How to plan a menu
- 1Get the trip parameters — number of days and scouts, cooking methods and gear available, budget, and any allergies or dietary needs.
- 2Lay out the meal grid — a row per day, columns for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks; fill every cell.
- 3Choose balanced, well-liked meals — hit the MyPlate groups over the day and pick things the patrol will eat; vary it.
- 4Assign a cooking method to each meal and confirm you'll have the gear and fuel for it.
- 5Build the shopping list — break each meal into ingredients and quantities (per-scout portion × patrol size), add staples and cleanup supplies.
- 6Make the duty roster — assign cook, assistant, cleanup, water, and fire duties across the patrol for each meal.
- 7Review and submit — check against budget and dietary needs, then turn it in to your leaders ahead of the trip.
When to use it
- Every patrol campout — the plan that turns "we'll figure out food there" into a smooth, fed weekend.
- The Cooking merit badge, which is built around planning and cooking balanced meals.
- Teaching the patrol method — the grubmaster and cooks share the planning and the work.
Common mistakes & safety
- Account for allergies and dietary restrictions up front. A food allergy is a safety issue, not a preference — know who can't eat what before you shop, and prevent cross-contact when cooking.
- Plan for safe storage and cooking. A menu with lots of perishables needs a cooler plan and a cooking-temperature plan — match the menu to what you can keep and cook safely.
- Portion enough. Under-planning food leaves an active patrol under-fueled — scouts burn a lot of energy hiking and in the cold.
- Plan cleanup and water into the menu. Every cooked meal creates dishwater — budget water and a three-pot cleanup in, not as an afterthought.
- Keep it realistic. An over-ambitious menu fails in the field and wastes food; simpler, well-liked meals get eaten.
Going deeper
- The menu is really three documents — the meal grid, the shopping list it generates, and the duty roster that runs it. Do all three or camp cooking gets chaotic.
- "Will they eat it?" beats "is it fancy?" The biggest cause of camp food waste is planning meals that look good on paper but nobody finishes.
- Grubmaster tip: plan cleanup supplies (biodegradable soap, trash bags, sanitizer) onto the shopping list — they're part of the meal.
Official source
Cooking merit badge — Scouting America →Requirement wording is Scouting America's — described here in our own words. Balanced meals follow the MyPlate food groups.