What do you actually have for dinner on a normal day?

[DK123]

There are so many great recipes and lovely pictures of "everyday" meals, but I know most people are too tired after they get home from work to make something very complicated at all.

I'm curious, what sort of things do other people really have for dinner on a normal busy day?

I feel like I'm a bit of a slob having something like beans on toast or fish fingers so I'm curious to ask!

Something like pasta bake that I can whack in the oven while I’m playing with dc after work/nursery. Or I cook the night before when the dc is asleep so I don’t have to the next day. Not batch cooking but just a day ahead. I do ‘cheat’ with things like frozen fish cakes or the Mexican kits for fajitas etc. Or ready made pizza dough.

I have to admit that we eat quite elaborate meals during the week - only because dh loves cooking and is often home by 4/4:30 and has plenty of time.
If I’m in charge of cooking (incredibly rare),
I make pasta bake, aubergine parmigiana, fish cakes, fajitas, pulled pork (marinaded overnight and shoved in the oven before work so incredibly low maintenance), pizzas (dd makes the dough, I’m shit at bread and just generally hate cooking!), spag bol (chopping and sautéing etc is a bit time consuming but once it’s actually on the go it’s a couple of hours of ignoring it), er... that’s about it! I have a limited repertoire myself but thankfully dh cooks 95% of the time. I maybe cook once a fortnight.

Leftovers. I cook extra and freeze. Often a one pot thing so no extras needed- paella, biryani, chicken orzo bake from pinch of nom book.
Or chilli, curry, stew with rice.

Scrambled egg, beans and veg sausage with toast if I don’t fancy strong flavours.

I'm in a mad rush to cook dinner most nights! I love a hearty, healthy long haul fiasco of a meal but unfortunately most nights it's whatever takes fifteen minutes or less to prepare so I can spend some precious time with my lo. I find the quickest and tastiest thing to make is pasta....pasta with cheese sauce, spinach and peas, top with cheddar, some cherry tomatoes and a bit of pepper, throw it under the grill....tasty pasta bake in 20 mins! I also whip up tomato and tuna pasta bake the same way....peas and spinach (no chopping needed) in with the pasta to boil, while simultaneously make the sauce them throw it all in an oven dish and under the grill for 5-10 mins to crisp :)
Or omlette with spaghetti or beans...that's always a winner with kids! I usually throw some spring onions and cheese in but the filling options are literally endless!

We have things like, spaghetti bolognaise, burgers, chicken thigh tray bake, macaroni cheese, curry, pre made quiche, meatballs and mash, fish pie, chicken pie, stir fry, rice with leftover bits, pasta and sauce, fajitas, omelette, sausage casserole, toad in the hole, spicy chicken drumsticks, salad with cold meat and prawn cocktail, stoves, ham egg and chips, chilli tacos.

Get The Batch Lady cookbook - it will change your life! Have a cooking session at the weekend then you’ve got “proper” dinners all week out of the freezer

I batch cook too. Or make dinners such as stew or baked gammon in the slow cooker
Sometimes I pick up a cooked chicken and have with baby potatoes.
Pasta and pesto
Stir fry curry or fajitas

That type of thing. But batch cooking mainly sorts mid week out for me.

Stir fry, omelette, pasta with a quick sauce, fish and veg, stuffed mushrooms, ratatouille with garlic or crusty bread.

Although I live alone I've just bought the roasting tin cookbook.. some lovely easy recipes to throw in the tin!
I'm disabled so can't stand for long, so preparation needs to be quick and simple
I then portion it up into tubs and freeze two for the next week
I've promised myself I will start eating " proper meals" this year

I really enjoy cooking and get Hello Fresh boxes every other week for inspiration. My absolute fave is chicken and sweet potato stew, it so easy but delicious.

Batch cooked mince based meals (chilli, lasagne, bolognese, cottage pie), sausage and mash/chips, fish fingers and chips, curry, stir fry, pizza, tuna pasta bake, tomato pasta, macaroni cheese, fajitas and the odd takeaway.

On work days when the kids are fed before I collect them I sometimes just have crisps or ice cream or a baked potato with cheese. When I cook for the kids they want pasta with cheese, fish fingers or chicken and chips, slag Bol at a push. Friday night is fish & chips or another takeaway or sometimes ready meals. Saturdays either go well so a nice meal together, or badly so toast type meal and bed. Sunday's we have a roast. I eat lots of omelettes year round, and stew and soup in the winter and salads and fish in the summer. I am a good cook so find this boring and dull and so sometimes go rogue and spend the whole weekend ignoring them and cooking up batches of the meals I really like, lots of flavour and spice and my version of dishes from all over the world. Sometimes I serve these up to my kids, who look at them like they are poison.

We cook things like lo mein with what ever veg and meat we have leftover.
Other regulars are nasi goreng, jacket potatoes with fillings, spaghetti carbonara, chicken schnitzel and katsu curry.
I also make some items than need more prep like lasagne or cottage pie by making the base the day before and just assembling on the day.

steamed veg, boiled starch thing (usually potatoes), grilled meat thing

Peeling/Chopping the veg/spuds takes the most time.

Regular family meals here are curries, lasagne, spag bol, fish pie, cheese and onion pie, fajitas, chilli, mac and cheese, toad in the hole, sausage/fish fingers/chicken and chips, jacket pots, pizza...

It’s just the two of us (my children are grown up) and I’m not working atm, but we don’t really cook any differently to when we were both working - we still cook fairly simply on weekdays and usually do something more involved at the weekend. More often than not we’ll have a roast on Sundays.

Weekday meals include things like pasta and meatballs, spaghetti with king prawns or other seafood, pork chops and mash, beef stroganoff, Thai soup, Korean stew, Mexican (tacos etc), curries (from scratch although once in a while I’ll use a jar), goulash, tagines or other similar dishes. Hmmm what else? I do one or two vegetarian meals per week as well. I usually make at least one fresh soup per week as it’s a great way to use up veg and we have that with part baked rolls. If I really don’t want to cook I’ll do a cooked breakfast with hash browns, tomatoes and mushrooms, sausages - all popped into the oven so no trouble - plus bacon and eggs fried at the end. Not too much effort.

If I’m making a stew or meatballs in a tomato sauce or anything like that I always cook at least double and often 3 times what’s needed for one meal - that way I can keep one dinner in the fridge for 3-4 days later and also freeze one. Much less effort than having to cook from scratch every single night.

Thank you for the batch cook recipe book suggestion. I do a lot of batch cooking (but recently posted a thread about a hopefully not complete disaster with my freezer!)

Batch Lady buys ready made mash... I couldn’t really take her seriously at that point

On a weekday we’d have salmon & veggies, turkey meatballs & courgetti, stir fry ( maybe with leftover meat or chicken thighs ), home made curry, home made pizza, one pot dishes with meat, beans, chorizo and veggies, steak with home made wedges. Chilli & brown rice.

pasta, jacket potatoes, fish fingers/chicken goujons chips and veg, sometimes baked beans or scrambled eggs.

We've taken to having nice lunches instead (wfh) and DC get good quality lunches at school/nursery/grandmas, so we just have quick and easy things when we are all tired in the evenings after childcare/work.

Oh yes, I forgot about jacket potatoes! I also do a chilli fairly often which we’ll have with rice the first night, then with jacket potatoes or spicy wedges (homemade), then the third time layered with tortilla chips and cheese to make nachos.

Forgot about fish as well! At least one meal of fish per week - baked, or pan fried, or in an Italian style stew.

(Also not mentioning vegetables and salads - at least half of every meal is veg)

I work from home so usually chuck something in the slow cooker or use lunchbreak to prep a lasagne which I shove in the oven later.

We eat quite labour intensive meals most days that take at least an hour standing in the kitchen, often more (I'm not quick, at well, anything really). Most usually we have things like bolognase, chilli (although this has been done with beef rather than mince in the slow cooker and that requires very little prep or standing over), curry (made with Pataks paste), homemade pizzas, spaghetti in tomato sauce and meatballs. Mostly everything is cooked from scratch.

Very occasionally we have a homepride pasta bake (our fave guilty pleasure) and the kids have chicken tenders with aldi noodles and katsu sauce.

Personally, I'd like to eat more things like soup, or egg on toast, but my DH is a bit 1950's and insists on a "proper" dinner, and also conscious of meeting his protein requirements as he is a bodybuilder, so it's not really an option.

I went through a phase of ordering Hello Fresh meals when i was busy at work and my teenagers were at home. They were brilliant and very simple to throw together and surprisingly good value.
I don't have them now but have kept all the recipe cards that were included and if you go onto their website, you can look at their recipes and easily recreate them yourself. I do this often. The smoked Tofu Pilaf with Mango chutney is amazing and so easy.