Menu Planning
There are many details that go into planning exciting and compliant K-12 menus. These resources, examples, and tools provide insights, innovative thinking, best practices, and balance to build effective School Nutrition menus that make sense and drive participation.
Menu Planning Guide:
This tool is designed to help assist local School Food Authorities (SFA) when planning menus.
Considerations For Designing Culinary-Focused Menus:
- Attractive and colorful serving line presentation
- Incorporates flavors, textures, trends, and seasonality
- Cross-utilizes ingredients to streamline menu planning and production
- Balances convenience menu items, scratch cooking, and speed scratch techniques
- Highlights Harvest of the Month and locally sourced foods
- Adapts menus for a range of organizational structures, equipment, and culinary skills
- Offers diverse vegetarian options to suit students’ tastes
- Develops balanced menu combinations based on data and student feedback
- Includes toppings and condiments that complete meals and increase customer satisfaction
Published Menus Created To:
- Set your meals apart and grab the attention of your customers
- Break down the item
- Carefully crafted name of the dish
- Highlight the main ingredients/preparation
- Anything that makes the entrée special
- Local, seasonal, and Harvest of the Month
- House-made/from scratch
- Flavors
- Descriptive wording
- Create excitement about the meals you serve
Menu Planning Matrix:
The base lunch menu was developed to help School Nutrition Professionals design appealing, customized, weekly menus using Fueling Georgia’s Future Culinary recipes that meet the USDA Food and Nutrition Service nutrition standards for the school breakfast and lunch programs.
The base lunch menu includes a sample weekly menu and a menu template to help plan menus for programs. It offers entrée choices that consist of a 2 oz equivalent of meat or meat alternate and a 2 oz equivalent of grain component. Condiments and/or toppings are also provided to complement the entrée options. The vegetable and fruit components consist of ½ cup servings, allowing for two choices per day and vegetable sub-groups for the week.
Menu planners are encouraged to use the sample menus for inspiration and adjust program menus to meet meal pattern requirements and student preferences.
