HI friends, Happy Wednesday. As I am sitting here mid work weekday, fighting the Wednesday blues, I am thinking of what we can put together for dinner time later today. Dinner time has been such an exciting thing for our family the past year. We have really learned to enjoy slowing down at the end of our day and making dinner together. Over the past years, we have limited our eating out or getting takeout to one day a week. One, because making home cooked meals is much healthier, it is cheaper at the end ( We save so much money eating at home as a family of 5) and we just simply don’t always have the time to go out after a long day. It’s chaos while we’re making it and then calm after we’ve eaten. I say we because we all get home around the same time so there is always action in the kitchen. Some days we make meals that take a little longer to make and sometimes we make easy meals like the following ones. Some days, we are blessed to get a call or text from my parents or in laws inviting us over for dinner 😝 – I might be bias, but my mom and mother in law are the best cooks EVER. I am so spoiled ( Their cooking deserves a blog post of their own for another time). These are some of our favorite meals that our kids love to make at our home, and they are so easy to put together. They are simple and don’t take a lot of time to make, and we love the leftovers.
Spaghetti
You can never go wrong with spaghetti. It is so easy and perfect for any night of the week, and most likely, you already have the ingredients at home. I usually pick up some garlic bread which we usually don’t have on hand to throw in the oven and about 3 pounds of ground beef from the butcher section at our local grocery store. Add some fresh parmesan cheese and call it a night. You can do ground turkey for a healthier meat option. Ready in minutes, and everyone is full.
Nachos
My kids love nachos! We usually always do Carne Asada, although we have done chicken or ground beef in the past. We get some chips, nacho cheese, make some guacamole ( I always have avocado in our kitchen) and make some beans, pull out shredded cheese, jalapenos, sour cream ( all things we always have in our fridge) and done. So simple and fun for everyone to make their own as they wish with whayeve toppings. When we have our garden in full bloom, we add cilantro, tomatoes, and onions straight from our garden.
Salmon
My kids love salmon, and I am here for it. I absolutely LOVE salmon, I could have salmon every day for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. My favorite go-to salmon makes our meal a little pricier than other nights at about 55 dollars for just the salmon for a night’s worth, but it is AMAZING and worth it. I get ours from our local California Fresh Market, which has become my favorite store to get meat at. It is fresh, it is flavorful, and everyone gets a big piece, and nothing is wasted. I can throw it in the air fryer seasoned with pepper, salt, lemon, and butter, and it will be everyone’s favorite. While it is cooking, I steam some broccoli or make some mashed potatoes, and it’s done.
Burgers
Burgers are so easy to make. So easy. We always make sure to have tomatoes, onions, pickles, and all the toppings in our fridge ready to be cut up in the evening. We get some buns, meat patties, or sometimes we make our own patties, caramelize some onions, even throw in some bacon and done. CA Fresh has amazing and huge patties, but so do our local Vons. Burgers are my little ones’ favorite food, and he can finish a full sized burger on his own. We always make ours outside just to not get the inside greasy.
Steak
Ok, in our home, we are Carnivores. Steak is another easy meal that I LOVE. Mostly because it is like salmon. You can make the sides while the meat is being cooked. Throw the meat on the grill and make some veggies and a side and done. Our kids love their meat more than medium done meat, and I love my rare steak, with some A1 sauce on the side. In my opinion, steak is easy to make and we always change the sides up from different veggies to different potatoe options as well.
Chicken fajita tacos
Chicken, bell peppers, add seasoning and cook. Easy steps. Pair with some flour tortillas for some tacos ( I don‘t like corn tortillas but those are great as well), sour cream, cheese, and some salsa( usually from my mother in laws salsa that we stock up on-She makes some of the best salsa). It’s so simple yet so easy.. Make extra and have leftovers for the lunch the next day. Fast and easy to make. I add to Bowls the next day if I want to avoid the tortillas.
Chicken Alfredo
Chicken Alfredo has become a quick staple on our house.. I learned to make the sauce from scratch about 2 years ago, and now I can’t go back. The sauce calls for just a couple of ingredients that I pick up all at Trader Joes, and it’s way cleaner than the pre made sauces in cans. While the chicken is grilling, I make the sauce, the noodles, and DONE. I have learned to perfect my chicken to be juicy and tender, and I’m really proud of it. My kids love it, and dinner is done in less than 30 minutes. I love that it’s so simple but so delicious.
I hope that some of our favorite go to meals for those busier weekdays when you don’t really know what to make will give you some inspo. They sound like they are more work than they really are, but I promise they are simple. They are not as unhealthy as eating out, and with 5 people in our family, it is still saving us money, and we are choosing to cook with better quality ingredients while also having leftovers.
Let me know in the comments what your favorite easy weekday meal is.
-Csy
- How I got my husband from being a couch potato to running his first half marathon!
- What’s it’s really like growing up in a large Mexican family
- 5 things I do every day that give back to me
- 5 things I’ve learned in my 34 years of living
- Season of Change
Csy-Lux 
Leave a comment