My husbands epic list of all the foods he will eat

Very simple meal plan:

1) Salad night. Grill some meat and have a variety of toppings. Your DH can eat his with ranch and you can switch yours up depending on your mood. Salad, even with full fat ranch dressing can be a healthy meal if the toppings are portion controlled. Go for a lot of protein on yours and a smaller amount of dressing.

2) Mexican night. Switch up the fillings and toppings and you could have tacos every week without repeating the same meal in months. We make buffalo chicken tacos with chicken breast chunks sauteed in hot sauce and then topped with lettuce and I like pineapple, salsa and BBQ sauce, DH likes salsa and ranch. We sometimes do shredded beef tacos and do them flatbread style. We ALWAYS have the stuff in the house for plain old tacos. They can be pretty healthy and fit well in to an eating plan. You could even put your toppings over salad to save the calories if need be. Or, do enchiladas.

3) Poultry night. Grill chicken or turkey, add a potato side and whatever other veggies you feel like having. Or, make your orange chicken and sautee some veggies for yourself and DH can have some rice or whatever he wants with it. Roasted broccoli is GREAT tossed with orange or general tso's sauce. It's the only way I'll eat the stuff.

I have read your post over and over and I love it! This is such a refreshing menu! You have helped me so much thank you... ps hubby hates all breakfast foods except pancakes but will not eat breakfast for dinner
4) Italian (Pizza night or pasta) night. Homemade pizza - you control the toppings. Noodles, lean meat, sauce. Change up the pasta or pizza choices for variety. Add a side salad or veggies to round out the meal.

5) Loaded baked potatoes. Variety here - change up the toppings to suit tastes. DH has his with just low fat sour cream, a little bacon and a little cheese. Last time we did it, I had all that stuff and added grilled chicken and salsa and jalapenos. It was like a big plate of nachos, but more filling and lower calories and the potato is a great source of nutrients.

6) Beef night. Make burgers or sloppy joes or roast, etc. Each week, choose a different "beef" item for variety. Again, add sides and veggies to suit everyone's tastes.

7) Free night for whatever sounds good. Sometimes you could do breakfast for dinner. I don't know many people who don't like breakfast foods and there are tons of cheap, healthy choices out there.

I also always make sure we have 1 pound packages of ground beef that's been cooked up and portioned out in the freezer. It's really fast to throw that in some spaghetti sauce or add some taco seasoning or even sloppy joe sauce and the taste doesn't suffer. I won't do this with chicken, though, just ground beef.

If you follow a simple plan like this, then you can get tons of variety with minimal extra cooking time and everyone can be happy. DH and I menu plan a month at a time now, and we often will first start with what's sounding good to us, then we'll go through and say, okay, we're only having mexican/italian once, what else can we make along those lines?

To be honest, I've read that most people have a limited number of "go to" foods and meals and repeat those in some fashion over and over. Sit down with his list and expand on it. List all the different types of tacos he will eat. List all the ways you can use bbq chicken or turkey. List the different types of enchiladas and different choices you can make (for yourself and him) with different pastas/sauces. You will probably find that you have a good list to start with and you really don't have to eat the same boring things over and over. Even if he is still resistant, keep some grilled chicken always available and/or the ground beef in the freezer and he can make his own choices.

Edited to fix quotes and also ETA: I think some of the posters are being kind of harsh here. WE all make decisions when we enter relationships and roles are decided. We don't know what roles the OP and her spouse settled on, but it's apparent that it's her role to cook. She seems fine with this but just seems a little lost right now. We all get frustrated sometimes and can't see a simple solution when it's in front of us. My DH and I have different roles than that, we both share cooking responsibilities and we also share our money. Guess what? There are foods/snacks that I love that he has no interest in. We buy those. There are things he loves that I have no interest in. We buy those. We compromise when it comes to meal times spent as a family because we are both interested in raising our children to like a variety of healthy foods, but there are still limits. He would be very upset if all I ever cooked were soups and stews because he doesn't care for them. I would be upset if all he ever cooked was seafood. We compromise. Sometimes I make a soup or stew that I think sounds good and he usually eats it; sometimes he eats whatever else is around. Sometimes he makes seafood and I eat it; sometimes I fend for myself. MOST of the time, though, we both make an effort to plan and cook main dishes that are at least mainly enjoyed by everyone. Side dishes are usually easy so we have no problem fixing 2 or 3 sides so that everyone has enough food to satisfy them and everyone is happy.