How I Cook 5 Healthy Meals a Week and Spend One Weeknight in the Kitchen
December 11, 2020
Like most people, evenings are a busy time of day. Even in a pandemic, we still have (virtual) therapy twice a week. Add in the fact the baby is typically fussy when he wakes up from his second nap, and cooking dinners five nights a week just isn’t realistic—at all. I have a system that works pretty well where I only need to cook one night a week. And since Mike needs to eat relatively healthy foods, we try to avoid things like pizza or takeout when possible.
Here it is.
Monday: To start, my husband usually cooks on the weekends. He is a fantastic cook and comes up with unique meals that I would never be able to dream up. I am a by-the-book recipe follower. Anyway, since he is usually cooking on the weekends, I use Sunday to prep big salad for the week—and when I say big, I mean big. We usually get Monday’s dinner and a couple of lunches out of it. Aside from having to actually plate the food on Monday night, the food is usually ready for us to eat on Sunday.
The kids (by kids I mean anyone in our house who does not have extreme sensory issues) will usually eat the salads deconstructed, so I typically leave chopped up cucumbers, lettuce, chickpeas, etc., out of the salad and in storage for the kids to eat with dinner. Sometimes I will also give them chicken nuggets (as they will not eat just straight grilled or baked chicken).
Tuesday: This is often my crockpot day. We have virtual feeding therapy right at a typical cooking time (and the virtual therapy takes place in our kitchen/dining room) so making a dinner in the evenings on Tuesdays just isn’t going to happen. To remedy this, I often throw food in the crockpot in the morning. Think soups or some sort of chicken. One of my favorites is salsa chicken. I throw chicken and a jar of salsa in, with beans, corn, leftover veggies, etc., and let it simmer for a couple hours. We eat with chips and cheese. So easy. It just requires a bit of morning cutting and then plating the food in the evening.
Wednesday: Remember that big, big salad? Wednesday is leftover night. And if for some reason we were hungry on Monday and Tuesday, then I do breakfast for dinner, which can be thrown together in less than 10 minutes typically.
Thursday: So this is most often the only night I actually cook dinner during the week. I still try to keep it simple with meals that can cook in under 20 minutes. Chicken tacos, ground turkey with beans, corn, and salsa on the skillet, spaghetti and meatballs (I typically make 2 or 3 batches of homemade meatballs when I make them and freeze the rest).
Friday: This is our second “leftover” night, although we often don’t have much in the way of leftovers by the time Friday comes around so I often have to dig into the freezer. I usually make sure to keep the freezer stocked with food that we don’t eat from previous weeks (like Turkey from Thanksgiving or meatballs or whatever). Aldi also has amazing frozen Sushi. At worst, I will do a tapas style dinner—fruit, peanut butter, cheese, crackers, etc. It is all stuff the kids will eat, and it is super easy prep for me. It is mostly just getting the food on plates and on the table.
So there it is. How I cook relatively healthy dinners every night with only one weeknight spent in the kitchen.