9 Easy Everyday Recipes for the Whole Family

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Cooking is supposed to be fun, but it’s not much fun when you spend all day working, looking after your kids, and other responsibilities. You don’t want to spend two or three hours cooking food that your kids may or may not eat at the end of the day.

We have 9 easy everyday recipes for the whole family. Our aim is to provide easy recipes that don’t take long, don’t require too many ingredients, and are generally child-friendly. Our goal is to make cooking fast and easy with healthy recipes for you and your kids.

Easy Everyday Recipes for the Whole Family

Let’s look at family-friendly recipes that are easy to make. We’ll focus on the mains—in lunch and dinner recipes.

1. Vegetable and Chicken Stir Fry

If you want something simple, fast, easy to make, cost-effective, and child-friendly, a chicken and vegetable stir fry is always great.

You’ll need chicken breast, broccoli, mushrooms, carrots, and any other vegetables you want to use.

You can make a tasty sauce of garlic, ginger, sesame oil, soy sauce, chicken broth, and other ingredients.

It might sound complicated, but it takes under 30 minutes to make and has plenty of vegetables. If you can’t handle another pot roast and mashed potato meal, something exotic like this is inviting.

2. Slow Cooker Beef Stroganoff

If you don’t want to spend too much time in the kitchen, a slow cooker is a fantastic small appliance. You can more or less throw everything in one pot and forget about it as it cooks.

Beef stroganoff is another fan favorite that everybody, including children, likes. You’ll need stew meat, Italian seasoning, beef broth, mushrooms, garlic, sour cream, pasta noodles, and other spices. However, this recipe takes time, as you will cook in the slow cooker for up to 9 hours.

On the other hand, you simply mix everything and throw it in the pot. As a result, you’ll have meat, vegetables, some carbs, and everything you need for a well-balanced dinner.

3. Parmesan Garlic Chicken Tenders

Whether you call them chicken tenders, strips, or fingers, these are something that kids always love. However, the issue with chicken tenders is that they are usually deep-fried, which is not very healthy.

Yet, this recipe enables you to achieve that same great crispy texture and flavor without using unhealthy oil.

You’ll mix bread crumbs, parmesan, garlic, and a few other ingredients to coat your chicken tenders and then bake them. It’s simple and easy.

Most people would probably make a salad or roasted vegetable as a side.

4. Baked Spaghetti

If you like spaghetti and lasagna, this baked spaghetti is a combination of both. You will need spaghetti, meat sauce, ricotta, mozzarella, and spices. It might sound like a lot of work, but you’re simply layering ingredients and putting them in an open glass or metal dish.

What’s really nice is that you can make it ahead of time, get everything assembled in the casserole dish, and then put it in the fridge for a few days before making it. Then, when you get home from a long day of work, you can pop it in the oven, and you’re good to go.

5. Tomato Soup and Grilled Cheese

Even though tomato soup is more or less 100% vegetable, kids seem to love it, especially when paired with grilled cheese sandwiches.

Grilled cheese sandwiches might not be the healthiest, but you could say its effect is mitigated by the healthy tomato soup. Moreover, tomato soup is fast and easy to make.

You’ll need tomatoes, heavy cream, vegetable broth, onion, and other ingredients. Cook them together, and blend.

In addition, grilled cheese sandwiches are also easy to make. Put cheese between two bread slices, and fry it in a pan. It’s a tasty dish that kids and adults love.

Easy Everyday Recipes for the Whole Family

6. Healthy Sloppy Joes

Sloppy joes are a fan favorite and an American classic. After all, who doesn’t love meat and sauce between two slices of bread? However, sloppy joes are not too healthy, but we aim to change that. You’re going to use sloppy Joe sauce from your local supermarket to keep things easy.

However, instead of filling the sauce with meat, add more vegetables. You can still use some lean ground beef or chicken, but we recommend mixing more vegetables into the sauce. As you can see, we haven’t linked to a recipe because we want to leave it up to you.

You can finely mince bell peppers, onions, mushrooms, or any other vegetables and add them to the sloppy Joe sauce. If you chop the vegetables small enough, your kids won’t know they are eating something healthy.

7. Slow Cooker Mac & Cheese

There’s no question that this recipe is not overly healthy. However, when it comes to making fast and easy meals that kids love, there’s nothing better than macaroni and cheese. What we like about this recipe is the fact that it’s straightforward to make in a slow cooker or a crockpot. You don’t even have to watch the noodles boil.

Add the elbow macaroni, your cheeses of choice, a bit of water, some cream, and whatever else you want into the crockpot. You then set it and walk away as it cooks. Your Mac and cheese will be ready to go when you come back.

8. Crockpot Turkey Chili

Chili is generally a healthy dish except that it contains fatty ground beef. However, we want to make it healthier, so we use ground turkey or ground chicken instead of beef.

This is a crockpot or slow cooker meal, which makes cooking easier. However, this is not a fast recipe, as you will slow cook it for up to six hours.

But, it is a recipe you can set and forget. Add ground turkey, beans, tomatoes, tomato paste, chili powder, and other spices; set your slow cooker, and return six hours later. Chili is always a fantastic dish on a cool and rainy day.

9. Sheet Pan Fajita Dinner

A sheet pan fajita dinner is an excellent option if you want exotic Mexican flavors. Fajitas are spicy and full of flavor, and you can incorporate a lot of veggies.

However, we recommend making chicken fajitas, as chicken is healthier than beef. Season your chicken with a fajita spice mix, add bell peppers and onions on a sheet pan, and let it bake for a quick dinner. You can use tortilla wraps or even make fajita bowls using whole-grain rice.

Although we have linked to a specific recipe, there are many fajita recipes for you to follow. As there is plenty of variation, you should find something you like.

Everyday Recipes for the Whole Family

The above recipes should give you some ideas on new meals. Remember, tasty food the whole family will enjoy doesn’t have to be challenging.

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