Eating nutritious meals, especially during the week, is a common goal for many people. But coming up with ideas for what exactly to make requires some inspiration and planning, which can be more difficult than it seems. If you’re drawing a blank about what to eat this week, or aren’t quite confident in your culinary abilities, this list of easy weeknight dinners is for you.
Here you’ll find three weeks’ worth of recipes that feature ingredients you either have at home already or can be found at your local run-of-the-mill grocery store. Better yet, they’re simple enough for cooks of any skill level to make and their straightforward preparation means you’ll be able to concentrate on things outside the kitchen.
Tips for Easy Dinners
This list of easy weeknight recipes should get you through at least three weeks of delicious dinners, but there are lots of strategies for eating fairly healthy on a consistent basis. The main thing is to keep things simple, which you can do with these tips:
- Plan to use ingredients you already have on hand. This will reduce your grocery bill and increase the chance that you’ll actually cook the planned dish. After all, if an ingredient is already in your pantry of fridge, you probably like it!
- Cook recipes that can be repurposed or eaten as leftovers in the following days. Cooking a new dish every night can feel like a lot of work and you’re more likely to cave and order takeout.
- Look for recipes with short or unattended cooking times. 30-minutes or less is good.
- Swap spices and herbs to mix up recipes that have become boring.
- Stick to recipes that only use a few dishes so that cleanup is faster. One pot or sheet and dinners are incredible when it comes to quick cleanup.
- Keep shelf-stable items on hand in your pantry, such as beans, rice and pasta. Better yet, stock up when an item is on sale!
- Buy proteins on sale and keep them in your freezer until you’re ready to use them.
- If you make bulk soups or sauces, store them in your freezer for instant dinners in the future. These are perfect for evenings when you’re short on time or energy for cooking.