everything together in one places.
When I sit down to meal plan I can pop back and forth between the dinner favorites board and the board of things I want to try. This allows me to keep a good balance between old and new recipes so I'm not too stressed by all unfamiliar dishes during a busy week.
What are your favorite meal planning tips?
