Looking for easy family dinner inspiration? Welcome to the family meal plan – real life edition. Here’s everything our family of six actually ate this week-real dinners, realistic breakfasts and lunches, plus a few little notes from life along the way (this week was all about ‘easy’ so I got prepackaged snacks and yogurts for breakfast and ate freezer meal breakfast sandwiches!)
Mains
- Burgers – we looove a burger night. I get Costco burgers or Bubba burgers which are frozen burgers, and then season them with the best burger seasoning. The burgers kind of splatter and make a huge mess when cooking stovetop, so I’d recommend grilling the burgers from frozen! We eat red skin potato salad on the side!
- We had friends over and made magic green sauce grilled chicken sandwiches. Everyone loved! There were vegetarians so I just marinated the tofu with the sauce and then grilled it, amazing.
- My in-laws had us over for a pizza night and we made mac and cheese pizza – soooo good!!!
- My husband grilled steaks and we had them with with tomato cucumber salad (just added a dash of white vinegar, olive oil, salt, pepper, garlic salt and Greek seasoning), so good. But we ate at like 9pm after sports, I was so tired!!
- I made sheet pan balsamic meatloaves and sweet potatoes. Normally I make them with frozen sweet potato fries, I’d recommend that, so much easier. I randomly had fresh sweet potatoes so I used those and just cooked in olive oil and bbq seasoning.
- Yogurt chicken and balsamic veggies – I made both of these on a sheet pan – 425 for 25-30 min, it was easy and super delish, I served with naan and store bought tzatziki.
- Italian sausage sandwiches – these are such a huge fave in our house. I browned the sausages/onions/pepper quickly and then put them in a slow cooker for after sports practice.
Lunches
- We had random pepperoni and some pasta leftovers from pizza night and I made pepperoni pasta salad in a jar, YUM! Forgot how much I love these.
- On the weekend we had food truck Mexican in the park, it was lovely
Breakfasts
- I made a batch of hot honey chicken sausage breakfast sandwiches. I got the chicken sausage from Trader Joes. I didn’t see it in the freezer case and asked a kind worker (they’re all so nice at TJs) and he found a box in the back!! These are great for having in the freezer for a quick breakfast!
- Trader Joes small yogurts – they’re the perfect size, not too big and not too small, usually adult size yogurt cups go to waste, not these. And I made a big batch of granola (cherry, chocolate, pepita is a fave around here.
- We had an empty jar of peanut butter so I made Pb & j overnight oats in an empty peanut butter jar
Little notes from this week
- I totally just needed easy this week so we got pre-packaged snack and discovered THESE, the whole family (ME INCLUDED) are obsessed. My kids still love Zbars (iced oatmeal).
- We used our Beast Blender instead of a food processor for the magic green sauce, and WOW, it blended it so smooth, love it!!
Helpful favorites
- Omg, you guys, my kids got these RITZ Drizzled Minis Fudge Crackers Snack Pack and they’re SO GOOD!!!! New favorite treat/snack discovered.
- Beast blender – this thing is small and mighty, I love that I can put it away and it doesn’t take up counter space like a big food processor.
- Just ordered these salad jars with dressing containers for my pepperoni pasta salads in a jar!
- Not gonna lie, I USED my sheet pans like no other this week, and I love pre cut parchment paper sheets!
- This is the slow cooker I have– nothing fancy, and it’s usually on sale for under $50!
- Favorite dinner of the week: simple burgers and potato salad!
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