Tell Birds Eye about your midweek meal tips - £300 voucher to be won!NOW CLOSED

[AmeliaMumsnet]

How do you get tasty, nutritious food on the table when you’ve been busy all day? After all, when it gets to summer, the last thing most of us fancy is spending more time than we need to tied to the oven. So do you have some clever shortcuts or cheats? Whatever your tips for midweek family meals, Birds Eye want to know.

Here’s what Birds Eye have to say: ‘Tea time can be a stressful time of day and coming up with nutritious and tasty meals the kids will enjoy isn’t easy. But Birds Eye frozen chicken is quick and easy to prepare, and made with 100% chicken breast, barn-reared chicken, and no artificial colours, flavours, or preservatives.’

Are you a whizz at preparing ahead or batch cooking? Do you have a fast, nutritious recipe that’s too good to keep to yourself? Maybe you’re just great at making sure the whole family pulls their weight when preparing dinner? Whatever the secret to your midweek meal success, particularly if you’ve something summery in your repertoire, share it on the thread below!

Every MNer who posts on the thread with their midweek meal tips will be entered into a prize draw, where one lucky winner will be randomly selected to receive a £300 Amazon voucher.

Thanks and good luck,

MNHQ

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I wish i had more tips for this, our mid week meals aren't the healthiest. We do things like fish fingers, peas and potatoes.

Frozen veg is really handy, or those packs of pre-prepared fresh veg. You can just add to it baked chicken breasts or salmon and have dinner ready in 20 mins, without much prep or monitoring. I love slow cooker recipes as well - stuffed peppers, bolognaise and curry are our favourites.

Cook a big batch of bolognese which can be served with spaghetti on its own or added to cottage pie or as a base for chilli con carne

I just make simple meals during the week - beans on toast, egg and soldiers. fish fingers and veg. Nothing takes more than 15 minutes to prepare and it is fuss free and nutritious

My nutritious go to meal doesn't have a name, I put chicken breast peppers onions chopped tomatoes and kidney beans in the slow cooker and serve with pasta. Really easy to make and always some left over for another day

bolognaise is my go to. I buy the leanest, and add as many chopped veg as I can get away with, yellow pepper, onion, grated carrot and garlic. This is the base then for my weekly family meals....spag bol, Lasagne, in a jacket potato and cottage pie. A pan full is made on Monday and lasts all week. good value, full of vegetables and easy to make a lovely home made tea every night.

I love this store cupboard standby:- Serves 2 so you may need to double or even triple quantities

2 Cloves Garlic - finely chopped
2 tbsps Capers
1/2 jar Black olives
Black Pepper and chopped parsley
1 Can plum Tomatoes
Grated Parmesan if desired to top

Fry garlic, add capers and olives then tomatoes and simmer 5-10 minutes
Serve over wholemeal spaghetti with a side salad or spinach
So delicious and so easy/cheap

If you eat meat you can add 1/2 can chopped anchovies and if you like hot just add some dried chillis

I always do a lot of batch cooking then freezing making easy nourishing food for busy days

I cook from Friday through to Monday and always cook from scratch. Hubby takes over tuesday to thursday and tends to rely heavily on what's in the freezer. I like to keep the freezers (we have 2 smallish ones) well organised with a drawer for specific things so that he can easily find things; otherwise I find things get left and forgotten about until it's freezer cleaning time.

My tip is to plan a week's evening meals so you can do 1 big shop. Then cook double amounts when possible & freeze half for a day when you haven't got the time or inclination to cook from scratch.

I have a mix of fast recipes for them days when I cant be bothered and slow recipes for when I don't mind.

we draw a raffle ticket out of a basin every Sunday for every day of the week - who draws the day does the meal for that day (someone has to cook twice!)

we have a roast dinner on sundays and we get it to last for 3 meals cold sliced meat and pickle etc on monday and then mince what is left for tuesday in shepherds pie lots of opportunity to use fresh veg with all three meals and very economical too

I get a ready made and pre rolled pastry, and leave a flan tin out. It takes minutes to beat up two eggs, a small pot of double cream and throw grated cheese into that mixture.. Put pastry into flan case, using scissors to cut it to shape, and pressing the rest in, cook pastry for 10 minutes in a 200c oven, and then take out and put the cheese mix in. No need for baking beans, just pierce with a fork if puffed up, before putting the filling in. To jazz up the cheese, fried bacon, onion or a half teaspoon of made Dijon mustard can be added, along with seasoning to taste. I lay the bacon and onion on the pastry, before or after the pre cook. Bake for half hour in the 200c oven, or until it is golden brown and firm. Serve with salad, pre made, from a supermarket.

PS Any pastry OK, I use puff or shortcrust, but prefer shortcrust.

Meal planning is the key. Before I go shopping I make a list of seven meals - and then put all the necessary ingredients for those meals on my shopping list. Knowing what we're having for tea any given night really saves time and stops any arguing or requests for different meals!

my quick healthy meal is a romanian dish literally called chopped tomatoes. its fresh tomatoes chopped and cooked with lots of chopped onions and garlic and grated carrot the kids love it!

I will make extra meals and then freeze them, it means I have less to do at meals time and I can enjoy the sunshine more! :)

We batch cook at the weekend to save time during the week

About once every two months I will make a huge batch (around 20 servings) of lentil bolognaise, and freeze it into portions.
It's super healthy (packed full of veggies and lentils) and super cheap (no meat). Then whenever I'm in a rush I can heat up enough portions for all of us and serve it with anything pasta, courgetti, jacket sweet potatoes or even chips.
Recipe;
Chop up & fry 2 carrots, 2 onions, 2 ribs of celery, 1 large pepper, 6 cloves of garlic and 2 courgettes in some olive oil.
Once veg has softened throw in a glass of red wine and simmer.
Once wine has cooked off, add a glug of soy sauce, plenty of black pepper, some oregano, a tin of tomatoes, a tbsp tomato paste and 1.5 cups of mixed lentils (I do 1 cup green, .5 cup orange).
Cover with veg stock or water.
(At this stage I also like to add in anything that needs using in the fridge, last batch I added half a tin of chickpeas that I had left over, a tbsp of pesto and some chopped sundried tomatoes).
Cook until lentils are soft. Serve with chips, courgetti, jacket potatoes or pasta, and cover with parmesan!

Mon-wed when I've been at work and only get through the door at 5.30 and DH arrives an hour later one of our fave meals is fried rice. Usually with leftover meat from the weekend. If not the night before I bake a chicken breast n shred it and leave it in the fridge overnight sat in garlic, soy, BBQ and some chilli sauce. Then fry it at tea time with whatever veg is to hand, a packet of microwave brown rice and scramble an egg into it. Takes all of 15 mins. Dd loves it. It has veggies, protein and it's really tasty. Chuck some chopped spring onions on the top and sesamea seeds n it looks good too!

Apart from that I rely a lot on my slow cooker and always cook double so there are healthy instant ready meals in the freezer

bubble and squeak fritters and a fried egg

My tip is meal plan. You then have what you need in and know what you need to do when you get in the door. Super quick weekday meals (

Batch cooking Thai yellow curry sauce, which freezes well for a quick and tasty meal in mid-week

Generally we do not 'bulk' cook for the whole family.
Though i will knock-up a large veggie chilli that i can store (approx. 4 portions) in the freezer.
These come in handy when i need a quick meal.
And if you have it with cous cous, not a lot of 'real' cooking is required.