What are your weekly dinner meals?

[kikikaka]

I’m really struggling for ideas, I seem to do the same meals most weeks and it gets boring. Looking for more ideas, especially for my 1 year old.

meals we have regularly are pasta bake, lasagne, cottage pie, sausage and mash, chilli, enchiladas, spaghetti bolognese

AUBERGINE PARMIGIANA - although from this week I’ll be making it with courgettes as they are ready from the garden.

Ratatouille - that I normally serve with leftover chicken or steak.

Not weekly but Homity Pie (hairy bikers recipe is online).

Usually a variation of fish and chips.

Curry - either a butter chicken or a mild curry type meal.

Simply Cook meal kits as well. (Noticed Tesco have brought out their own version).
I like the penne pasta one, and the one pot rice ones.

We all get stuck in a rut so I am following this with interest. I’ll give you my go to meals but full disclosure I suffer in the heat so it’s quick and easy summer food!

Quiche (store bought) roasted new potatoes and Greek salad.

Halloumi tray bake. Shove the cheese with peppers, courgettes, onion, tomatoes- fresh or tinned and potatoes in the oven in one tray.

Homemade pizza. Just use flat breads as the base, tomato and cheese and add anything else to it. My kids love to do this. Serve with corn on the cob.

We are on a rotation of:
Egg + veg fried rice
Chicken korma
Haddock kievs (from M&S) with buttered new potatoes + veg
Teriyaki tofu stir fry
Chicken noodle soup
Haddock, parmesan, leek and pea risotto
Spaghetti bolognese
Lasagne
Fish tacos
Chicken + bacon caesar salad
Crispy duck pancakes with sesame + soy stir fried greens
Various omelette combinations
Bangers & mash

Tonight we have couscous either feta, parsley, roasted peppers and lemon with grilled lamb koftas. Tomorrow we have coconut dal, brown rice and quick pickled aubergine and shallots.

YouTube shorts has fantastic ideas , really simple but extremely creative stuff for breakfast and evening meals

just some ideas :
Korean crispy pork
butter chicken
Quesadillas or tacos
chicken shawarma
kofta

last year I made so many of these recipes , can’t recommend enough x

Just discovered a new brand called Saida's Kitchen and am currently obsessed with their Moroccan sauce (no UPF). I've been roasting veg (courgette, aubergine, squash, onion, whatever I've got), then mixing in the sauce and baking it until hot through. We've had it with rice and jacket potatoes.

Apart from that, in all this heat we've pretty much lived on salad with chicken or skewers or sausages or halloumi.

I have a great little cookbook called 'one pot pasta' all the ingredients get thrown in one pan cold then simmered for 15 mins, results are fantastic!

Or Jambalaya - classic one pot rice dish with peppers , chicken, chorizo , prawns (even a vegan version of this is just as good!)

With a one year old it's a great time to introduce them to lots of different flavours and textures

If you're on Facebook have a look at Northern Nic's back kitchen. I saw it recommended on here ages ago, and she's honestly great. I've used loads of her recipes, best bit about them is that she's very much a "if you don't have x leave it out" and I need that when ive been at work all day!

I'm finding inspiration hard these days too! We often have roast chicken with salad and new potatoes (smashed with.mint, butter and olive oil and salt), salmon fillets with the same. I've been making bean salads with couscous and Feta to try and eat less meat. Maybe a bbq every so often. But it tends to be a lot of salads!!!

I’m getting so bored of my dinners and thinking of new ones. One really easy one everyone likes is pesto chicken pasta. Cook penne fry chicken with some garlic , chicken stock stir in pesto and crème fraiche and pasta, add cheese and salad done

We seem to be stuck in a rut of
sausage pasta
spaghetti bolognese
shepherds pie
chicken Fajitas
the El Paso rice meal like a jambalaya
breaded chicken with pasta and a stir in sauce and veg
sausage traybake with potatoes and whatever veg I’ve got that can be roasted.

I’m so bored of the same food! And limited to dairy free foods due to one intolerance and one cheese allergy in the house (which isn’t me - I love cheese! 😢 )

When the allergy boys are out I love a hunters chicken or a chicken Kiev with cheese and ham in.

Recently we have had…
a curry (usually bbc easy chicken curry recipe with added spinach and coriander)
Seasoned chicken thigh fillets with jacket potato/salad
Salmon tray bake with new potatoes/asparagus
Fish tacos with some wedges
Lasagne with salad
Thai Basil pork with rice

Lurking

chorizo and cheddar ‘carbonara’ - fry chorizo then turn off the heat and add a of big handfuls of spinach to wilt. Lift the pasta from its cooking water with tongs (so it retains some of the water) into the pan with the chorizo and spinach then stir in eggs whisked with some cheddar and black pepper. Delicious!

Also frankfurters with roasted new potatoes with caraway seeds chucked in, sauerkraut and sliced cucumber with salt, sour cream and dill on top. Sounds a weird combo but is 👌🏻

Keema is a real regular here. We have it either just with rice, on a jacket potato, as a keema pav, on a naan as a pizza or just on its own with potatoes added.
Ramen, we do a variety of different ones from chilli chicken to a crispy one using minced beef.
Chicken Caesar pasta salad
Tandoori chicken bowls
Sweet and sour or Kung Pao
Char sui pork with stir fried veg and rice
Chicken and pineapple kebabs
Birria tacos
Kebabs- doner, gyros, soulvaki
Swedish meatballs
Jambalaya
Gammon with cauliflower cheese or creamy cabbage.
Chicken Alfredo
Chicken adobo
Taco spaghetti
Chicken and stuffing in part baked baguettes with a vegetable soup.
Stroganoff
Chicken Satay
Pies/pasties- Creamy chicken, steak, cheese and onion etc.
Pizza pasta bake

Peri peri chicken pasta (also works with fajita seasoning)
Lemon chicken spaghetti
Chinese beef and broccoli
Korean beef noodles

My wins with little kids (who are also DF!) are:
*haddock risotto (both frozen fish and green beans makes this a good one when out of fresh items)
*homemade pizzas - usually kids decorate a pitta with passata and things like chopped olives and sweetcorn, make our own pizza base with Greek yogurt and SR flour (great for GF)
*tuna pasta - Jamie Oliver has a nice recipe in one of his 15 minute meals (or similar) books which inspired this, I add frozen green beans too
*veg packed /spanish style omelette - usually whatever’s in the fridge, bit of tomato rice on side if no potatoes in it
*fajitas - fry chicken without the flavouring on for kids separately, big plate of picky veg like cucumber, sugar snaps, tomatoes, peppers etc, and then usually tomato rice instead of wraps
*egg fried rice with peas and sweetcorn (using the rice whilst we have a Chinese or Indian or Thai)
*pork, chorizo and butterbean stew - use passata and whatever veg I have (eg courgette, kale, beans) - serve with mash and take the chorizo out for the kids - pork is cheaper than other meats too, and only use 1/2 a chorizo ring.
*sausage casserole, pack it out with loads of veg, passata and either red or green lentils. Plus mash.

Risotto/jambalaya
Tacos - same spices as the chili and enchiladas you do already, but crunchy, colourful and fun
Alfredo pasta - I make it with prawns, but chicken is also nice
Chicken wings - either with a marinade sachet (favourite is Aldi's Buffalo flavour) or egg&breadcrumbs, with lashings of garlic and parmesan cheese
Ramen noodles with stir fry vegetables, meat optional, cooking sauce sachets from Aldi
Hot dogs/frankfurters
Fish finger sandwiches

In winter, add soup&crusty bread, and gumbo, but that's more of a weekend Occasion meal.

Fish pie with a potato topping

Fillet of plaice, salmon or cod with peas & potatoes

Roast chicken dinner

Risotto, chicken, mushroom or asparagus and pea are favourites

Mushroom stroganoff served with pasta

Chicken supreme served with rice or pasta

In this heatwave, it's mainly salads, Salade Niçoise, Chicken Caesar salad, salmon mayonnaise, prawn and rice noodle salad etc etc.

Stuff we like are

Easy comfort (in my eyes) food like spag bol, DIY pizza, cottage pie, fajitas, tacos

Salads (especially if the summer). But our salads usually have some kind of carb in them, so baby potato and chicken salad for eg, or a salmon/quinoa salad

Asian dishes (bcoz I love them!). On weekends I'll cook curries, but for weekdays quicker meals. Favourites are steak bulgogi, san choi bau, stir fries. If I'm feeling REALLY lazy then I do some lightly fried noodles in a simple soy/rice vinegar sauce (ideally knife cut noodles from the Asian supermarket, but the kind you get in Tesco are alright too) with some cooked frozen chicken and then toppings like spring onions, sesame seeds, edamame or just whatever you want tbh

Scandi dishes as I spent a lot of time there as a child so just like the food. Particular favourites I'd recommend is pyt i panna with whatever leftover roast meat from the weekend (it's basically just fried up hash). Kropkakka (again with leftover roast, but this is more time consuming). Salmon, baby potatoes and beetroot salad with creamy sauce

Various middle Eastern dishes, often great in the slow cooker like tagines. Shakshuka is also super quick and easy, we have it for breakfast a lot but it also works for dinner 😁

Majority of cooking on Sunday.
Chicken week
Roast few chickens & cook pasta, cook chicken soup, so:
Sunday: soup, leggs and wings with vege and potatoes.
Monday - Sundays leftovers
Tuesday - tuna and pasta
Wednesday - white chicken in some sauce and pasta
Thursday - defrosted chicken soup
Friday - some sort of grazing board
Saturday - defrosted white chicken as gyros

Mince week
Fried mince with onions and carrots. Cook rice.
Sunday - lasagne/bolognese
Monday - leftovers
Tuesday - rice and tuna salad
Wednesday - mince mixed with peas and some sort of asian sauce and rice
Thursday - defrosted mince, beans and corn as chilly soup.
Friday - frozen pizza
Saturday - defrosted mince and tortilla cut into triangles, vegetables, cheese

I do this too. Genius.

I cook 4 nights dh does 3. On my night I do
1, salad or soup
2, pasta/spaghetti/noodles
3, rice/bulgar/ couscous
4, jacket potato/omelette/fritters/quiche

So all I have to do is plan a recipe around each meal type

Salads/ chicken schnitzel as it's quick to cook/ pre-preped chilli/ chops/ omelette??

Tuesdays - something easy eg stir fry, sausage and mash, kievs and new pot,
We'd & Thurs - batch cook a big pasta bake like tuna or chicken or do taming twins cheeseburger pasta but make into a bake, lots of good recipes online or get creative
Fridays - fajitas, pizza, something fun
Saturday - usually our family meal day do roasts chicken in air fryer, slow cooker gammon and chips for example
Sunday Monday - batch cook for 2 days lasagne, chilli, bolognese or a curry