Lots of these ideas are great. You can also use your crock pot. Set it up in the morning and it will be ready by dinnertime. Use a crockpot liner if you don't want to deal with cleanup.

NYT Cooking has a lot of great sheetpan meals that would be very easy to double. You can sort their recipes by difficulty, ingredients etc and then save them in your virtual recipe box. Well worth the minimal annual subscription fee.

Like the idea of paying them to cook dinner.

Anonymous wrote:The 3 nights you work should be leftover night for the kids. The days you are home, consider double batches of food. For example, chili, spaghetti sauce, or even, grilled chicken. I also make hearty soups as the weather gets cooler and freeze leftovers.

I like this idea to make double batches and leftover nights.

Other easily double batched and reheated dinner ideas are enchiladas, jumbalaya, rice and beans, chicken parmesan. I’d rely on bagged salads or pre-cut up fresh veggies as the sides.

Here’s what I do. I send this prompt to ChatGPT on Sunday: “give me five easy dinners with five ingredients or less, repeats OK, write the grocery list”

If you want, you can add preferences, like no shellfish, use a rotisserie chicken, etc. When I’m really, really busy, I just add the grocery list to Instacart. But normally I go shopping myself.

You can change this to three days or add breakfasts or whatever you want, but having easy suggestions and a grocery list has been a game changer for me.

Just accept that you’re not good at cooking.

Get one of those programs where you get step-by-step instructions and they send you all the food like hungry root.

Or hire someone to come in and make dinner three nights a week.

You work hard your husband works hard really just don’t need to start stressing about something you hate doing.

I love to cook and I still only Cook, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Thursday is left overnight.. Friday and Saturday we order in. Sunday my husband makes steak potatoes and a vegetable.

All you really need are 10 meals that you make well and rotate them but since you don’t even like to cook, I would do a program.

After a few months, you might save a couple of the recipes and be able to do them on your own.

Anonymous wrote:The 3 nights you work should be leftover night for the kids. The days you are home, consider double batches of food. For example, chili, spaghetti sauce, or even, grilled chicken. I also make hearty soups as the weather gets cooler and freeze leftovers.

This is the answer. My kids are experts at reheating and will hoover up leftover pasta, etc. I do have to remind them to put a salad and a fruit on the plate each time or they will just eat the "good part" (remember the poor kid who ate all the whole foods pasta salad?)

OP, start NOW with getting them into the habit of adding salad, veggie to every item of batch food they eat. The grilled chicken is a good idea. I have one teen addicted to grilled chicken wraps, and if she adds lettuce and tomato inside, and fruit on the side unsupervised I'm ok with that.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pay your kids to cook dinner…so many dinner recipes/prepared foods a 13 year old could prepare/heat up:

One-pan chicken/potatoes/roasted vegetables
Chicken in a pot with Rao’s marinara over spaghetti
Smashburgers in a skillet
Meatloaf
Frozen panko-crusted shrimp
Bagged salad kits

Couldn’t disagree with you more on bribing children not to eat junk food for dinner!

Op said to pay her children to cook, not to bribe them to not eat junk.

Still disagree and honestly am shocked anyone would think this makes sense let alone is a good idea! Kids should cook because they need to eat, not because mommy is paying them.

I don’t pay my kids for chores, we have had a solid routine for years, but plenty of people do and as far as I can tell it doesn’t mess any kids up to be paid for chores. It’s just like giving them an allowance to help take out the trash and feed the dog. The op has been in a hard place in life with her spouse working late and the family being in a junk food rut. It’ll be hard to get the teens out of addictive junk food; so if they need a little incentive. I applaud her for wanting to make a change. I just spent a week with extended family and they exist on junk food and it’s really bad. I would be thrilled if they wanted to make some changes.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pay your kids to cook dinner…so many dinner recipes/prepared foods a 13 year old could prepare/heat up:

One-pan chicken/potatoes/roasted vegetables
Chicken in a pot with Rao’s marinara over spaghetti
Smashburgers in a skillet
Meatloaf
Frozen panko-crusted shrimp
Bagged salad kits

Couldn’t disagree with you more on bribing children not to eat junk food for dinner!

Op said to pay her children to cook, not to bribe them to not eat junk.

Still disagree and honestly am shocked anyone would think this makes sense let alone is a good idea! Kids should cook because they need to eat, not because mommy is paying them.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pay your kids to cook dinner…so many dinner recipes/prepared foods a 13 year old could prepare/heat up:

One-pan chicken/potatoes/roasted vegetables
Chicken in a pot with Rao’s marinara over spaghetti
Smashburgers in a skillet
Meatloaf
Frozen panko-crusted shrimp
Bagged salad kits

Couldn’t disagree with you more on bribing children not to eat junk food for dinner!

Op said to pay her children to cook, not to bribe them to not eat junk.

You and your dh and your teens can do food prep on weekends when everyone is home. Make a pot of chili, grill a lot of chicken, prep a lasagna. Then someone just has to heat up.

You could also do the prep two freeze one for later method. So you prep two lasganas—one goes in the freezer (labeled!) and the other is cooked on Tuesday.

It’s going to be hard to go back after too much junk, but it’s important to teach these kids how to eat well. Make it a fun occasion—cooking time means music or listening to a funny podcast together. Have them help pick out recipes. You could even have contests with winners.

Anonymous wrote:Pay your kids to cook dinner…so many dinner recipes/prepared foods a 13 year old could prepare/heat up:

One-pan chicken/potatoes/roasted vegetables
Chicken in a pot with Rao’s marinara over spaghetti
Smashburgers in a skillet
Meatloaf
Frozen panko-crusted shrimp
Bagged salad kits

Couldn’t disagree with you more on bribing children not to eat junk food for dinner!

Pay your kids to cook dinner…so many dinner recipes/prepared foods a 13 year old could prepare/heat up:

One-pan chicken/potatoes/roasted vegetables
Chicken in a pot with Rao’s marinara over spaghetti
Smashburgers in a skillet
Meatloaf
Frozen panko-crusted shrimp
Bagged salad kits

The 3 nights you work should be leftover night for the kids. The days you are home, consider double batches of food. For example, chili, spaghetti sauce, or even, grilled chicken. I also make hearty soups as the weather gets cooler and freeze leftovers.

Stop buying junk food. Buy easy to make healthy foods. Bagged salads, precut produce, etc.

I work full time and have two teens. Last school year I basically stopped cooking dinner and let my kids scrounge around for whatever they could find. This has resulted in my 13 year old eating a lot of junk food. I know I need to make some changes in the way I’m doing things.

I’m not a good cook, and I work evenings 3 nights a week so I’m not always home for dinner.

DH gets home around 8:30pm, so he’s not much help.