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Easy Dinner Meal Ideas
Slow cooker, freezer-friendly and sheet pan dinners to rescue a cooking rut.
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When you're busy, or forgetting to defrost something has wrecked the plan, the LoveToKnow writer preps everything the night before and tosses it into the slow cooker the next morning. Forum posters add a second habit: cook double or triple batches and freeze them in meal-sized portions. One poster fills a canner-sized pan with vegetable beef soup each fall, then microwaves a portion whenever dinner needs to be quick. This list leans on those two habits. It's mostly cool-weather, home-cooked dinners and leaves out desserts.
Why these items are on the list
- Slow cooker chili. Low for 6-8 hours or high for 3 hours, per LoveToKnow, with easy swaps for the meat.
- Four-ingredient pork tenderloin. A brief sear fixes the pale color; LoveToKnow lists tenderloins, olive oil, soy sauce and Montreal steak spice.
- Curry orange marmalade chicken. The marmalade flavor is strong, so it's not for everyone; LoveToKnow serves it over rice.
- Vegetable soup from fridge leftovers. Many ingredients can be swapped, such as spinach for kale, says LoveToKnow.
- Crock pot pasta e fagioli. It's a full meal, says LoveToKnow; bread on the side is optional.
- Three cheese spaghetti squash. One dish, three jobs: LoveToKnow has made it as a meal, a side and a potluck dish.
- Slow cooker Swedish meatballs. Cook on low until the meatballs reach 160F, per LoveToKnow, or use frozen pre-cooked ones if you're short on time.
- Big-batch vegetable beef soup, frozen in portions. For fast dinners, one Sweet Shoppe poster just microwaves frozen meal-sized portions.
- Black bean and quinoa enchilada bake. It freezes well, a Sweet Shoppe poster says, with enough for two more meals.
- Meat loaf muffins. Cleanup is easy, says a Sweet Shoppe poster who uses a non-stick pan.
- Beefy American goulash. Recommended in the Sweet Shoppe thread; also a budget stretcher on the Simply Charlotte Mason forum.
- Instant Pot chicken lettuce wraps. Rice or fried rice is how a Sweet Shoppe poster serves them.
- Sheet pan dinners. Five quick sheet pan meals, from a video a Sweet Shoppe poster watched.
- Chicken enchilada soup. It works as an Instant Pot dish or made ahead and frozen, says a Sweet Shoppe poster.
- Taco soup or lazy lasagna batches. Both freeze well and can last into November, says a Simply Charlotte Mason poster.
- Cottage pie or beef stew. Extra veg and beans go in to stretch the meat, a Simply Charlotte Mason poster's habit.
- Chili cooked in bulk from sale beef. Frozen, then reheated in the crock pot, is how a Simply Charlotte Mason poster handles it.
Tick a dinner off as you cook it and the list shrinks to what you haven't tried yet. Keep it open on your phone at the shop, or share it with whoever cooks with you so you both see the same ticks.
When to use it
Use it on a weekend when you're planning the week's dinners, especially as the weather turns cooler.