31 Dinner Theme Night Ideas {+FREE PRINTABLE}

Coming up with an idea on 'What to have for Dinner' 365 days of the year can be mind numbing. MIND NUMMMMMBINGG!!! Use these 31 Theme Night Dinner Ideas to take the sting out of deciding what to feed your family every, single darn night.

Food Theme Nights

Allocating a Theme to family dinners is one of the easiest Meal Planning Strategies. It's a great basic place to start if you've not done Meal Planning before or you find yourself regularly overwhelmed by that wonderful 'What's for Dinner' question.

It's a simplified meal plan that batches dinner ideas and streamlines the Dinner decision making process.

Because it's hard deciding what to make for Dinner EVERY NIGHT!

And then you add Teenage girls, Gluten issues, homework (and I thought I was done with Calculus), fussy eaters and husbands to the mix ... breathe, just breathe...

Themed Dinner Nights

How do themed dinner nights work? They're really quite simple once you get into it and take a lot of the stress away of having to make a decision about...what on earth you're going to have for dinner.

How to do themed dinner nights

Allocate a 'Themed Dinner idea' to each day of the week.
Scroll down for 31 Theme Night Ideas and pick the SEVEN that you feel will work for your family.
On the Theme night, you only cook recipes that fit in that Theme.
Take your Dinner plan for a spin and see how it works. Keep those that work for you and replace the ones that don't with something new.

Here is an example Weekly Theme Night Dinner Plan

Monday - Pasta Night

Recipe Ideas:

Spaghetti Bolognese
Spinach and Chicken Fettuccine

Tuesday - Casserole night

Recipe Ideas:

Budget Beef Casserole
Classic Chicken Casserole

Wednesday - Sheet Pan Dinner

Recipe Ideas:

Sheet Pan Dinner Ideas
Stuffed Zucchini Boats

Thursday - Stirfry

Recipe Ideas

Honey Soy Chicken Stirfry
Easy Fried Rice

Friday -Homemade Pizzas

Recipe Ideas

Saturday - Barbecue & Salad

Recipe Ideas

Sunday - Roast and Veggies

Recipe Ideas

How Easy is that?

But that's just the beginning. Here are 31 theme night dinner ideas to try over the next month.

Fun Dinner Themes For Families

Getting the whole family on board for a dinner theme night can be super fun. It takes the boredom out of the same old dinner time routine. You know the one, you cook, then try and get everyone round the table, then try and convince them to eat, then stress because they're not eating as much as you'd like, and you know, you spent time cooking.

Having a theme changes this. It makes dinner time exciting and something for the kids to look forward to. Get them to help you out, ask for their ideas for how you could add to the theme (perhaps get the little ones to color in a flag printable if it's say, Italian night. Educational too...Yep, genius!).
I've even had the little ones (oddly, big kids tend to decline this suggestion :)) dress up for theme dinner nights. We've done a Cowboy dress up for dinner (think Stetson hats) and French (stripes and onions. Stereotypical? Yep.) You get the idea.

Try it, it's surprising how much the kids enjoy this and eat their dinner, being all caught up in the theme. It works!

Fun Dinner Ideas For Family Night

On weekends and holiday times, I love to combine a dinner theme night with movie night and tie the two together. So for Italian night we'll cook an Italian inspired meal, maybe a Spaghetti Bolognese or Oven baked Italian Chicken, and then get the kids to find and choose and Italian movie to watch after dinner.

You can be a little flexible here, it's a tough call to find a movie based around Vegetarian night, for example :)

Theme Nights For Kids

Smaller kids LOVE theme dinner nights. They love them. They ask for them all the time, they get excited about them, and they can turn dinner time into an event.

I like to involve them as much as I possibly can and have found that getting them to help out increases my chance of having them eat their dinner hugely. Get them to help you choose the themes from the list below. Once they've chosen a theme they like, they can then find meals to fit the theme.

If themed dinner nights is not something you've done with your kids, please try them. You're in for a treat!