Super fast evening meals ideas for two FT working parents and toddler

[NachoChip]

DH and I both work full time and DS (18m) goes to nursery four days a week. By the time we get across to nursery and get home, it's 5.45/6pm before we're through the door and I can get dinner on. It means poor little DS is eating his dinner late and he's tired and hungry.

I try and do a slow cooker meal each week which we'll have two nights, but does anyone have any ideas for healthy meals that I can prepare in about 20 minutes? DH can't eat any fish or seafood.

Following with interest for the same reason! No pea protein or nuts for him, but would love more interesting quick meals for him, it’s hard!

Carbonara, spag bol made using frozen chopped onion or soffrito, macaroni cheese, pasta pesto, most pasta dishes, Spice Tailor curry kits, pizza using a non UPF premade base, puff pastry tart using non UPF premade pastry, stir frys, ramen, omelettes or frittata, poached or pan fried fish or chicken with salad/veg/potatoes.

I used to sometimes make things that reheat quickly to have for dinner for the next day when I had more time after dinner and the DC were in bed if I had a busy week eg make a cottage pie, all I have to do is chuck it in the oven the next day, then prep a quiche fior dinner the next day later when I am less rushed. Or I would prep 2 similar meals together eg cook a packet of mince and soffrito, turn half into spaghetti bolognaise and half into a chilli, cottage pie, lasagne etc for later in the week.

Not exactly what you’re asking but we have a similar family set up - we batch cook at the weekend so we have freezer meals ready in case of disaster, but then one of us cooks for the next day whilst the other parent does bath and bed. So in, reheat food, eat, cook for the day ahead. Dishwasher on with pots and pans from the cooking, as well as plates etc. Bonus points if there are enough for leftovers for lunch.

Doesn’t always work, but gives us a bit more variety. Off the top of my head, one of the best “fresh” midweek meals we have is diced butternut squash and tomato softened with some butter, add some sage, blend into a pasta sauce. I also really rate the Rebecca Wilson books for some quick family meals.

Do you want to all eat together?

I feed my toddler leftovers from the previous day for their dinner. We don’t eat together midweek however as it’s just not realistic in the timeframe we have.

What does he have at nursery and do you all have to eat together?

DCs didn’t have dinner with us after nursery - they had a snack tea. We ate after they were in bed.

Same, toddler had meal at nursery so a good snack, milk, while we cooked our own dinner/reheated/airfier quickie.

We never ate with ours during the week. It was too late. DH would just do story and bath whilst I cooked and they’d have a snack.

Same as previous posters, nursery nights are usually cheese sandwich nights for the toddler! Then we'll eat when she's in bed.

They have a very early lunch,."tea" as at about 3pm and then a little snack about 5/5.30pm if we haven't picked him up beforehand but he always eats a full meal at night.

We do all eat together in the evening. I could make DS leftovers from the night before quickly and DH and I eat separately after bedtime as some of you suggest, but I like that we all eat together and after a long day at work I'd be starving if we didn't eat until gone 8pm! Separate is always an option but if there are ways we can manage, I'd go for eating together.

Thank you all so much for your replies so far.

Things you can cook on hob in less than 10 mins and no real prep needed:

• Stir fry
• Pasta and pesto or filled pasta like tortellini with jar sauce
• Omelette with the frozen bags of steamed veg
• quesadillas (cheese, salsa, cooked chicken) with salad or microwave rice

Things that take 20-30 mins in the air fryer/oven but no real prep

• sausages, mash (buy ready made/frozen or use instant) and peas
• chicken drumsticks with corn on the cob and microwave rice
• chicken breast wrapped in bacon with potato wedges and roasted tenderstem broccoli

Taming Twins website has some 10-minute meals. The bean chilli is really nice.

Pasta with peas (microwave) (sorry @Cdoc) bacon and then cream/creme fraiche/cheese sauce as you prefer. To make even quicker, cook the bacon the night before or use ham. To make it no dairy, it's quite nice with olive oil, lemon and loads of black pepper

Also like a scrambled eggs tea from time to time. Smoked salmon if you're being fancy. Cucumber/tomato to snack on while it cooks to get some veggies in

Oh sorry you said no fish. Ignore the smoked salmon bit. Facepalm

Mince based things are quick. Quite a few hello fresh recipes along those lines.

I think batch cooking is your friend. I do a tomato and mince base. Pan fried, celery onions and garlic, tinned cherry, regular tomatoes and mince slow cooked. This is the base of many meals even just warmed through anc served with with tortellini it’s lush or add in some beans in chilli sauce and it’s a chilli, Italian herbs and spaghetti and it’s bolognaise. Easy veg sugar snap peas and tender stem broccoli require no prep. Carrot sticks are brilliant roasted in the Airfryer. Baked potatoes are another good thing to make in advance. You can do a lazy mash with them too, slice in half scoop add butter/ milk or olive oil and mash. Also if you have an Airfryer cut cooked baked potatoes into wedges, sprinkle with seasoning, tiny bit of oil. Potato wedges in five minutes.

One of those Spanish omelettes that you can get in supermarkets. Gently heat in a pan with just a smear of oil for a few minutes. In the meantime, green veg like broccoli or kale, and including frozen peas, and maybe some Spanish rice from a pre-cooked pouch heated in a tiny bit of water for a few minutes. All done in 10 minutes. Things like this kept us going through recent virus when couldn't face cooking.

Buy everything ready prepped. I know it's really easy to look at an onion for 30p or a bag of sliced onion for 95p and go for the cheaper option, but the cheaper option needs peeling and chopping, the more expensive needs opening and pouring. It's worth the extra cost to me, to have it done by someone else. Yesterday morning I made a chilli in the slow cooker, pack of beef chunks, bag of sliced mushrooms, bag of sliced onion, bag of peeled baby carrots, tin of chopped tomatoes, good shake of chilli con carne seasoning. Took about 2 minutes to open, pour, stir and turn on machine, then I just left it for the day to sort itself out.

Omelette
Microwave baked potatoes and toppings
Pizza
Simple pastas
Stir fry
Wraps
Sausage, beans and chips

I batch cook soups, bolognese, chillis and curries. Then it's only the time to boil rice or pasta.

Don't go for interesting. Go for quick easy that DS will 199% eat no matter how tired or grumpy.

Ready in minutes;

Beans on toast
Scrambled eggs/omelette
Egg fried rice
Cheese toastie/quesadillas
Pasta and pesto

Bung some cucumber/pepper/carrot sticks in the table as well..

Im exactly like you - I enjoy eating with my kids and can’t wait til 8pm and both mine always wanted a meal after nursery!

I get up early and prep in the morning so Im just cookingZ

Today we had chicken fajita wraps - I had veg chopped + chicken marinating, table set, salsa made by 7am. Then it’s just a quick fry up when we got home and we were eating inside 15mins.

Tomorrow we are having homemade turkey burgers and corn-on-the-cob

Friday it will be pasta with homemade sauce (sauces are batch cooked and so I just defrost portions overnight - tomato mascarpone, bolognese, cheesy sauce for macaroni cheese).

My kids would happily eat pasta every day but I get bored of it!

Once you get the hang of batch cooking and early prep, you will never look back.

I do sometimes get complaints about the smell of onion and garlic at 6.30am so I recommend a scented candle is your friend!

Slow cooker for two evenings.

Do a stir fry twice, prep vegetables at the weekend, one with noodles one with rice, alternate veg, fish, chicken, beef, lamb etc.

And then on Friday have a toastie, omelette, steak with a bag of chips, wedges or fries delivered or a hello fresh box.