Healthy dinners for family

[Anonymous]

OP, these are my easy healthy go to meals.

Chickpea pasta, Roa sauce, I heat up yellow zucchini in pot and blend it in the sauce the tomato sauce hides the veggie flavor well. Severed with a salad.

Whole wheat tortilla pizzas. Whole wheat tortilla roast in over for 4 mins, sauce, put fresh veggies, meat, and cheese. Heat for another 4 mins and done. Serve with a side salad.

BBQ salmon with brussles sprout slaw. I use the primal kitchen BBQ sauce. The slaw is a recipe I found online and keeps well in the fridge for days.

Whole chicken in crockpot. Super quick and easy. Use the meat for tacos or a stir fry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Freezer is your friend. Freeze steaks, chicken, hamburger patties. But I remove everything from its original packaging and put it in a freezer ziplock.

Even ground meat is great frozen if you remove it from original packaging and put kind of flat in freezer bag (I try to make it less than width of my large frying pan).

Try to buy enough meat for the week all at once and freeze.

Frozen steak or lamb chops - put in fridge overnight. Or, let it thaw a few hours on granite counter. I flip halfway through.

Frozen hamburgers- toss Frozen right into pan with lid on low medium to get it defrosted.

Frozen ground beef - same thing. Great for taco nights.

Frozen chicken - toss frozen into crock pot all day on low. Can pour cream of chicken Campbells soup in there too on top.

Or, even better, pull apart cooked chicken and toss it in a cream pasta. That sauce is roughly 1/3 broth, 2/3 cream chicken soup, and little olive oil. I toss it right onto cooked spaghetti.

Why is it better to remove from original packing to freeze?

[Anonymous]

I'm not sure why you can't meal plan because you have family time on Sundays. Meal planning is different than meal prepping. I plan all my meals when I write a grocery list every week. I post the meal plan on a white board for the week. Then I don't have to think about what I'm cooking on busy weeknights. I cook a lot of recipes from NYT cooking and usually do a few quick easy weeknight meals like pasta or quesadillas.

[Anonymous]

My simplest meals are:

Baked or broiled chops (lamb, pork) or chicken breast or fish— seasoned with a little oil and a Penney’s spice mix, maybe some lemon or capers;

Roasted diced root vegetables- potatoes, carrots, beets, parsnips, onions- whatever looked good at the market - chopping is the only time consuming thing;

Package of leafy greens pre-cleaned; kale, arugula, spinach, chard, whatever looked good at the market - Sautéed with a little oil and water in a walk at the last minute, with about four or five cloves of garlic added at the last minute.

These aren’t things you can walk in the door at 6 PM and have on the table by 620. But you can walk in the door and throw them together and get them cooking and have dinner by seven. And be doing other things while they are cooking. And the foods last a good five days in the fridge or longer, so it’s easy to put together with what you have on hand.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Freezer is your friend. Freeze steaks, chicken, hamburger patties. But I remove everything from its original packaging and put it in a freezer ziplock.

Even ground meat is great frozen if you remove it from original packaging and put kind of flat in freezer bag (I try to make it less than width of my large frying pan).

Try to buy enough meat for the week all at once and freeze.

Frozen steak or lamb chops - put in fridge overnight. Or, let it thaw a few hours on granite counter. I flip halfway through.

Frozen hamburgers- toss Frozen right into pan with lid on low medium to get it defrosted.

Frozen ground beef - same thing. Great for taco nights.

Frozen chicken - toss frozen into crock pot all day on low. Can pour cream of chicken Campbells soup in there too on top.

Or, even better, pull apart cooked chicken and toss it in a cream pasta. That sauce is roughly 1/3 broth, 2/3 cream chicken soup, and little olive oil. I toss it right onto cooked spaghetti.

I forgot -

Freeze fresh hamburger buns. I probably have 24 in my freezer. I toss those in the toaster.

Freeze French bread - I cut it into thirds, toss in freezer bag, and reheat in oven when needed.

I think you missed the healthy part of her request.

DP, I think these tips are fantastic. If you have stuff in your freezer and no plan at all, this is 20x better than takeout. Add some freezer veggies, and you’re golden.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Freezer is your friend. Freeze steaks, chicken, hamburger patties. But I remove everything from its original packaging and put it in a freezer ziplock.

Even ground meat is great frozen if you remove it from original packaging and put kind of flat in freezer bag (I try to make it less than width of my large frying pan).

Try to buy enough meat for the week all at once and freeze.

Frozen steak or lamb chops - put in fridge overnight. Or, let it thaw a few hours on granite counter. I flip halfway through.

Frozen hamburgers- toss Frozen right into pan with lid on low medium to get it defrosted.

Frozen ground beef - same thing. Great for taco nights.

Frozen chicken - toss frozen into crock pot all day on low. Can pour cream of chicken Campbells soup in there too on top.

Or, even better, pull apart cooked chicken and toss it in a cream pasta. That sauce is roughly 1/3 broth, 2/3 cream chicken soup, and little olive oil. I toss it right onto cooked spaghetti.

Why is it better to remove from original packing to freeze?

A freezer bag is thicker and keeps the meat a lot nicer. Also, that paper puffy thing underneath meat in the store container gets stuck to it in the freezer. Also, for counter defrosting, the meat can touch counter on both sides in a freezer bag. Sometimes, for thin meats, I put freezer bag into a large bowl of hot water for a quick defrost. Like a skirt steak or tenderloin chicken. Defrosts real fast.

[Anonymous]

Hi, OP. My meal-planning involves picking out recipes on Saturday and then going to the store for the ingredients. I choose recipes that are easy to make in once night, or I prep the night before I plan to serve it. There are a ton of “one-pan” meals out there (PPs mentioned some sites). I try to do pork one night, chicken, beef, pasta, and fish (not necessarily in that order).

[Anonymous]

We do a couple nights each week of a protein, veggie, grain combo - like baked salmon or chicken, roasted broccoli or sautéed spinach, and whole wheat pita toasted or brown rice or a potato (sweet, red, usually roasted). This is very easy. Get a Penzys sprinkle to season the meat, like Fox Point.

Pasta each week- with Rao’s (mushrooms added, sometimes a bit of beef or sausage); pre made pesto and shrimp; and then usually a salad. Get a bagged Caesar salad from the store and add tomatoes and peppers.

Some form of taco night: crunchy tacos, burritos, etc. usually with retried or black beans, mushrooms, onions, etc. sometimes with hamburger added to the beans.

A soup: chili (turkey, vegetarian or ground beef - can use half beef for tacos); Smitten Kitchen broccoli cheddar; Smitten Kitchen lentil with sausage; split pea slow cooker. With bread from grocery bakery.

Other ideas: Spend With Pennies slow cooker beef stroganoff w salad; salmon burgers (buy frozen from Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods).

[Anonymous]

Our formula is a protein, a vegetable, and a grain.

We make big pots of the grain in the Instapot — rice, quinoa, bulgur, farro — good for packing lunches. We also do a big pot of oatmeal for breakfasts through the week.

Very easy proteins:
Broiled salmon
Steamed cod (with soy sauce)
Steamed or baked tofu (with plum vinegar and sesame sauce — kids love this)
Steamed scallops
Sheet pan chicken
Steaks
Sausages

For vegetables, I do stuff that’s easy to sautée in olive oil — broccoli, cabbage, peppers, green beans, bok choy, etc. We also cook kale and collard by boiling in hot water for a minute and then chopping and tossing with oil and plum vinegar.

An easy healthy pasta dish is kale pesto. Blend the blanched kale with garlic, olive oil, lemon, and anchovies if you like. Toss with pasta and a pan of roasted cherry tomatoes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our formula is a protein, a vegetable, and a grain.

We make big pots of the grain in the Instapot — rice, quinoa, bulgur, farro — good for packing lunches. We also do a big pot of oatmeal for breakfasts through the week.

Very easy proteins:
Broiled salmon
Steamed cod (with soy sauce)
Steamed or baked tofu (with plum vinegar and sesame sauce — kids love this)
Steamed scallops
Sheet pan chicken
Steaks
Sausages

For vegetables, I do stuff that’s easy to sautée in olive oil — broccoli, cabbage, peppers, green beans, bok choy, etc. We also cook kale and collard by boiling in hot water for a minute and then chopping and tossing with oil and plum vinegar.

An easy healthy pasta dish is kale pesto. Blend the blanched kale with garlic, olive oil, lemon, and anchovies if you like. Toss with pasta and a pan of roasted cherry tomatoes.

Another easy thing is to do a chicken soup — we throw in a chicken with onion cut in half and a few root vegetables. Serve with rice or noodles. You’ll have leftover chicken and broth to do other things with. My kids like it shredded with sesame oil and soy sauce on soba with other veggies for the next day’s meal.

[Anonymous]

I’m a huge fan of Hello Fresh

[Anonymous]

Salmon - bake four filets with a topping of 1/2 orange marmalade, tablespoon each Dijon and fresh ginger (I use jarred), 1/2 t of garlic powder and some salt and pepper.

Serve with couscous and roasted vegetable like asparagus.

Another easy way to prepare salmon is sprinkle with some lemon pepper, then sauce in a pan with melted butter and fresh chopped garlic. Sprinkle with lemon juice before serving.

[Anonymous]

^ should read 1/2 cup of orange marmalade. You could also just blend orange marmalade and soy sauce together.

[Anonymous]

Mediterranean Dish has a fabulous easy baked cod recipe with lemon and garlic

[Anonymous]

Pioneer Woman: 16 minute shrimp scampi