Your weekday meals?

[labyut]

So I work full time, husband also works full time, we have 2 young children who are 1 and 4!

What meals do you have that are quick and easy for weekdays? I am really struggle to get healthy ideas for meals for us all when we get back from work!

Our quick go to meals are:
Chicken and salad wraps with wedges/ sweet potato fries
Pizza made on tortilla wrap..load it with anything and it takes about 10 mins in the oven.
Rice, peas and chicken with any sauce/seasoning you like

Spaghetti bolognese, cottage pie, simpler version of a roast dinner, macaroni cheese, chicken salad. One or 2 nights a week we'll eat out the freezer. If you have time in the morning you could put something in the slow cooker and it's ready when you get home.

Today will be leftover Sunday roast chicken and veg in gravy topped with leftover mash , cheese on top (much cheese!). We always deliberately over size our Sunday cooking, for an easy Monday.

I also bake some potatoes when doing the roast, halve them, take out middles, mash, put back and top with cheese. Then freeze them to serve with a sausage casserole or savoury meat dish of some sort.

Didn't this weekend, but often cook sausages with the roast and put them in the freezer, easy to defrost and put in a pie/casserole/sandwich.

Other than that we have pasta, with a jar (dolmio). Curry (Lloyd Grossman jar), or something whipped up in 10 min with rice - like a tin of taco beans, tin of tomatoes, peppers, onions...

Jacket potatoes with standard toppings (beans, cheese, coleslaw, tuna & sweetcorn)
Fish (usually salmon) fried in a pan with a bit of lemon zest with either peas or salad and microwave rice
Sixes & Sevens was a popular meal when my kids were that age. That's six or seven things from the fridge on a plate (carrot sticks, bit of ham, rice cake, mini tomatoes, bit of peanut butter, cucumber, apple slices, baby bell etc...) not sure how I got away with that but I did!
Quesedillas (tortilla with cheese grated on top a bit of veg/precooked chicken another tortilla on top and dry fried. Serve with salad and salsa)
Pasta with jarred pesto and make it into a face with slices of peppers, cucumber and cherry tomatoes.

Those are the absolute easiest/quickest things we ate on a regular basis with really young kids.

Pudding = banana or yoghurt

I need inspo too!

A few of my quick go to's are Old El Paso rice kit, vegetable stir fry, baked potatoes with tuna and coleslaw/salad, vegetarian hot dog or burgers with raw veg sticks and houmous and a fry up dinner.

Thank you

Pasta with prawns, lemon, garlic and chilli
Chicken stir fry
Griddled haloumi either with salad or in ciabatta rolls like a burger.
Cod wrapped in pancetta
Lemon and herb salmon fillets with rice or new potatoes and steamed veg.
Harrisa chicken fillets with cous cous and veg/salad

Mince fried with peppers and Cajun spice. Those mini wraps warmed folded over the shelf in the oven, salad bits,avocado and grated cheese is our 15 minute busy night go to!

This week we are having:

cheesy spaghetti/cacio e pepe with broad beans and a green salad
stir fried egg noodles with broccoli and spring rolls (with either tofu or prawns but you can also just do with boiled eggs for ease)
jackets with cheese and coleslaw, pickled beetroot and salad
cheese quesadillas or taquitos for dc (same thing but they only eat them when I roll the bloody things up into a different shape 🙄) with soured cream, crudites, salad

We don’t normally eat salad every day but obviously I was feeling a bit lazy when I planned this week.

Pasta bake
Make a big pot of soup and people can dip in and out of it
Sometimes I make nachos using a supermarket cooked chicken. Assemble nachos with salsa and cheese, shred the chicken and toss in some kind of sauce from the cupboard( I like buffalo) maybe add some tomatoes and frozen peppers or serve with a salad for veg.

Thank you

Whatever was for tea on Sat/Sun as leftovers on Mon/Tue.
Baked potatoes which DH puts on if wfh and I finish off when I get in.
Daal - I can start it when I get in and leave it cooking while I run out for the kids.
Stir fry.
Fish fingers and wedges.
Occasionally things in the slow cooker which remind me that everything in the slow cooker tastes disappointing.

I cook batches of ratatouille, freeze in bags. This go with anything, pasta/gnocci/rice etc. Its my ideal cheap and healthy meal of the week since i put so much veg in the ratatouille.
otherwise: i like to buy those nandos bags, put chicken in it, add rice and veg.

I do lots of curries and tray bakes

Following because I am sick to death of mince in all its variations...

This week we have

Pan fried chicken, frozen roast potatoes, broccoli, garlic and mushroom sauce

Pasta bake

Pork fried rice using frozen stir fry veg and frozen rice as really busy night

Kiev and chips

Nachos

Stir fry
chilli con carne
casserole in the slow cooker all day
fajitas
sausage, mash and veg
bacon, egg, beans

Cajun chicken bake, Tuna Pasta bake, chicken fajita wraps, fish pieces and oven chips, jacket potatoes, lasagne.

Favourites are fake carbonara
Fajitas
Chicken satay soup
Curry
Traybake (normally chicken, tomatoes, garlic, potato etc)
Chopped salad (summer)
Pizza (bought sourdough bases)
Chilli

This week we are having
Risotto made from left over roast chicken.

Sausage casserole in the slow cooker, chuck it all in with veg, tin tomato, stock pot and some sort of chutney usually mango chutney. Do it before work and leave on low all day.

Meatballs and tomato sauce in the slow cooker. Lots of veg again and tinned tomatoes and herbs. Leave on low. Then you just need to cook pasta when you get home. You could remove the meatball and blitz the sauce if you want.

Fajitas- just buy a kit and add veg

Tray bakes - google some recipe ideas online but you can basically throw some chicken thighs on a baking tray with different flavouring, use a variety of veg/some sliced new potatoes and put it in the oven for 40 mins or so.

Greek style use garlic/lemon/oregano for example.
Spanish style - use chorizo/paprika
Italian - use pesto

Chicken thighs pan fried with onion, garlic and thyme. With wedges and salad.
Wraps. Lots of wraps.
Cheese and bean puff slices (puff pastry with cheese and beans in)
Pasta and pesto
Pasta with meatballs and tomato sauce.
Pasta with tuna and cheese (with tomato sauce)
Yuk Sung (stir fried leftovers with spices and oyster sauce) with rice. Served in crispy lettuce leaves

We actually found this too hard to do all the time. Just putting it out there. Sometimes adults had ready meals, or a couple of nights of curry from a Patak's paste, and the kids had fishfingers, or sandwiches, or "bits and pieces tea". They have grown up into "good eaters", for better or worse.

But family food - fish portions. Fishcakes made of tinned salmon and mashed potato. Jacket potatoes with tuna mayo. Ramen. Baked salmon pieces with oven chips, optional pesto crust. Ham, egg and wedges.

Just made omelette for the toddler. Took about a minute.

Pasta pesto - stir some finely chopped baby spinach in before serving. It pretty much disappears and ups the nutrients.

We used to do a lot of jar curries and pasta sauces, but with lots of added vege.

Freezer stuff or hotdogs with finger salad or roasted corn on the cob.

Following for ideas