How to Plan Your Shabbos with Ready-Made Meals
A practical guide to building a full Shabbos menu without spending the week in the kitchen.
A traditional Shabbos table has a rhythm to it — soup, fish, salads, a main, sides, kugel, dessert. When you're making it all yourself, that rhythm can consume most of the week. Ready-made meals let you keep every course on the table without sacrificing Thursday night and all of Friday to the kitchen.
What a full Shabbos menu looks like
A complete Shabbos menu typically has five or six components served across the meal. Most families start with challah and dips, move to soup and fish, then bring out salads and cold appetizers alongside the main course, finish with kugel and sides, and close with dessert.
You don't need to order every component — most families have two or three dishes they always make themselves and fill in the rest. Start with whatever takes you the longest to prepare and work outward from there.
Soups and starters
Soup is the anchor of most Shabbos tables, and it's also one of the hardest things to make well under time pressure — you need stock simmering for hours. A good chicken soup with matzo balls or noodles arrives labeled and ready to heat in the same pot you'd serve it from.
For starters and appetizers, dips like tehina, chumus, and eggplant are quick wins: no reheating needed, they arrive cold and ready to set out with the challah. A deli salad or chopped liver rounds out the spread without adding any prep time.
Mains — the centerpiece of the meal
Brisket, roast, and chicken are the most time-intensive Shabbos mains. A brisket takes 3–4 hours in the oven, needs resting time, and is genuinely difficult to get right. Ordering your main frees up the oven and the mental bandwidth that comes with worrying about whether it will come out.
For a more traditional table, brisket in caramelized onion sauce or a slow-braised short rib is a classic choice. For something lighter, grilled chicken or sesame chicken works well for families with kids. If you're hosting guests who keep chalav Yisrael or have other preferences, the labels make it easy to know exactly what's in each dish.
Sides, salads, and kugels
Sides and salads fill out the table and are often the easiest place to save time. A potato kugel, roasted vegetables, and two or three salads can take two hours to prepare — and they're the dishes most guests notice least if they're homemade or not.
Ordering your sides also solves the oven juggling problem: brisket, kugel, and roasted potatoes all want different temperatures at different times, and coordinating that on a Friday morning is where most Shabbos stress comes from.
Ordering and pickup timing
Orders placed by Wednesday afternoon are ready for Friday pickup. For Yom Tov or large gatherings, placing your order earlier in the week — or the week before — helps ensure everything you want is available.
Everything is packed in sealed aluminum pans with heating instructions printed on the label. Most dishes go straight from the fridge into the oven; nothing needs to be transferred to your own dishes unless you want to. For Friday afternoon pickup, the goal is that you spend Friday morning setting the table, not standing over the stove.
Questions? Reach out — we're happy to help you put together a menu.
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