Tell Birds Eye about your midweek meal tips - £300 voucher to be won!NOW CLOSED

[AmeliaMumsnet]

How do you get tasty, nutritious food on the table when you’ve been busy all day? After all, when it gets to summer, the last thing most of us fancy is spending more time than we need to tied to the oven. So do you have some clever shortcuts or cheats? Whatever your tips for midweek family meals, Birds Eye want to know.

Here’s what Birds Eye have to say: ‘Tea time can be a stressful time of day and coming up with nutritious and tasty meals the kids will enjoy isn’t easy. But Birds Eye frozen chicken is quick and easy to prepare, and made with 100% chicken breast, barn-reared chicken, and no artificial colours, flavours, or preservatives.’

Are you a whizz at preparing ahead or batch cooking? Do you have a fast, nutritious recipe that’s too good to keep to yourself? Maybe you’re just great at making sure the whole family pulls their weight when preparing dinner? Whatever the secret to your midweek meal success, particularly if you’ve something summery in your repertoire, share it on the thread below!

Every MNer who posts on the thread with their midweek meal tips will be entered into a prize draw, where one lucky winner will be randomly selected to receive a £300 Amazon voucher.

Thanks and good luck,

MNHQ

Standard Insight T&Cs apply

[Cambam2010]

My go to midweek meal is mini pizzas. Might not be the greatest in nutritian but a small cheese and tomato pizza is only about 55p in most supermarkets and they can easily be frozen and heated quickly. My son takes a basic pizza and adds fresh topping to it. So this way he gets some veggies in to his diet. We all then create our own topping and serve with a generous salad. This is so quick and means that if family member are coming and going at different times then they can just make their own

[Buxtonstill]

I make my own hamburgers, and bulk out the recipe by adding finely processed cauliflower or carrots, onions and mushrooms.
I put the griled burgers on a platter, and the kids love building their own burgers, with salad, cheese slices and different pickles and sauces. It makes them feel very grown up!

[georgedawes]

For us, it's all about batch cooking and/or the slow cooker. Make double we need (normally at the weekend) then heat from frozen in the week. We also use the slow cooker a lot, and it is brilliant to come home to tea already made!

[hiddenmichelle]

I do not tend to bulk cook in the summer months, but rely a lot on salad. But I do try and change it up a bit - adding bacon pieces, mushrooms, radish etc. I find the summer means I crave fresh light food and salad is so quick and easy and just needs so grilled chicken and fish to go with it

[southernsun]

We prepare some food at the weekend and put the slow cooker to good use as well. The children love making homemade pizza, burgers, meatballs, shepherds pie etc so we try to make a couple of those at the weekend to cook at the beginning of the week and make a salad or homemade sweet potatoe wedges to go with it. Then later in the week we put a chilli or stew in the slow cooker so its ready when we get home.

[Reow]

I batch cook ridiculous amounts of bolognese with turkey mince, peppers, courgettes, mushrooms and garlic in it, and portion it all up in Tupperware in the freezer.

I also make my own pizza dough and freeze it in fist size portions in freezer bags, so on Friday mornings I just have to take it out to defrost, then in the evenings we can roll it out and chuck all our toppings on!

[DoItTooJulia]

Frozen veg is my midweek time saver secret! Quick, nutritious, no prep and can be added to virtually any meal- winner winner chicken dinner! (See what I did there!)

[kamaxtra]

I make a mean bolognese - but instead of having it with carb-loaded spaghetti, I make it with courgetti, which is incredibly simply with a mandoline. It's lighter, fresh and healthier!

[Belmo]

I stick with a few easy ones on very busy days - fish fingers, pesto pasta, gnocchi are favourites

[Ganne1]

I now work full-time, so my husband does a lot of the midweek cooking. His korma or pathia (every Friday) is very good, and he also does spaghetti Bolognese, a sort of rosti, and a range of Chinese meals (he took a course at evening classes ... run by a Doctor of Engineering!).
With all these one-pot wonders, at least, there aren't many pans to clean up afterwards!

[tubbyj]

There's lots of maximum 30 minutes recipes to try and store off the favourites. Normally run through the favourites occasionally trying some new to freshen up the menu

[andywedge]

As the weather is getting warmer it's salad time; quick and easy to make and probably the healthiest meal available

[IonaAilidh11]

i do extra meals and freeze them, so easy to feed midweek when were rushing around to clubs

[gd2011]

Wait until the end of the day and buy vegetables and fruit that have been reduced in price.

[MimiJoy]

I cook a huge roast on Sundays with lots of vegetables, so there's plenty left (hopefully!). I roughly chop all the left-overs - meat, veg, stuffing, etc. - and squash it into a baking tray with any gravy left, then either serve it up on Monday, or freeze it for a quick mid-week meal. It's a family favourite and is delicious!

[maryandbuzz1]

I always make sure that my husband doesn't his share of the cooking. We both have a ready stock of recipes that aren't quick and easy. THey range from tuna pasta, chicken Kiev to fish pie and liver casserole.

[star1000]

I have to say my quick kids meal for a weekday evening is Potato waffles, chicken dippers and salad.
For me I have a sweet potato and veggie burger with my salad.

[funkyfreks]

Most of my meals take no longer than a few hours to prepare and cook, Our family favourite is on a Saturday morning, late breakfast / dinner, I Make a Turkish Menemen, basically it's all the veggie left overs from Friday evening tea Mainly Cauliflower / Broccoli / Carrots and Peas, pop in the the frying pan with a little nob of butter and crack a few eggs into it, the kids love it and hubby covers it in chilli flakes. Delicious.

[voyager50]

I love to batch cook - if I get a free day I make a big vegetarian lasagne or veggie shepherds pie or just make up lots of veggie bolognaise sauce. They all go in the freezer and I keep a list of what's in there and when I know I will have a busy day with not much time to cook it is all ready to heat up.

[SSCRASE123]

Mince is an easy go-to meal for us. We buy the extra lean packs and cook big batches in a simple gravy and then freeze so we can easily turn into Spag Bowls, Pies etc. whenever the need arises. Much quicker and cheaper.

[becky004]

I batch cook at weekends, curries, chilli, bolognese sauce etc. This means during the week we have a choice of meals we can pull from the freezer in the morning and by teatime it just needs to be reheated.

[adorabelle13]

We sit down and make a meal plan at the weekend. We like to batch make meals, so we will decide which ones we want. Then we have a batch meal making session on Sunday. We label them all and freeze them all. We make sure that they are healthy and nutritious

[mlsantos]

I make keto muffins on sunday and they last the entire week. It's a great choice for a snack or even breakfast. But for dinner if I don't have anything special in mind, we eat frozen chicken with lots of veggie. Quick and easy!

[bridge16]

We have recently started planning our weekly meals to make things less stressful with the kids, work, sport, activities etc. Its working really well and i try and do bits the night before now which really takes the pressure off a busy time of day and i can make sure the kids still eat a healthy meal without rushing for not so healthy faster options.

[prwilson]

I always try and make an extra portion or two when I cook, then freeze for later and you have pretty much an instant meal when you have less time or don't feel like it.