5 Meals Your Entire Family Will Enjoy (Including the Kids!)

If you have an indecisive bunch and figuring out dinner is always a task, we’ve made it easy for you with these 5 weeknight recipes.

September Meal Plan Week 2

One of the never-ending questions in my family is, “What do you want to eat?” The most popular meal request is for, “I don’t know” which narrowly pushes, “I don’t care” out of first place.

I have yet to find the ingredients for either of those at the grocery store. It’s a constant struggle in my house to find a meal everyone can agree on, even more so finding a dinner that everyone likes. 

Meals don’t need to be elaborate affairs of long roasts or decadent sauces (and most of the time kids enjoy simpler meals). In fact, I find recipes like buttery ritz encrusted baked cod and comfort food dishes like lemony chicken piccata are the ones that receive the seal of approval from everyone in my house.

Meals like these are also great for getting everyone into the kitchen to help. Grab someone to crush crackers while you prep the rest of the ingredients for Tuesday’s dinner. On Friday, you can make individual pizzas instead of one large one to ensure everyone gets the toppings they desire. Either way, this week’s meal plan is going to please everyone at the table.  

  • BBQ Meatloaf Bites

    BBQ Meatloaf Bites
    Nick Evans

    These BBQ Meatloaf Bites are muffin size, which means they take less time to cook. A bottle of BBQ sauce is the base of the BBQ topping and flipping this recipe into a meatball sub topped with creamy coleslaw is one of our favorite ways to enjoy it. Bonus: they freeze beautifully in case you’re a fan of freezer meals.

  • Baked Cod with Ritz Crackers

    Baked Cod with Ritz Cracker Topping
    Elise Bauer

    Ritz are my all-time favorite cracker because of their buttery flakiness. When you encrust meaty cod with it, you have a lobster-like taste without the price tag. This recipe is ridiculously simple to make, and there’s always one person in my family who enjoys releasing pent-up aggression by smashing the crackers for me. If you can't find cod any lean white fish like hake, pollock, or haddock will do.

  • Easy Vegetable Fried Rice

    Easy Vegetable Fried Rice
    Cheyenne Cohen

    Vegetarian dishes don’t always receive love in my house, but this Vegetarian Fried Rice is the huge exception to the rule. My family requests this once a month because they love the ginger-garlic sauce that coats the rice, shockingly enough, since getting them to agree on anything is rare. I love it because it delivers on its “easy” title. If zucchini isn’t readily available, you can replace it with diced eggplant.

  • Chicken Piccata

    Chicken Piccata
    Elise Bauer

    This is my son’s all-time favorite dish since he was four. Juicy chicken bathed in a lemony sauce and served over pasta? To fill out the recipe add a simple salad, garlic bread or pasta.

    Continue to 5 of 6 below.
  • Homemade Pepperoni Pizza

    Crispy crust and cheese on a pepperoni pizza made at home
    Nick Evans

    Growing up Friday night was pizza night. Now that I’m the parent, I prefer to spend time in the kitchen with my crew creating our own unique pies. When everyone’s in a particularly, “I don’t want that!” mood, I divide the pizza dough into four equal portions and leave them to make their own individual pizzas. It saves me the headache and gives everyone a chance to customize their own dinner.

  • Weekend Baking: Easy Chocolate Pudding in the Microwave

    Blue tea cups filled with easy microwave chocolate pudding
    Sally Vargas

    I don’t care how old I am, I’m always going to be a sucker for chocolate pudding. Make this microwave dessert in mere minutes, put it in the fridge to chill then enjoy after dinner.