Weekdays just don’t have enough hours for making healthy meals from scratch. My family and I rely on my weekend planning and prep to get us through the week. This makes weekdays much easier and we can focus more on kids and having calm and composed evenings (at least we try 🙂)
Below are some of my weeknight favorite meal ideas with list on prep ahead over weekend and some tips to help stretch the meals or make them more fun)
Tacos (Chicken or Beef Tacos)
- Plan Ahead–
- Make the Chicken/Beef Bean Mixture ahead of time.
- Chop/store your favorite toppings in individual Zip top bags
- Plan Ahead–
- Tips-
- Double the quantity of Chicken/Beef Bean Mixture to use as filling for burritos for another weeknight dinner
- Zip top bags can be used to serve the toppings straight
- Serve it Taco bar style and let everyone make their own tacos their own style
- Can serve with both soft or crunchy tacos
Stir-Fry Chicken and Broccoli with steamed rice
- Plan Ahead-
- Make stir-fry sauce and store it in glass jars
- Prep the chicken and saute it ahead of time and save it fridge
- Plan Ahead-
- Tips-
- Make extra sauce that can be stored in the fridge and reused for another stir-sry vegetables and steamed rice dish
- Use Rice cooker to steam rice to keep it fresh and easy
Grilled Cheese Sandwich and Tomato Soup
- Plan Ahead-
- Make tomato soup from scratch or canned tomato over weekend
- Assemble the grilled cheese sandwiches and store in parchment paper
- Tips-
- Soups can be doubled and stored in batches
- Use InstantPot for quicker cook time
Pesto Sandwich and Tomato Soup
- Plan Ahead-
- Slice tomatoes for sandwiches. If using fresh mozzarella, slice the cheese
- Make tomato soup from scratch or canned tomato over weekend
- Tips-
- Soups can be doubled and stored in batches
- The Pesto sandwiches can be assembled ahead of time and can last in the fridge for a couple of days. They can also double as good lunchbox recipes, skip grilling for lunchbox recipes.