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@aprild: wow this sounds really stressful! I would prob do what @Mrs. Sunshine says. Try to make stuff he likes (or not) and if he doesn't like it then have a freezer stocked with things he can microwave himself. I agree you should stand firm on not eating out all the time, its so expensive and def less healthy then cooking for yourself. Maybe compromise on take out twice per week?

That sounds terrible. My husband has a LOT of dietary restrictions (not his fault) and pretty much eats what I make him, BUT I have this rage complex where if I make something and he doesn't think/tell me its flipping delicious, I get miffed. So cooking just for me and him eating a PBJ would put me in a funk big time. Bottom line, let's find a method you can live with. I think all of this would work out if you had a very organized plan.

Okay, you said before:

He likes Mexican, BBQ, steaks and fancy salads. You also mentioned he likes salmon. Apparently he also likes chips, cheese, pizza, and burgers.

I think you can actually do just 6 things, tweaked, every week. Assume you will want to have him get take out once a week for everyone's sanity.

1. Plan for the takeout/dining out night. Be if Friday, or Monday, or whatever, make it a set night of the week that you are "off." Make it date night, enjoy.

2. Monthly meal plans. Unbeknownst to him, YOU are going to set up a theme night every week for yourself in terms of meal planning. Mexican Mondays. Pizza Tuesdays. Salad Wednesdays. Steak Thursdays. Fish Friday. Burger Saturdays. You get the idea. This way mentally you know generally what your game plan is and you can plug in a different ingredient to that same weekly dish to make it different. This makes monthly meal planning easy. For instance, buy 4 pizza crusts, a can of sauce, and some cheese. Ham and pineapple pizza one week, pepperoni and mushroom pizza next week, BBQ pulled pork pizza (using leftovers see below), and roasted red pepper and feta the week after that. Buffalo burgers (just dump bleu cheese crumbles and Frank's Red Hot on a burger), avocado bacon burger, and spicy Sriracha burger (burger with pepper jack cheese, ketchup or mayo mixed with sriracha). Bake some crinkle cut oven fries and hurray! Meal! Or make regular burgers but toss those fries in garlic powder, butter, and parsley, or parmesan cheese. All that blue cheese, avocado, feta, roasted red pepper leftover? Hello Greek salad night, Cobb salad night, etc.

3. Focus on meats that can do double duty. For instance, buy a flank steak, season it with taco seasoning, lime juice, and beer and cook it (if you don't want to grill, run it under the broiler). Make double what you need. Eat fajitas one night, slice up the other flank steak and throw it in the freezer. A week later, you are going to have "fancy salad" - i.e. homemade taco salads with some of that meat chopped up, black beans, corn, jicama, mangoes, and a zesty salsa ranch dressing (mix salsa and ranch, the end). The week after that you are going to have nacho night (using the same crap that was on your salad the week before, but now over chips and melty cheese). You can also do this like a big chuck roast or pork butt - just cook it overnight with salt and pepper, onion powder, and Worchestershire sauce. That shredded meat can be taco/burrito/nacho/salad toppings if you just toss it with a little taco seasoning and lime juice. But if you add some BBQ sauce, you've got pulled BBQ meat. Which can be sandwiches, BBQ nachos, etc. This way you aren't eating leftovers - you're banking meat for another meal.

3. Roasted salmon is the easiest thing to mess with. Just buy a bag of those frozen fillets at Costco. One night mix some maple syrup or honey with Dijon mustard and brush it on there. Another night brush some bottled Teriyaki. Another night toss some panko breadcrumbs with dry herbs, salt, pepper, and olive oil and sprinkle the top of the fillet before roasting. Try throwing some pesto on top another night. If he is going to notice salmon on the menu every week, switch it up with tilapia or shrimp every other week.

4. It sounds like your husband is one of those types who eats with his eyes. Meaning, he likes fancy presentation. I know you're thinking AIN'T NOBODY GOT TIME FOR THAT, but if just might help him eat it if he's excited about what he sees on the plate. I might just be worth it to chop up a bunch of parsley and slice up some lemons or oranges on Sunday nights and sprinkle some garnish on that piece. Maybe get some plain white dishes, some placemats, and some cloth napkins to get that restaurant feel. Its not hard to toss a cherry tomato on a steak and make it look festive.

5. Come up with an appetizing name for what you're having. Instead of being like "we're having burgers again" you can be like "we are having open-faced spicy chili cheese burgers with buffalo fries!" (Meh, a burger topped with canned Hormel chili and cheese, oven fries topped with bleu cheese and hot sauce, big whoop).

@gingerbebe: I just want to say your advice is amazing and I'm stealing this meal planning outline for myself! Haha!

Oh hell to the no. I am even pickier than he sounds, so I won't give you any crap about 'enabling' him. But it sounds like his pickiness is really impacting your ability to cook for your family, and that is not cool. I think that you need to work through some cookbooks, recipe websites, etc, and agree on 15 recipes that you can easily cook that he likes. If he wants something more involved, maybe he can do the prep the night before.

Regardless, it is absolutely unfair of him to impose his picky eating on your entire family. I'm fully used to cooking two meals - one for myself, and one for my family - because I couldn't imagine imposing my limited palate on them. I also think that it would be absolutely fair to say that you'll cook four or five times a week, and he can either suffer through leftovers the rest of the time or make himself a sandwich.

ETA: Reading your replies, I'm not sure I'd continue to cook for him at all. I think I'd tell him that I wasn't ok with ordering take out more than once or twice a week, and that he could eat what I cooked or fend for himself the rest of the time. You're not a servant here. If I had a stay at home spouse cooking for me I would never once in my life expect what he seems to expect from you.

That sounds frustrating. I agree with some if the others. I would cook dinner, and if my husband did not like it he can fix himself something. Keep easy to fix stuff in the house for him like sanwich stuff, frozen pizzas, and even tv dinners.

Its not realistic (unless theree are unlimited funds) for him to want to get take out when he doesnt like what you make.

@gingerbebe: Great tips! I'll be using some of your recipe tips. Thanks!

@gingerbebe: you are amazing. I want to marry you! I'm completely jacking your ideas.

I also have a picky husband and it makes meal planning hard. He does know, however, that I would be extremely pissed if he shouted any distaste towards anything I cooked. He's a big meat and potatoes guy so we eat a lot of "home cooked" meals. It's what he is used to growing up. You have some great advice up above, I hope you can utilize some and help make dinners more enjoyable for your family.

My husband is picky, too. But I make what I make and he usually eats just a little if he doesn't like it. He knows it's not a good example to my boys to act fussy. I already have 2 children. He's not going to be my third.

My DH started to complain that the dinners I was making weren't healthy enough, so I came up with some alternatives, and when he rejected those I threw my hands up and told him to start meal planning for us. I had an advantage though because DH does not like takeout. Also we both work full time and split duties like this down the middle. Even so, I would be really annoyed if I were you!

@gingerbebe: lol, presentation is everything!

You can use a measuring cup to help shape cooked rice on a plate. For salads sectioning ingredients like on Cobb salads (rows of bacon, eggs etc) can look pretty. The plastic bottles with the narrow tip openings can be used to drizzle sauces or put dots on a plate. I bought a pack of two to store homemade pomegranate syrup from BBB. For individual dipping sauces or "special" side dishes/ desserts you can use 8 oz ramekins.

So for those things he likes to eat out, what type of dishes?

Mexican - A simple packet of taco seasoning and browning ground beef is easy. If he wants beans, heat beans from a can. We just add a few simple sides like avocado. You can even buy pre cut lettuce and tomato. If he likes enchiladas, again, you can pre make a pan of them and then freeze and reheat. Same with Burritos. Maybe he watches LO on the weekends to let you make some meals ahead or do the prep work.

BBQ - This is really easy at home. Again, pork in the crock pot and pour about a cup of BBQ sauce. Let it cook down. You can do the same with chicken. Ribs actually are surprisingly easy too. My DH does them in the oven on like 250* for about half a day. Put them in during morning nap time. Before dinner cover with the BBQ sauce and crank up the oven heat to get it to caramelize a bit.

Steaks - Again, not too hard to make because simple seasonings are key. Its more about cooking it right which can be hard with a LO.

Fancy salads - We do cob salads about one night a week and add frozen chicken tenders to add protein.

I think like people have suggested you just need to find a few key things you can make and get him to agree to them. If I make a recipe, I make my husband either tell me we can add it to our "recipe book" or tell me what I can change.

@gingerbebe: totally stealing some of these ideas.

My DH isn't super picky about what he eats, just how old it is (he won't eat leftovers more than a day old) while I'm the type to make a big batch of something on Sunday and eat if for 3-4 days. We've come to a compromise - we do leftovers once per week and we have one fend for yourself night per week. I usually eat the remainder of the leftovers and he makes scrambled eggs with rice or eats cereal.

Another thought - would your DH be willing to grill if you did the prep work? You could throw some pork chops or chicken in marinade in the morning and he do the grilling. Teach him how to use a rice maker (easiest thing ever!) and add a salad - and you've got a meal.

@aprild: I don't know...my husband is disabled - can only use one of his arms - and he occasionally helps cook dinner. He gets his own breakfast (cereal) every morning.

If he has such picky guidelines for what he will and won't eat, it sounds like he need to be in charge of meal planning... or at least contribute to it!
Another option, post the meal plan for the week where he can see it. If he doesn't like the meal you're planning on, he can arrange for his own dinner.

Are we married to the same person?! I also have a very picky husband when it comes to eating. It used to cause a LOT of problems, but it's been a lot better lately.

To give you an idea, my husband won't eat bread or things based around bread or that appear remotely sandwich-like (burgers, pitas, wraps, burritos, etc), big salads, nothing that is remotely sweet (bbq, marinades with even a teaspoon of sugar), he hates cheese and most other condiments, won't eat any snack foods or sweets, doesn't like pre-packaged things, doesn't like spicy food, he won't eat anything without rice....I could go on. He doesn't like takeout, he doesn't care for most leftovers. It's HARD. Part of it is that he is from another country, and that country's cuisine is the only "right" food, and part of it is that he's just picky, ugh. The worst part is that if he doesn't like something he just won't eat at all, and then he gets HANGRY. And I can't deal with it so I had to come up with something that worked for us (mostly).

We take the kind of approach that @gingerbebe: laid out. I know that there are certain things he likes, and I try to base things around that.

First, I figured out a few things that he will actually eat the leftovers of (usually big pots of stew that are similar to what he grew up eating). I'll make that on Sunday/Monday, and it's usually enough to last a few days. That way there is something for lunch, or a quick dinner if he's not feeling the stuff I made. I also make sure to have his comfort foods on hand--plantains, rice, eggs, and beans or lentils (he makes big batches of these himself).

I also have some tried and true recipes that he likes (10 or so) and I will cycle through them--things get repeated every-other week or so. I will tweak things a bit, and make note of what he likes (or doesn't like). Sometimes if I just change one thing at a time he doesn't even notice...and I'll change things here and there until BOOM--new dish and he doesn't even realize it. Things like switching one kind of pasta or sausage or veggie for another. This led to him ONLY liking penne pasta with Italian sausage and peppers to him eating turkey sausage and kale in tomato sauce with linguini. I've found enough stuff that he'll eat now that I have a general idea of what he likes

Finally, I take one or two days to try new recipes. I LOVE cooking (and eating), and love trying new stuff. So I make sure that I have things for me, too. Sometimes I have an unexpected hit (tilapia in foil packets with tomato and onion--easy and healthy, and something I though DH would hate-turns out I was wrong)! Sometimes even I don't like it (and I'll eat almost anything). If it is absolutely something he won't eat, he always has leftovers from Sunday's batch, beans, and eggs (he will almost always eat rice, beans, and a fried egg).

I know how frustrating it can be. Luckily my husband likes to cook, and is getting better about making things that he will eat/like. And, frankly, the one thing that seemed to work when I was SUPER frustrated was just telling him to stop being such an ass. I think he didn't realize the extent that it was grating on me to listen to the complaints. It's been about a year since we had the come to jesus moment and it's a lot better (but still far from perfect).

I hope you figure out a system that works, because speaking from experience, I know how difficult it can be (especially when you don't have time to think about this all day!)

I know you got a lot of great suggestions. It sounds like you're a really nice person. I'd be telling my husband to go make himself a sandwich or suck it up and eat it.

@mediagirl: Agreed! I'm mean and have zero tolerance for picky eating from my adult family members. One time my husband tried telling me he didn't like asparagus (after I had made it for dinner) and I was like "you'll eat it and like it!!" Thankfully he did.

Yeah, I guess I don't understand this (in adults)... I can understand not caring for the flavor of certain things, like fish, or certain vegetables or fruits or whatever (for example, I hate cantaloupe), and I would certainly try to accommodate that. For example, I know my husband doesn't *love* broccoli, so if I make it, I don't really expect him to eat much of it, and we tend to do more asparagus, green beans, etc. that he likes better.

But when someone says "I won't eat pasta but I will eat beef", or preferring plated meals with a meat and sides instead of a casserole... I have to say that just sounds kind of spoiled to me, like "I like restaurant food better than homecooked!" Well, sorry - can't do that every day.

Nothing wrong with trying to accommodate someone's honest likes/dislikes WITHIN REASON but these restrictions would not work in my house! Of course we both like to eat restaurant food, but we also have a budget to stick to and want to eat somewhat healthy, which means some meals at home and not always eating the take-out/restaurant food we might want! It's part of being a grown up.