Judge my Evening Meal Plan

[Froomp]

I have 2 children aged 6 and 2. I’ve just done the weekly shop with the below meal plan in mind but after reading a recent thread on here I’m worried that it’s not healthy enough for them/ there is too many Carbs involved. Please tell me honestly if it’s okay/ the kind of thing a “normal” family eats:

Tues- Roast Chicken, mashed potatoes, carrots, peas and broccoli.
Wed- Quorn spaghetti Bolognese

Thurs- Baked potatoes, cheese and beans.

Fri- Burgers and chips

Sat- chicken and veg fajitas with refried beans

Sun- Fishcakes, sweet potato wedges and corn on the cob.

Mon- Pizza, coleslaw and salad.

Sounds fine to me.

Id say Thursday and Friday need more veg.

Sounds yum and far more healthy than the (not normally this slummy mummy) bacon sarnies that we had tonight😀

I have a similar meal plan and worry its too professed. But my brain can't "cook" each night.

I think it’s absolutely fine!

If I was trying to include more veg I’d maybe swap burgers and chips for a veggie stir fry, but my kids wouldn’t be that impressed with that. They’re not that keen on burgers either though, tbh! Could you swap the chips that night for pesto pasta salad with spinach? That’s what I often make as a side dish when I want to feel slightly virtuous but can’t be arsed to have an argument 😂

Could you swap the burger and chips for something easy but healthy? Breaded chicken steaks with new potatoes and peas?

Maybe some veg to go with the burgers and chips.

Sounds perfectly fine. Maybe some salad with the burgers? If it's health you are concerned about you do need to look at the whole day from a meal perspective though. Burger & chips for dinner is fine, but not if lunch is chocolate cake and breakfast donuts! (Mmm donuts...)

Looks absolutely fine to me, I know the thread you mean and it was full of virtue signalling competitive under eaters!

More veg on those days as others have said. You could also stick some veg/other bits in the quorn spag bol e.g. peas, diced carrots, lentils, mushroom.
You could do bean burgers?

It's the sort of menu I do, and often feel like I should do better, but they like it, eat it, and sone of it needs to be quick and easy .

I'm starting to do 1 "new" dish a week. Not always totally new, but something we rarely have, so the children (2 & 4) stay used to trying new things.

Sounds fine- you have to balance up health with what your children will actually eat. If you want to make it healthier you could make a few changes. You could do make your own pizzas with lots of veg and wholemeal bases. Burgers and chips could be replaced with a cottage pie with loads of veg grated into the mince.

I quite often cook a whole load of red/orange veg such as onions, peppers carrots together with some tomato paste and tinned tomatoes and blend to make a veg pasta sauce that tastes good with cheese on top. Veg chilli also a winner in this house.

Breakfast is always porridge and frozen berries stirred in on weekdays. Weekends the kids choose so it tends to be cinnamon toast.

Lunch is a sandwich, fruit, veg sticks (always uneaten) and yoghurt or babybell.

The kids chose one evening meal each a week. Eldest chose burgers and chips. Will serve with a salad to ease some of the parental guilt. Thank you.

Making own pizza is also a good idea. I fall into the trap of working full time and just needing days where I just chuck something into the oven. But then that’s paired with the constant guilt I somehow failing my children.

Yes, it's exactly the type of food a 'normal' family eats and it's quite likely that the thread you are referring to was full of people eating food that's in no way typical of the general population.

Also looks reasonably healthy, depending on what everyone's eating at other times of day, and probably much better than a lot of people eat. There's a lot of people who the closest they get to a vegetable is the tomatoes in their ketchup and pizza sauce.

Yes that’s typical for us and I’m a FT working mum too.
I tend to do a stew in the slow cooker once a week and get extra veg into that.

Looks healthy and sensible to me. Friday clearly a treat day. Go for it. You eat well the rest of the week. I am assuming burgers aren't a staple every week.

My week this week (for context):

Monday baked potatoes cheese coselaw salad sweetcorn on the cob

Tues: spag bol (has carrot and spinach in it)

Weds: home made falafel with yoghurt and salad on pita bread probably with Tabbouleh or potatoes sliced into thin rounds and chipped in the air fryer

Gammon in the slow cooker with cauliflower broccoli and leek cheese. Possibly some freezer roast potatoes

Friday: lasagna if i can be arsed. More likely gammon salad.

Perfectly normal and absolutely fine op.

Sounds normal to me, we would have a similar meal plan. I make my own burgers or choose low fat ones - lidl have really nice 5%fat burgers. Making your own pizza is also nice and helps cut out some salt.

They look like perfectly balanced and nutritious meals

Looks fine, particularly if burgers and pizza are home made.

Add some veg for burger and chips day. Peas?

I also read that thread. It left me thinking I must be a terrible parent for what I feed my child! But your week sounds similar to mine phew! And lots of other reassuring comments too from other pps

Looks great to me. I struggle to be too concerned with burger and chips - if it’s a good quality burger and you put a bit of salad on the side nutritionally it’s little different to something like cottage pie.

You can make your own burgers or meatballs in large quantities and freeze them. Same with spag bol or chilli. Make double one week and then freeze for the next week.

For cheat pizzas (and this doesn't sound great but trust me!) We just get a tortilla wrap, smear with tomato paste, cover in toppings (onions, sweetcorn, peppers, cooked chicken, salami, mushrooms etc), a sprinkling of mozzarella and shove under the grill for 4 mins or so. More like a pizza wrap than an actual pizza but the kids love it.

I’ve just started trying to meal plan - I work full time and we aren’t home until nearly 6pm so things need to be either quick or prepared in advance. 2 year old and 5 year old who I s very fussy.

Here’s a week of dinners for us:

Fish pie and peas
Creamy pasta and salad
Freezer dinner
Scrambled egg on toast
Chicken wraps and salad
Salmon and potatoes and broccoli.
Pizza and salad

(Salad = a bit of cucumber and cherry toms)