How I feed my family when I don't feel like cooking
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How I Feed My Family on the Days I Don’t Want to Cook

Food, Motherhood

We’ve all been there.

You’ve had a long day at work or with the kids, laundry is piled up, the house isn’t clean, you still need to workout, and dinner is the last thing you want to tackle at the end of the day.

And every crunchy mom on a budget knows eating out is the enemy.

So when I don’t want to cook, but still want to give my family a nutritious dinner, here’s how I do it:

Step One: K.I.S.S.

If you’ve read my other posts, you know I love the K.I.S.S. method: Keep It Simple Stupid.

The easiest way to stop making healthy cooking such a dreaded task is to stop making it hard for no reason.

Cut the crap with the 20 ingredient recipes you find on Pinterest and get back to the basics.

All you need for a healthy meal is a carb, a protien, and a vegetable. That’s 3 ingredients (plus maybe some spices and olive oil or butter). It takes 20 minutes, is still delicious, and hits all the marks.

Here are some of my go to 20 minute 3 ingredient dinners:

  • Pan seared chicken, air fried mini potatoes, and green beans
  • Oven baked salmon, white rice, and asparagus
  • Grilled steak, baked potatoes (finish in the microwave), and sauteed spinach
  • How I Feed My Family When I Don't Feel Like Cooking
  • Grilling Dinner Outside

Step Two: Have a Solid Core Meal Rotation

This is the one thing that has DRASTICALLY cut my dinner stress and cook times in half.

Find a solid 7-10 meals you love that you are happy to eat over and over again and master them. I even have a list of ours on my phone as a good reminder.

You get faster and more efficient at cooking them, you reduce decision fatuige, and you know they’ll taste good.

These are my family favorites:

  • Steak (or chicken) taco bowls
  • Korean beef and green beans
  • Italian sausage ditalini pasta
  • Tatziki chicken and potatoes
  • Homemade hibachi
  • Lemon pepper salmon
  • Homemade pizzas
  • Pot roast
  • Chili
  • Sausage Kale Tortellini Soup

Save the dinner experimenting for the nights you feel like cooking. If you love one, start to master it and add it to the rotation list.

Bonus: it makes grocery shopping easier too.

Breakfast For Dinner

Kids think it’s fun, its one of my personal favorites, and it never takes more than 20 minutes. Breakfast, it’s what’s for dinner.

Whether its eggs & toast, waffles, a loaded bowl of oatmeal, or all of the above you’re getting good nutrition and everyone is happy. That’s a win in my book.

Soups

I think soups can seem like a lot of work, and sometimes they are, but typically they are pretty easy to throw together and take minimal active cooking time. It’s one pot, combine everything and let it simmer.

If you have an Instant Pot – even better!

My favorite part about soup dinner is that they’re sneakily packed with nutrutional value and its an easy way to get my kids to eat veggies. I love to swap a traditional broth for bone broth for extra benefits.

Here are some of my favorite easy soups:

A few hacks to make these even quicker and cut down on cooking:

  • Use a rotisserie chicken or pre-cooked shredded chicken from your freezer
  • Use frozen pre-cut veggies, onions, etc.

Cook Once, Eat Twice

Now THIS is my creme del-a creme of advice for easy dinners.

I keep our freezer stocked with meal options at all times. Not just with raw meat I have to remember to thaw, or frozen pizzas. But with meals I can grab and pop in the oven on any given day.

If you’re already rolling your eyes because you don’t have the time to do all of that, don’t worry, the best part is it takes little to no extra time for me to do it. Want to know why?

I cook once, eat twice.

For example, if I’m mkaing our favorite pasta dinner, I will double or triple the recipe, then portion out and freeze the leftovers for a quick meal on busy (or lazy) nights.

It requires minimal extra effort and no dedicated hours for “meal prep”. That’s what we in the biz call a win-win.

Use the time you already spend cooking to help benefit yourself down the road and soon enough you’ll have a freezer stocked full of ready to grab meals!

Grilling

And last but most certainly not least – grilling out.

Also known as: your husbands job.

Grilling takes the hardest part of cooking off of my plate. My husband grills, takes the kids outside, and I relax while prepping an easy vegetable and pop some Jesse & Ben’s Fries (cooked in beef tallow) into the air fryer

Now I know that technically a lot of these still require some cooking. But if you truly don’t want to cook, you know the options.

This is my way of easily feeding my family nutritious meals when cooking feels overwhleming or stressful but I don’t want to spend the money on eating out.

Approaching dinner in this way has helped reduce decision fatuige, released the pressure to always be cooking something new, and cut both my cooking time and grocery bills in half. Now I actually get to enjoy my evenings with my kids without an unnecessary added stress.

Let me know if you try any of these and which one is your favorite!