What meals can you make in advance, grab from the fridge and eat with minimum fuss?

[coco4242]

Have a busy week next week and need dinners for us and the dc that can be grabbed and eaten when getting in.

I have the time to make them in the morning but then a long day ahead. When we get in, the dc will be tired and ratty and will need feeding quickly.I also won't want to be bothered with a lot of faffing around at this stage of the day.

Looking for healthy ideas if poss

Pasta sauces with lots of veg
Slow cooker stews
Lentil and veg casserole
Frittata (steam the veg in advance then add eggs and cook last minute)
Pies - we are having sweet potato and goats cheese tonight made and frozen a month ago
Soups - ribollita or minestrone are evening meal hearty
Stir fry veg with noodles
Couscous with tinned mackerel and peas

Bubble & squeak. Chop up the leftovers immediately after the meal they are leftover from and stick in a bowl/tub. Then tip the whole lot into frying pan, fry till crispy and eat. Lovely with fried eggs, or leftover cold meat.

Stirfry if you have either chopped the veg earlier or bought the ready chopped stirfry packs. Lob in some prawns/strips of chicken and a slosh of soy sauce, trickle of honey, bit of ginger and garlic and sesame oil and jobs a good'un

Picnic tea? My DD is quite fond of cheese, cucumber, tomatoes, cold new potatoes, then some yog/fruit/biscuit. But she is not quite 2 and this might well not be enough for a bigger child!

Bolognaise/chilli/curry etc reheat really well, you just need to add rice/naan/pitta/pasta.

Oven timer? Can you stick some jacket potatoes in so they are ready when you get back and have them with cheese/beans/chilli/tuna & sweetcorn mayo/ham & coleslaw & salad. You can do the cheese grating/tuna mixing/salad prep etc earlier in the day.

Enchiladas

Our favourite quickie dinner is home made pizza. I batch cook tomato sauce to use on pizza and pasta. (It's loads of chopped tomatoes, lazy garlic and onion with Italian seasoning, balsamic vinegar and honey) and split it into little tubs to fridge or freeze. I use Napolitana pizza bases and either a bag of grated mozzarella or the balls in a bag. Bung the oven on, dump the sauce on the pizza base and chuck the cheese on - I cut up the balls with scissors. Pizza cooks in about 12 minutes

The cheapskate version is to do that using pitta breads raaraa

Omelettes with added ham, veg, cheese. I can make 4 in about 20 minutes. Serve with salad / corn on the cob or garlic bread

Chuck past in pan and boil for about 8 mins then add some frozen peas and cook for 4 mins
Add in some chopped ham and some garlic and herb cream cheese
Add a bit of pesto if you wish and let down with a bit of milk if needed

Casserole with bread or couscous
Curry with rice or bread (I use pitta as a cheap alternative to naan - can be warmed in toaster from frozen too)
Stuff on toast - scrambled egg, beans.
Omelette.
Pasta pesto with broccoli/peas and salmon (microwave salmon v briefly while pasta cooking, add veg to pasta water)