Planning meals for an entire week can be a challenge, especially if you have a large family. In addition, finding healthy food everybody likes can be very difficult, even more so if you are operating on a tight budget.
This article will give you various eating plans for the family. However, we’ll primarily focus on the mains—foods for lunch for dinner.
We’ve tried to select recipes that are easy to follow, don’t require too many ingredients, and aren’t too expensive to make. We’ll give you a few meal plan examples so you can start preparing for the next few weeks.
Week 1: Slow Cooker Heaven
If you’re pressed for time and don’t want to put too much effort into cooking, using a slow cooker can make it simple. A slow cooker lets you throw everything in one pot and then forget about it as everything cooks. Let’s look at great slow cooker meals you can make during the week.
Monday: Slow Cooker Curry
This is a flavorful meal if you like beef, potatoes, onion, and Thai curry. This simple meal cooks beef chuck steak, potatoes, onion, curry paste, chicken stock, coconut cream, and a few other ingredients in a single pot. Let it simmer in the slow cooker for eight hours and serve with a side of rice.
Tuesday: Slow Cooker Pot Roast
times there’s nothing better than a good pot roast. However, making a pot roast in a slow cooker rather than in the oven makes things easier.
Here, you’ll put roasted chuck beef steak, French onion soup mix, water, carrots, onion, potatoes, garlic, celery, and a few spices in your slow cooker. Then, let it slow cook between 8 and 10 hours.
Wednesday: Slow Cooker Pulled Pork
Switching gears a bit, this is a slow cooker pulled pork meal to try. Pulled pork is always a fan favorite among all family members. It’s also convenient because you can put it in between buns, serve it with coleslaw, or anything you like.
You need a large piece of pork, such as a pork butt or a pork shoulder; add spices, and then slow cook for up to 10 hours. Next, you can add barbecue sauce or other seasonings.
Thursday: Slow Cooker Lasagna Soup
Lasagna + soup? What’s not to like? This is another recipe the entire family will love. Moreover, it’s a great winter recipe that will fill and warm all.
It’s also simple to make, healthy, and cost-effective. Add tomato paste, tomatoes, broth, beef, garlic, basil, onion, and a few other ingredients, and let it cook on low for up to 8 hours. Then, add water and noodles to turn it into lasagna soup.
Friday: Slow Cooker Stuffed Peppers
How about a meal that’s colorful, tasty, and healthy? Stuffed peppers are always a great option. Moreover, instead of roasting them in the oven, you can put them in a slow cooker or crockpot.
You can use different colored bell peppers and fill them with rice, ground beef, chopped tomatoes, onion, garlic, and spices. The cool thing about stuffed peppers is that you can fill them with whatever you want.
Pour stock around the peppers, add the canned tomatoes, and let it cook in the slow cooker for up to six hours. Some top the peppers with a bit of cheese.
Week 2: Kid-Friendly Week with Plenty of Vitamins
It can be a real challenge to get children to eat healthily. No matter what you cook, kids will balk when it comes to vegetables and other healthy foods.
However, this weeklong eating plan incorporates many vegetables and other healthy ingredients into your dinners. Hopefully, you can get vitamins into your kids without them knowing that they are eating healthy food.
Monday: Pasta & Beef Skillet
This is a quick and straightforward ground beef and pasta meal cooked in a single skillet. Ground beef and pasta may not sound too healthy, but this is the perfect recipe for sneaking in vegetables.
You can finely chop up mushrooms and other vegetables to resemble the texture of ground beef. Then, when mixed with a tomato and ground beef sauce, your kids won’t even notice that they’re eating vegetables.
Tuesday: BBQ Carrot Dogs
This is quite a unique recipe ideal for kids in several ways. First, kids love hot dogs—it’s a given.
However, normal hot dogs aren’t very healthy, so we have a recipe where you marinate carrots in vegetable broth, cider vinegar, reduced-sodium soy sauce or tamari, mustard, garlic powder, and smoked paprika for around three hours. You’ll have to turn the carrots once or twice, but after that, you can cook them on a grill for an added smoky flavor.
Serve them as you would “real” hot dogs—on a bun with your choice of ketchup, mustard, relish, or sauerkraut—and your kids might not even notice they’re not the real deal.
Wednesday: Peppers Stuffed with Philly Cheesesteak
Philly cheesesteaks are always delicious, but let’s face it, they’re not overly healthy. We don’t want to change too much about this classic dish, but we want to down on carbs. So, instead of using unhealthy white bread, we will be using bell peppers as the buns.
Your kids will still love it because of the meat, cheese, and spices, but the bell peppers are some of the very healthiest vegetables your kids can eat. This recipe is also fast and easy to make.
Thursday: Spinach and Chicken Skillet Pasta
This chicken and spinach skillet pasta with a bit of parmesan and lemon is an excellent option if you’re looking for something tasty with great nutritional benefits.
The trick will be to convince your kids to eat something with spinach, but once they bite down on the chicken and all that cheese, they’re not going to care.
This fresh and relatively light recipe is a fantastic summer meal. It’s a good option because it’s easy and should only take around 25 minutes to get on the table. Chicken, spinach, cheese, lemon, white wine, what’s not to love?
Friday: Teriyaki Ginger Sesame Chicken & Broccoli
This recipe is fantastic for anybody who doesn’t have much time to spare. It’s a healthy sheet pan recipe where you simply put all of the ingredients on a single sheet pan and let it bake.
The ingredients include chicken, broccoli, bell peppers, sesame, and Asian spices to create a lovely dish.
Chicken is one of the healthiest meats, but besides that, this dish is full of vegetables. However, your kids won’t care that they’re eating so many healthy things, thanks to the incredible flavors.
Final Thoughts
Of course, we only scratched the surface with these ten recipes. But, of course, there are hundreds, if not thousands, more healthy meals for your family. So when it comes to eating plans, remember to choose fast and easy recipes to cook.
When you have to take care of the whole family, the last thing you want to do at the end of the day is spend hours in the kitchen. Moreover, incorporating healthy foods into your meals isn’t too tricky.