Meal Planning for a Crowd
In my experience, if cooking meals at home is your goal, nothing will define your success more than your ability to plan ahead. However some people find meal planning daunting. If you’re in the latter camp, Amanda Morgan’s job might give you a minor panic attack.
Amanda is the nutrition manager for a local public school district, which means she is the person in charge of menu planning for all Pre K-12 kids for the entire year. She does have a computer program to help her, but she also has a lot of strict guidelines to follow and thousands of diverse customers to please.
In April, the U.S. Department of Agriculture made updates to the school food guidelines that will, among other things, further restrict the inclusion of added sugar and sodium. But the complexity of the rules is nothing new. Since at least 2010, the guidelines have included both calorie minimums and maximums, mandates around the inclusion of whole grains, a formula for ensuring that vegetable offerings are diverse, and many other considerations. The goal is to ensure that America’s busiest restaurants (a.k.a. public schools) are serving food that supports growing bodies.
For Amanda, feeding little people is a task that defines her home life as well as her workday. I chatted with her recently about how she plans meals for the whole school district in addition to her own kids (ages 2 and 5).
When it comes to planning school meals for an entire year, where do you start?
I use a computer program that helps me meet the calorie guidelines by age, and I can use previous menus as a template. We do “offer versus serve,” which means kids have choices. But that makes it more complicated because I have to make sure there are multiple combinations of food that will meet the guidelines. I also have to plan everything nearly a year in advance—my menus are already set for the ‘24/’25 school year.
How much cooking do the schools do?
Each kitchen prepares food—we do what they call “speed scratch.” Some things are heat and serve, and others are assembled, but there are no raw meats brought in. When you have kids, that’s the kind of cooking many people do at home, anyway. As a working parent, I’m often combining things instead of making a whole meal from scratch.
It must take a lot of creativity to please your customers within the parameters of the guidelines.
We do various taste testing throughout the year to get student feedback. We might think something is exciting, but we need to know what kids think. I also look at what’s trendy in restaurants and try to adapt those items for schools, like serving “bowls” is trendy right now. We also want to make sure kids aren’t eating the same things for decades of their life. I think about the menus evolving as kids get older, so maybe for elementary they just have popcorn chicken. Then in the older grades, maybe we add a dip. Then for the high schoolers it might be spicy chicken.
How does your work experience translate to feeding your own kids?
It is different, though I do still stand behind giving free rein and letting them try different things—offering something familiar while pushing their boundaries a little bit. When my daughter was younger, I worked from home with her, so I had a lot of control over what was offered. Now that she is in school, the influence of other kids is stronger than I thought it would be. Overall, I think my kids eat really well. Everyone goes through phases. We all like different things at different times.
What kind of meals do you make at home?
I’m also very much a meal planner at home, so I take time to map out what we are doing every day and what we are eating. I include “fridge forage days” in my plan when we have multiple leftovers in play. I do quesadillas a lot. My husband Cole and the kids have been into stir frying together, which is great, except it creates a lot of dishes! We also like what we call “sandwich for a crowd.” I make it ahead of time and cut it into pieces. Before kids, I used to make the bread myself in a big, round loaf, and Cole and I would eat on the sandwich for the whole week. My tendency really is more toward baking—I love to bake when I have the time.
