Meal Planning Help to the Rescue! Our Quick Guide to Easy Dinners
We’ve heard your battle cries for help with weeknight dinners. Honestly, “What’s for Dinner?” is one of the questions that can instantly give us hero status or it can induce anxiety, frustration and more. We know you are busy and as a result, we want to help you create your weekly meal plan with these easy dinners.
If you can plan ahead, dig into the slow cooker and roll over dinners first. Oftentimes, they can provide 2-3 nights of dinners. For those nights when you just need to knock something out, go to the Skillet Dinners or the Sheet Pan Dinners for the easiest dinners in this collection. We have soups, casseroles, DIY dinners (think taco bars, etc) and even grilled cheese sandwiches with a kick.
Getting Started
To get you started, you can download this meal planner and shopping list. I find that when I can sit down at some point over the weekend and map out what we are going to eat during the week, it takes a lot of the stress out of meal planning. Look at your crazy schedule for the week and identify those nights where you are going to be home REALLY late. Those are the nights that you want to designate as roll-over nights or slow cooker nights. You want dinner to be ready to serve when you walk in the door. When you meal plan, you can create a couple of nights where you double a recipe and have enough for a leftovers smorgasbord one night (or maybe even two!).
Most of these easy dinners can be paired with a simple salad of lettuce, 2 veggies, and a sprinkle of some nuts or seeds for a really healthy option for your family.
Having dinner at the table together can be so difficult with busy schedules, but carving out at least half an hour each night to sit together without devices and interruptions is so valuable and having a tasty, hot meal on the table is a pretty good lure. We use this time to play a game called “Thorns and Roses” each night to check in with each other and to hear how everyone’s day went. Now to work on those table manners, right?
Involve Your Kids
I know this can cause a little frustration initially, but once you can put your kiddos on salad making duties or veggie chopping, it really does get easier. It is a great time to chat with them, it makes dinner prep faster AND you want to teach them how to cook for themselves. Once your kids reach middle school, you can put them in charge of a night and you can support them in the kitchen by doing the chopping or salad making. Make challenges for veggie nights, one-pot dinners, or 30-minute dinners. These are all great things to add to their repertoire so they can make healthy, easy dinners for their families in the future.
Collection of Easy Dinners for Meal Planning
Shopping with BonBon Break
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These are our favorite tools for making quick dinners:
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