The summer is coming to an end and school is getting ready to begin. Can you believe we are already in the month of August? I cannot. This year is flying by. Some days there just isn't enough time to do everything you want/need to do. And with summer coming to an end, your schedule is probably going to start filling up, making it near impossible to sit down to a home cooked meal.
BUT
That is why today we are talking about quick yummy meals. Your free time becomes shorter and shorter you need meals that you can make in a snap that are healthy and delicious. Here are my top 5 dinners prepared and ready to eat in under 30 minutes:
Soup & Salad
This can be any variation you would like. This meal is quick, easy, and healthy. If you want to make a soup from scratch, use your CrockPot. Prepare it in the morning, let it sit while you are at work. When you get home--boom. It is ready for you to eat. If you have even less time and do not want to prepare a soup from scratch, Progresso Soup has amazing low-calorie options that are so tasty. For your salad, Publix has some great pre-packaged salads. Dump the toppings in, use the bag to shake the dressing up and again--boom. You are done. Pre-packaged saves you even more time but if you like to prepare a fresh salad, still only 10 minutes maybe to prepare and you are ready to eat. This is a go to staple in our house on nights when we get home at 8pm.
Tacos
I know you hear me talk about my Mexican food addiction all the time but why not when it is sooo good and sooo easy to prepare (and healthy)! All you need is 1 lb. of ground turkey and a great taco seasoning recipe (or a packet from the store). Brown the meat, drain the fat, add your seasoning and you are done in 10 minutes! Buy some toppings for your tacos or just use lettuce to make a taco salad. My favorite toppings are lettuce, cheddar cheese, homemade salsa, black beans and corn. Sour cream if I am loading up the calories but the cheese usually covers me there. Also, low carb tortillas if you are doing the macro counting thing. It saves you a few carbs and tastes the same as a regular carb loaded tortilla.
Stir Fry
This is one of my FAVORITE dishes. Brenden... not so much. First make a ton, I mean a ton of rice. Keep the leftover rice in the refrigerator to use for another dish (I will tell you more about why next). Any grain--I like shorter grain rice but long, jasmine, whatever rice grain you prefer. Then for your stir fry: you will need a meat of your choice (chicken cut into cubes, steak cut into strips, shrimp, or tofu if you are vegetarian), your favorite veggies (I like broccoli, carrots, water chestnuts, bell peppers, and mushrooms) and a stir fry sauce. You can make this healthy or you can just be bad and do the stir-fry sauce packets. In about 10-15 minutes depending on the meat you choose, your stir fry is complete. Don't skimp on your veggies. You will want all the goodies in there.
Fried Rice
Remember all that rice you made? You need the cold leftovers for this dish. That is what makes this dish so quick and you just can't make fried rice with warm rice. It does not work. Anyways, add your meat to a wok with sesame oil. Cook through. Grab a bag of frozen veggies (carrots, peas, corn) and put into the wok. Warm until no longer frozen. Add a scrambled egg or scramble in the wok itself and then add your rice. Mix around then add 1/4 cup of soy sauce. Low sodium if you prefer. Once it is nice and warm, you have your fried rice. Max time maybe 15 minutes. That is if you are using vegetables you need to cut yourself. The frozen kind make it so easy.
Any Kind of Shrimp Dish
Shrimp cooks soo quickly! It's the easiest dish to make in the shortest amount of time. 5 minutes tops and you have perfectly cooked shrimp. Use any sauce, spice, marinade. Cook in a skillet on the stove. Add a starch of your choice (we all know mine is pasta - ha) add a Steamables vegetable as a side and wah-la! You have a delicious balanced meal. And the longest part was cooking the pasta :)
Now you have no excuses for a healthy, quick dinner this fall. When life gets crazy and you think, ahh let me just run through a drive through. Remember these meals. All of these items are staples in your pantry, fridge. Easy to throw together on even the craziest of nights.
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