Family Meals Make Life A Little Easier
How many dinners do you usually cook? Not per week… per night?
One area that I recognized I needed some help recently was in the kitchen and with meal prep. I love cooking. I love trying new foods and recipes and taking a conscious approach to how we plan our meals… but I have often find myself cooking a meal for the kids, and then another meal for the adults.
I know when the kids are really little, it’s just necessary…and sometimes we will still opt for an “adult meal” especially because my husband works late most of the time. However now that our kids are a little older we have come up with a few meals that are a hit with the kids and that we love too. This means time saved, dishes saved, decision-making reduced and family dinner time… some of the time. We are going for one or two family meals per week for now.
Progress, not perfection… right?
Here are FIVE family meal ideas that we have introduced to our kids and had success with:
TACO NIGHT
Ground beef/ turkey seasoned with a natural taco seasoning. Add chips or tortillas, plain Greek yogurt (great protein-rich alternative to sour cream, Sam is obsessed with dipping chips in greek yogurt)., olives, tomatoes, lettuce, salsa, peppers, black beans, rice. This is one where I just bring a tray over to the fridge and pile on a ton of fixings. The choice and variety is good for some kids but can be overwhelming for others so you may need to start slower or just offer fewer choices.
BREAKFAST FOR DINNER
This is a huge hit and often a fun surprise for the kids. We include scrambled eggs, maybe some maple chicken sausage or bacon, and I usually have some mini bagels frozen that I can thaw out and toast…. Lots of possibilities here and they all cook up quickly. If we’re doing bacon, I will bake it at 375 for 15-20 minutes on parchment paper because it’s so much easier that way! Some people recommend the air fryer but we have not tried that yet. Another way to do breakfast for dinner is with a pancake bar: we love Kodiak cakes with syrup, peanut butter, nutella, greek yogurt, fruit as different options.
VEGGIE SUSHI
For this one you need to matchstick-cut all kinds of veggies, cook, cool and season the sushi rice, and then just master the art of rolling your own sushi. Hahaha… no it’s actually really easy and the older kids will love learning and improving their technique. There are some great contraptions to make sushi rolling easier, and of course all kinds of great videos to show you how to do it. Our favorite fillings include: peppers, carrots, cucumbers, avocado, salt & vinegar chip crumbles, and crushed roasted peanuts. Years ago, our friends Bobbi & John came home from California and brought all of the makings over to my parents’ house and we had such a blast learning how to do this and exploring all of the fun combinations you can put together. We learned this from them… and we also learned about the magic of crushed up potato chips and salty peanuts in your sushi too… you could have fun with different sauces and flavors too. This is an interactive dinner so get ready to have some fun.
BURGER NIGHT
Trader Joe’s turkey burgers are a hit around here and we also loved these half-beef, half-veggie burgers from Costco that we got this summer (we can’t find them now so let me know if you’ve seen them anywhere) and so who doesn’t love burger night? Again we have the theme of letting them pick their “toppings” and I will do frozen fries, or baked sweet potato wedges, and some salad and allllll the fixings (or whatever we have available: lettuce, tomato, pickles, cucumbers, mayo, mustard, ketchup, hot peppers for me and Ethan). A little bit of choice goes a long way and the kids end up feeling “proud” of their burger once it’s all put together. So fun!
DIY PIZZA
Prepared crusts are a time-saver (and they come in so many varieties now like whole wheat, cauliflower - if you want a healthy option) and we will also just grab pre-made pizzas and add our toppings at home. The kids love pepperoni and pineapple (an homage to my family) and Ethan and I can get a little fancier with buffalo chicken, fun veggies like mushrooms and onions, or anything that needs to go from the fridge. If you want to grab a raw dough, this is a fun way to let everyone make their own… and I highly recommend a pizza stone!
WRAPPING IT UP
What all of these meals have in common is that the kids have a lot of choices in regards to what goes on their plate. They also watch us put together our plates and see what we like. We have some foods that we know they like, right alongside some new foods that they may eventually be open to trying.
I like that having a few of these meals on rotation means that the kids see the same foods repeatedly and are definitely more likely to get adventurous over time.
We’ll be adding in more options too!