May Dinner Menu Ideas

Use the seasonal May Dinner Menu Ideas listed below as inspiration and a starting point for your own family menus – simple, whole foods everyone enjoys.

Not sure why to menu plan? Check out all the great reasons here!

Sweet May. The promise of warmer weather, the start of grilling season (at least up north where we are…), and hopefully fresh garden lettuce is coming on strong.

There are quite a few fresh seasonal choices for May including asparagus, spinach, and green onions (find more seasonal foods for May here).

This month also finds us working hard to use up last year’s food from the freezer so we have room for the new season’s preserved food (consider this your reminder to defrost your freezer now, too, to be ready for the new season!).

May is also a busy time of life for many of us (holidays, end of school, etc.) so you’ll find a lot of quick meal ideas this month, too, with planned leftovers in addition to a dessert idea perfect for spring.

I hope this list of dinner menu ideas helps you in planning your family’s meals for May!

Week 1

Savory Tomato Seafood Stew, green salad, Easy French Baguettes (freeze one loaf after baking for next week)

Rotisserie-Style Slow Cooker Spiced Whole Chicken, cabbage-carrot slaw with spicy vinaigrette

Spicy Noodle Salad with Asparagus, grilled pork chops with Rhubarb Chutney (so good together!)

Chicken-Bean Haystacks: freezer beans cooked with chili-powdered seasoned tomato sauce over tortilla chips topped with: shredded leftover chicken, shredded lettuce & cheese, chopped onions, salsa and guacamole and/or sour cream

Slow Cooker Sweet Chili Chicken & Vegetables served over noodles or rice

Week 2

Spring Asparagus Quiche, Broccoli Slaw with Cranberries & Feta (or cabbage slaw)

Quick Parmesan-Herb Crusted Baked Fish, Easy French Baguettes (made the week before & frozen) green salad with balsamic vinaigrette

Grilled sausages, grilled asparagus, onions & sweet peppers, leftover French bread

Chicken-Lime Lettuce Wraps, rice, Asian Slaw

Potato & Caramelized Onion Frittata, Roasted Beet Salad with Goat Cheese

Week 3

Cajun Beef on Crispy Spiced Potatoes, Caesar Slaw

Soft Tacos with homemade salsa & 10 Minute Baked Chips

Lemon-Garlic Roasted Chicken & Vegetables, Orange-Almond Salad

Individual Chicken-Tomato Shepherd’s Pies (made with leftover roasted chicken), Three Pea Salad with Feta & Walnuts (use just one or two peas if that’s all you have!)

Sauteed pork chops with Spicy Rhubarb Chutney, Simple Corn, Pepper and Onion Saute, green salad

Week 4

Mediterranean Scramble with Spinach & Bacon, green salad, toasted Easy Artisan Bread

Creamy Pesto Pasta, Quick Corn & Bean Chopped Salad

Homemade Tomato Soup, Black Bean Quesadillas

Easy Chicken-Spinach Calzone, green salad with creamy feta or best ranch dressing

Greek Style Shrimp and Orzo, spinach salad (with leftover dressing from above)

May Dessert Idea

Light, tart and sweet Glazed Lemon Cupcakes make a perfect spring dessert.

What about Saturdays & Sundays?

To make meal planning easier, we have two set menus for weekends (I encourage you to think of something like this to make your weekends no-brainer when it comes to meal planning!):

Saturdays alternate between burgers on homemade buns (or pigs-in-blankets) & fries and homemade pizza, or my favorite Greek-style chicken pizza. Both are served with cut veggies and any dip we have.
Sundays are what I call “OYO” = on your own. We choose from leftovers or make salads, sandwiches, quesadillas, or simple charcuterie plates and everyone is in charge of it themselves (for the most part).

For more ideas on easy menu planning, check out these articles:

Menu Planning 101 (5 Steps to Easy Meal Planning)
Seasonal cooking through the year
Monthly dinner menus

I hope you enjoy and are able to use some of these favorite family meals of ours. You can follow me on Pinterest for even more simple, seasonal and from scratch dinner ideas!

4 Comments

Hi Jami,
Just want you to know that I made the seafood stew tonight for dinner…it was FANTASTIC! I’m trying to use up my pantry from last season’s garden, too. I made a couple of adjustments- I made a homemade arrabbiata sauce with 1 quart of canned tomatoes, 5 cloves of chopped garlic, 2 teaspoons of red chili flakes and 1 tsp. of salt. I cooked it down until it was as thick as tomato sauce and added it to another quart of canned tomatoes. I also added 1 small can of green chilis, and 1/2 red and 1/2 green bell peppers. I followed the rest of your recipe except for the seafood- I used 1 bag of small shrimp and 1/2 lb of small scallops…my husband does not care for fish…and it was absolutely delectable! Thank you for such a great inspiration for a Friday dinner! This is a keeper! I’m going to try and tackle the baguettes next week- this week we cheated with Texas Toast we had leftover from hot browns on Saturday for the Kentucky Derby. 🙂 I also want you to know that you inspired me to make a blackboard paint canvas menu so we can keep track of our weekly dinners- it has helped so much with meal planning and keeping down the grocery costs!! Thanks! Michele

Jami says:

May 10, 2014 at 8:42 pm

Wow, that does sound fantastic, Michele – I’m so glad you were inspired by the recipe AND the menu idea. 🙂

Reply

Oh, Jami your recipes always sound good and look delicious in your pictures. The seafood stew sounds like one I need to try very soon. Thanks so much for sharing your creations here.