Brainstorm Dinner Ideas for Any Occasion

Something to keep in mind while brainstorming is that even the most free-wheeling brainstorming sessions need to have rules to make sure they don’t go off the rails. If you don’t like having rules, you can call them guidelines. Either way, be sure to take good notes and follow these tips while brainstorming—and pretty soon you’ll have some fresh, fun and unique ideas for breakfast, lunch, dinner and beyond!

• Think quantity over quality. Think about brainstorming like picking apples to make a pie. You might need only four apples to make a good apple pie, but you’re going to pick more than four apples. You never know if you’ll cut into one and it’s awful, or you drop one on the way home, and it bruises. The same goes for ideas. Don’t focus on the quality of the idea right away. Instead, focus on the number of ideas. Build your idea pile, then sift through it all when you’re done.

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• Play word association. Build a map or list of words to work with word associations. You never know when you’ll start with healthy dinner ideas like chicken and broccoli and end up with a plant-based-sausage-and-veggie hash. Correlate elements of every dish you think of to continue to grow your ideas and come up with new ones. Don’t be afraid to consult the internet to look for more ideas. If you have an idea but aren’t sure how to complete it, search for more ideas that will put the pieces into place that you’re looking for. This is also a great way to continue building your word associations map.
• Encourage off-the-wall thinking. There are no bad ideas when you’re brainstorming. Don’t hold something back because you feel like it’s impractical or too far out there. Anything that comes to mind should go down on the piece of paper or whatever you’re using to keep track of your ideas. You never know when something that originally seemed like a bad idea will lead to one of the best ideas. For example, if your kids suggest chicken nuggets and peanut butter—it may spark an idea for yummy Thai Chicken Wings with Peanut Sauce!

• Use visuals. If you’re having a hard time coming up with ideas for your meal brainstorming session, take some time to look at ideas other people have come up with. Brainstorming for something like easy dinner ideas is going to be relative to your cooking ability, so it can help to look at certain dishes and see how they’re prepared. Look for pictures online, search through your refrigerator, or poke through your pantry to see what’s there. The visual of specific ingredients can help to trigger ideas that you might not have had without something in front of you.
• Don’t criticize. It doesn’t matter if you’re working in a group or on your own; don’t criticize any ideas that are put on paper. The time will come to scrutinize every idea that’s thrown on the pile. Premature criticism can discourage free thinking and creativity, even if you’re doing it to yourself. Bring your thinking cap and leave your criticizing hat at the door.
• Build off other ideas. Don’t let any ideas sit idly. Ideas that sit in a vacuum can be useful later in the brainstorming process, but you don’t have to wait to use them as a jumping-off point to build more ideas. Using a mind map to share with your group is a great way to create a visual of how your ideas are taking shape and building on one another. The farther out from the center you can build your map, the better off you’ll be in the end.
• Set deadlines. While you don’t want to limit yourself on ideas, it’s not always a bad idea to set a limit on your brainstorming session. Eventually, you’ll have to move beyond the brainstorming part of your planning and execute the ideas you’ve generated. You can set yourself a deadline of 15 minutes or 15 days, depending on how much time you have. If there’s a special event coming, set a day you’d like to have the menu established. This will help to prevent procrastination.

There’s more than one way to brainstorm. No two people are the same, so it’s OK to take a different approach to find easy dinner ideas than somebody else. However you go about it, use these tips to help you come up with your new favorite menu items.