Coming up with dinner every.single.day. can be such a struggle. My weekly dinner plans are created to help you get one thing off your to-do list and have less stress at dinner time!
Visit the WEEKLY DINNER PLANNER archive for more meal planning ideas!
Table of Contents
Dinner Plan #38
Meal Prep Tips
These are some basic prep ideas you can do before the week starts to get ahead of the game! Do some, do them all, whatever works for you! I just barely make it to the grocery shopping part, so actual meal prep is a stretch for me personally …. but I hear it’s super-efficient 😬🤪
| Simple Ground Turkey Chili with Beer | Dice onions. Shred cheese. Make corn cakes (can be reheated for a few minutes in a toaster or air fryer) Chili can be made ahead as it tastes just as good, or better, the next day. |
| Easy Ramen Stir Fry | Slice cabbage and/or other veggies you’ll be using. |
| Slow Cooker Chicken Burrito Bowl | Make slow cooker chicken. |
| One Pan Smoked Sausage with Potatoes & Green Beans | Trim green beans. Slice sausage. |
| Easy Baked Fish | Slice olives, tomatoes, and red onion (max 3 days for optimal texture and flavor.) Chop parsley (store wrapped in a damp paper towel so it doesn’t dry out.) |
Recipe Links • Side Ideas • Helpful Tips
Simple Ground Turkey Chili with Beer
from Moments & Meals
Hearty and flavorful with rich, malty undertones and topped with a salty cheddar corn cake, this turkey chili recipe is absolutely crave-worthy!
FYI:
- Don’t like ground turkey? No problem, you can use chicken, beef, or even venison in this recipe.
- This chili is topped with easy-to-make corn cakes, however, if you want less work, feel free to buy some pre-made corn cakes or corn bread.
- Both the corn cakes and the chili can be made ahead and are great reheated. I prefer to reheat the corn cakes in the toaster or air fryer to crisp up the outsides a little.
- Leftovers can be frozen and reheated another time over elbow noodles to make a scrumptious chili-mac!!
Easy Ramen Stir Fry
from Spend with Pennies
A quick and customizable weeknight meal that’s better than takeout! This recipe is essentially a base recipe that anyone can go by and add their own choice of proteins and veggies.
FYI:
- The veggies used in the recipe are listed at the bottom of the recipe card under Notes if you want to know. But as she says, use what you like! For stir-fry type meals that use multiple veggies, I like to buy pre-cut or frozen mixes to cut down on prep time.
SIDE IDEAS:
- Potstickers (gyoza, dumplings)
- Crab rangoon
- Spring rolls or Egg rolls
- Egg drop soup
- Wonton Soup
Slow Cooker Chicken Burrito Bowl
from Joyous Apron
Flavorful and oh-so-filling! Do you go overboard on your burrito bowl fillings too? I can’t help myself. All the flavors combo’d together are just irresistible!
FYI:
- Double It Up! Next week we’re making Seven Layer Burritos so this is a perfect opportunity to make extra chicken. If you’re making this late in the week, you can refrigerate your leftover chicken and plan to make the burritos early next week. Otherwise, go ahead a just freeze the extra chicken so you know it won’t go bad.
SIDE IDEAS:
- Chips with salsa or queso. Or nothing, because burrito bowls are so filling as-is!
One Pan Smoked Sausage with Potatoes & Green Beans
from Easy Weeknight Recipes
One pan and 30-ish minutes? Perfect! This is an easy, flavorful weeknight meal. There are a *few* ingredients and steps, buuuttt I’ll give you a couple tips to simplify this dish and still keep it tasty!
FYI:
- This recipe is great and I love the use of one pan, but I don’t love all the steps and some of the seasonings can easily be skipped if you’re trying to get this done quicker.
- You can start with Step 8 – frying the potatoes. Once done and set aside, then cook the green beans and sausage together. Add your oil and red pepper flakes, then add the green beans and sausage. Saute for 5-7 minutes. Add garlic, salt and Italian seasoning, stir for 30 seconds. Add in chicken broth, scrape the bottom to deglaze. Cover and cook for 2 minutes to soften the green beans a bit more. You can then add your potatoes back to the pan and give everything a stir if they need to be warmed through.
SIDE IDEAS:
- Side salad.
Easy Baked Fish
from A Couple Cooks
Incredibly flavorful, briny, moist fish that bakes to perfection in the oven and is ready in no time!
FYI:
- If you have thin fish, get the veggies baking for about 10 minutes, then take the pan out, add the fish, and bake another 10-15 minutes.
SIDE IDEAS:
- Basmati rice
- Orzo with a little butter, lemon and parsley
- Garlic and olive oil couscous
- Roasted eggplant
- Lemon garlic skillet chickpeas
Hope this helps make dinner time less stressful for you this week! If you have questions or feedback let me know in the comments or email me, I’d love to hear from you 💜
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How To Use the Meal Plans
People are typically put off by commitment but if you give yourself a guideline with the flexibility and permission to make changes as needed, you’ll be more likely to stick to it. That’s why flexible meal plans work.
I give you 5 suggestions and you pick 3-5 meals for your week. Each week I scour through my collections of recipes from a variety of amazing food bloggers, recipe sites, cookbooks and personal recipes to thoughtfully create a weekly dinner plan that is easy and delicious. Pick 3-5 of them for your week based on what works for your schedule and include days for eating out, leftovers, etc.
Use the order of the meals as a guideline. You’ll notice dinners are not listed as Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, etc. and that’s on purpose. I don’t want you to feel restricted. That sense of “I HAVE to do this” is what makes people stop meal planning. Keep things flexible and be realistic with your expectations and schedule.
Make mindful adjustments. Sometimes, you need to consider foods (i.e. meats) that need to be used by certain days. For example, if you planned on making steak fajitas on Tuesday, but now it’s Tuesday and you can’t or don’t want to, think about your ingredients for a minute. Check your steak, if the date is good til tomorrow then just make sure you make that meal tomorrow. Otherwise, throw it in the freezer and plan to make it on Friday instead (just take it out the day before to thaw.) This will become second nature as you continue meal planning.
Grocery shop for the week. Get all your groceries for the week so you have everything on hand. This will save you so much time and extra money spent on impulse purchases.
