After a full day of working and taking care of your family, the last thing you want to do is cook. But the dinner bell isn’t going to ring itself, and you’ve got hungry kiddos begging for a meal. The problem is creating something simple that doesn’t sacrifice nutritional value.
It’s a challenge every household faces, even those without kids. Nevertheless, you’ve got a brood to feed and you’re on the hunt for ideas. Whether you’re planning a week or a month in advance, you want to be able to enjoy home-cooked meals without the fuss. Here’s how you can go about doing it.
Plan Your Meals Strategically
Sometimes you need to come up with a plan for planning your meals. It’s called strategy. First, decide when you’ll make out your menu. Stick to this time like you would any other adult task, such as a doctor’s appointment or a meeting at work.
You can create your menu from family recipes, favorite dishes, and online apps. To streamline this step, you could try out healthy meal kits where your weekly menus are planned for you. Choose from a list of personalized recommendations based on your preferences. Not only are your meals instantly planned, but so is your shopping list. All you have to do is wait for the food to arrive.
Depending on how many meals you choose, you may still need to plan for other items like cupboard staples. Beverages and weekend after-dinner desserts are other examples. However, you can schedule to pick these items up via curbside delivery at your local grocery store.
Make Enough for Leftovers
Realistically, there are going to be some nights when you won’t have time to cook. Hectic, longer workdays, school sports games, and PTA meetings are possible scenarios. Before you resort to snatching dinner through a drive-thru window, leftovers could be your lifesaver.
As part of your meal planning, consider making more of certain meals you know your family won’t mind repeating. If your kids love spaghetti, cook an extra batch on a less busy day. Store it in a container and place a label on the container designating which dinner night the meal is for. This way, you won’t forget about it in the back of your fridge or freezer.
Considering up to 40% of food in the U.S. ends up as waste, planning for leftovers can also cut down on this. On busier nights, you can reheat meals you’ve made ahead of time. You may want to plan to space out repetitive meals or enjoy leftovers the next day. It all depends on your family’s palate and the dish. Your kids may not mind eating spaghetti two nights in a row, but might need a slight break from salad bowls.
Rely on Easy Recipes
Nutrient-dense food doesn’t have to be complicated. Choosing simple recipes means less prep and cook time. Think power bowls with a mix of proteins and veggies, sandwiches with fruit sides, and sheet pan dinners. You don’t need to go over the top to create a nutritious meal that everyone will like.
Prepping your veggies for the week can save you time. For example, spend a Saturday morning washing and dicing up pre-portioned amounts for your weekly meals. You can also buy pre-washed and pre-sliced vegetables at the store if you’re really short on time.
Other ways to simplify the cooking process are to rely on devices like instant pots and air fryers. You can batch and slow cook soups, rice, or roasted chicken. Once ready, assemble your protein next to your grains and vegetables. Casseroles are another tried-and-true standby when you want something nutritious and simple to make. You can also make casseroles in batches to freeze and eat later as you wish.
Try Themed Variations
You’ve heard of themed dinner nights by now. Pizza Fridays, Taco Tuesdays, and Meatless Mondays are a few examples. But if you’re eating the same variation of those foods every week, it can lose its appeal.
A way to combat this while staying true to nutrient-dense meals is to add a little variety. For instance, you can keep Taco Tuesdays on the menu. One week, you use ground turkey with the classic toppings like cheese and diced tomatoes. Next week, try tempeh and sweet potatoes. For another week’s menu, you decide on black beans, avocados, and a lime sauce.
In keeping with certain themes, you can ask the family for ideas. Have each member submit a vegetarian dish they’d like to try for Meatless Mondays. You can rotate through those ideas or vote on them before you commit to making the meals. Keep a list of the new recipes everyone likes so you can rotate through them again.
Making Dinnertime Nutrition Easy
Like it or not, planning nutritious meals is a part of being a responsible adult. However, realizing this and pulling it off without feeling overwhelmed at times are vastly different. To simplify the process of finding recipes, making lists, prepping, and cooking, you have a few tricks to put up your sleeve.
Healthy meal kits are one of them since most of the steps are streamlined or automated for you. Others are making enough for leftovers, using recipes with fewer, simpler ingredients, and trying variations of the same meal. Easy, nutritious dinners are possible as long as you’re willing to keep your mind open and experiment in the kitchen.
