Large family dinners

[IsThisOneFree]

Family of six, half of which are teen boys. What are your go-to buckets of slop that can be ladled out, let them come back for seconds and are protein-dense?
I’m growing weary of chilli, spag Bol, burritos, fish pie and chicken curry rotation.

Inspiration welcome, please!

Also feel this. Family of six too! I’d add cottage pie to the list. On Fridays I do chicken in the air fryer with Turkish bbq seasoning. We make a big salad and pitta breads and a variety of dips and it feels a bit more trash than the mid week canteen type meals. We make a morrocan meat ball bake recipe that originally came from hello fresh I think that is hearty but feels bit more interesting

Homemade lentil and veg soup

Carrots, onion, cabbage, celery, red lentils, stock cubes, garlic, water.

Blend and serve with bread.

Tell them it's a starter.

Also, you need to get back on the puddings.

Have you ever seen a 15 year old lad complain about jam roly poly?

I rest my case.

Not quite a bucket of slop but big bags of chicken legs are cheap and plentiful. Just marinate then roast. Salad, baked sweet potatoes.

I can google hello fresh Moroccan meatballs but what’s in Turkish bbq seasoning please? Do you have a recipe? DIY kebabs and salad would go down very well here!

I used to get simple cheese and tomatoe pizzas then put a selection of toppings out. can easily fit 3 at a time in the oven and if someone has to wait it's usally only 10-15 minutes. Salad as well.

Chicken katsu curry in the oven with a veggie noodle stir fry?? I have two hungry teens and that usually fills them up.
Part baked baguette, chicken/fish gougons, wedges and salad?

Your description of buckets of slop made me laugh 😂

Not quite slop, but in this category of ‘easy to feed lots of hungry teenagers’

• Macaroni cheese and sausages/green veg
• Cottage pie
• Pasta bake (chicken, bacon, pea and white sauce with cheese top, or tuna and tomato or whatever)
• I remember my mum (also cooking for lots of people with not lots of money) cooking a white wine coq au vin with rice a lot. Chicken legs and thighs.
• Tex mex dirty rice (minced beef, peppers, black beans, spices, rice. Google will help)
• Louisiana red beans and rice (I do a cheats version with pre cooked kidney beans, and use chorizo as can’t get andouille sausage here)
• chicken or beef stroganoff with rice or mash
• stir fries with rice/noodles. Whatever protein you like

Fajitas/tacos - any variety

Ramen - noodles and meat

Quesadillas - easy to fill with cheese, left over meats, veggies etc

Casserole and dumplings

Chicken, lamb or beef (sometimes I do meatballs instead of chunks of meat) tagine with rice, couscous or bulgar wheat and fattoush.
pulled chicken, pork or beef I usually do Mexican style flavours with spicy rice or wedges or more traditional flavours served in Yorkshire puddings,
Thai chicken curry noodles or beef massaman curry,
Keema curry,
fajita chicken pasta,
cheeseburger pasta or sometimes we have it over fries,
macaroni cheese with gammon or brisket,
egg fried rice with cans of tuna stirred in,
greek style lamb or chicken with lemon and feta rice or lemony potatoes,
chicken zorba,
sausage pasta,
sausage casserole,
meatloaf,
swedish meatballs,
goulash,
chicken and chorizo pasta, rice or potato traybake

Garlic bread with anything vaguely Italian

Dumplings or Cheese scones on anything that looks like stew

Crusty Bread and butter with everything

Swap out mince for meatballs: curries, spaghetti Bol, Sate with rice etc. it looks different and seems more filling somehow (packs of 20 tiny ones are good)

Lots of puddings, with custard/ice cream

If kebabs would be good then the ‘viral’ doner kebab is really easy. There’s also a slow cooker version that works really well.
Also the chicken kebabs where you pack all the marinated chicken mini fillets into a loaf tin then carve it like they do at a takeaway are easy too and you can do all kinds of flavours.

Pile of wraps, salad items prepped.

Then I would cook a few blocks of halloumi. Or whatever protein.

And all the sauces. Chilli sauce, mayo, garlic and herb.

Works with naans instead of wraps, a tray of onion bhaji and cook some marinaded paneer or chicken. Prepped salads. Raita, squeezey mango chutney. Chill sauce.

I said to a full-grown man, "It's blah-di-blah or raspberry and something torte or baked jam roll" and you know what he chose.

A mother of sons said that there isn't a man alive who doesn't like treacle tart.

Thanks for the reminders with your 'jam roly poly' words.

For us it is rotating what goes with the dinners. Rice, jacket potatoes, loaded fries, sweet potatoes. And salads to bulk it out too. Some good suggestions here!

Filled Yorkshire puddings ( the large ones ) with a nice hearty stew or hotpot type dish

We do a lamb mince cobbler with cheese & mustard scones.

Tomato with a dash of red wine and bacon

1. Stew of some kind with loads of dumplings. Bake in the oven so they are fluffy inside and crispy outside.

1. Stew with a mountain of Yorkshire puddings.

1. Fill the oven with jacket potatoes. Have a selection of toppings, depending on your family's tastes: Butter, bacon, sausages, grated cheese, tuna, leftover chilli con carne, stew, or Bolognese, etc. Salad on the side.

1. Roast chicken, or chicken legs or thighs, garlic bread, salad.

We are rhe house the teenagers land up sleeping over at. I do a lot of pasta dishes! Also tacos with pork/chicken/beef, salads/salsa, cheese, sour cream, about and they help themselves.

Baked chicken pieces with mashed potato and veg.

I sometimes do things like steak sandwiches on ciabattas with onions/mushrooms/slaw etc. Allows steak to go a lot further and fills everyone up.

Meatloaf. Or meatloaf wrapped in puff pastry for a cheats wellington.

1 onion
350 g mince
225g sausage meat or pork mince
50g oats
tbsp each of worcester sauce, mixed herbs and tomato paste
1 egg

squish it all together and form a loaf shape. Wrap in oiled foil and bake 1 hr at 180 fan. Serve

or cool and then

Roll in ready rolled puff sheet, score, egg wash and bake 20-25 mins on 210 fan.

you can sub in more oats and some tinned lentils or tinned kidney beans to bulk it.

Its massively filling. Spike up with chilli powder or cayenne if you want.

Serve hot with mash or baked potatoes and green veg, or cold with salad.

Big family Friday nights were often chicken and sausages ( so much so that it became a 'thing' . A kg ( or more for your lot) Chicken wings baked in oven with fajita spice, loads of grilled sausages ( or you could do toad In the hole) garlic bread, potato salad , mash or jackets and salad (somehow I seem to have raised the only kids in the world who don't like chips or roast potatoes- total weirdos but they are the same as adults) ... So I couldn't do that, but MIL who had 4 sons always served large trays of roast potatoes with everything.. .
And yes ,do puddings ! Crumble, pie, steamed jam pudding... slop bucket of custard

I add tinned tomatoes, mushrooms and mxed dried herbs to my lentil soup. Tastes delicious. You don't need stock then.

Cottage pie, shepherd's pie, corned beef hash... can you tell what I grew up on? Stews and casseroles might also fit the bill for 'buckets of slop', though perhaps beef bourguignon sounds a bit too refined for that!

More recently, I'd add harissa chicken traybake (with chips or something, to bulk it out) to the list. It had me going back for seconds! It's quick to prepare, too.

Flapjacks and muffins Banana bread are quick and easy to make also (and can be quite healthy if you add extra fruit and reduced sugar) also good with custard as dessert. My mum used to make bread pudding also which we all loved hot or cold . Oh and rice pudding..

Sausage casserole always goes a storm, or sausages and mash.

I agree with pp about puddings, especially hot stodgy puddings at this time of the year. I do rice pudding a lot (baked with lots of nutmeg on top and served with jam, of course), and also bread and butter pudding, sponge pudding and custard, and various fruit crumbles. To be honest, I make these stodgy puddings for myself as much as I do the teenagers. I love pudding.

my teens really like macaroni cheese. mine consist of 3/4 veg, so is filling and healthy.
rice dishes, like jambalaya, nasi goreng.
meat loaf/meat balls & mashed potato and gravy