Dinner Ideas for Busy Nights
If your kids have begun participating in extra activities, then you probably know the value of having some dinner ideas for busy nights tucked into your back pocket! After the pandemic lockdown we really evaluated our activity-level and decided to try and protect our family dinner time as much as possible. In order to do this we have multiple activities on the same night so that we can have other nights off. But this makes dinners tricky on this night because I am literally not home long enough to even cook a simple dinner. If this sound familiar, let me share some ideas we have used to avoid just eating out on these night!
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Make Friends with your Crockpot
My most common method of making dinner on these nights is to use the crockpot! I can put our food in the crockpot in the morning or after lunch and we have a yummy dinner ready for us at any time that night! I personally like crockpot meals best that are dump and go, but to each their own.  And I use THESE crockpot liners so clean up is so easy!
If you are in need of some crockpot recipes, these are a few of our favorites!! Â
 Make Dinner Early
If crockpot meals are not your thing, then you could also make dinner early! My mom often tells a story about how she would make dinner at 4pm when I was a toddler. Scooby Doo was on the TV at that time and me and my older brother would watch TV and my mom could make dinner without me attached to her legs. You may or may not have a toddler attached to you, but making a casserole and putting it in the fridge until you can pull it out and put it in the oven could be a busy night dinner solution for you!
If you are looking for some recipes that are easy to make and store until you cook them, these are some of our favorites!
Leftovers!
I personally love leftover night. Most likely because I don’t have to spend time cooking dinner! I know some people don’t like leftovers, but if your family is open to them, this could really save you on busy nights!
Planning leftovers for a busy night needs to be intentional though! For us, our busy night is Monday, so one way to ensure we have leftovers that night, is to make sure we cook meals every night during the weekend so we have leftovers for Monday night. If we eat out or have sandwiches, then we won’t have leftovers for Monday. So this does take a little thinking ahead.
If you have a larger family and don’t typically have many leftovers after a meal, you could also double a recipe each week. Then you would have leftovers for later in the week. Or you can even throw those leftovers in the freezer so you have it ready for your busy night another week! What other recipes or tricks do you use? Head over to my instagram HERE and share your ideas with everyone!!
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