Dinners This Week
We start the week off with some fun and easy comforting meals, then go light and quick at the end of the week. Sausage, chicken and salmon are the main courses, with lots of easy-to-make veggies and a few whole grains to balance it all out.
Sunday
This delicious one pot sausage and vegetable dish is hugely satisfying and can be made either in a slow cooker or dutch oven. It also makes excellent leftovers.
Slow Cooker Sausage with Sweet Veggies
- If you don’t have a slow cooker here’s a way to change it to a dutch oven.
Monday
This simple combination of chicken and veggies make for an easy Monday night meal. If you have 10 minutes of spare time in the morning, season the thighs and put them in the fridge, and they’ll be nicely marinated by the time you get home.
Steamed Mixed Vegetables
Any combination of veggies will do but here’s the blend shown in the photo of the chicken thighs recipe.
- Put 1/2 inch of water or broth in a medium pot with a tight lid, bring to boil
- Meanwhile, dice potatoes and slice onion and zucchini.
- Add diced potato and sweet potato to pot, cover and cook for 10 minutes.
- Check water level and add a little more if needed. Add onion and zucchini, cover and cook 5 more minutes.
- Drain and season with salt and pepper and butter if desired.
Tuesday
- Make 1-1/2 lbs so you can use the leftovers later in the week.
Wednesday
Now starts the leftover days… yay! Love these days when you can simply reheat something you made and it tastes amazing and it only takes like 5 minutes.
Leftover Sausage and Veggies
- This is from Sunday’s slow cooker meal
- Here are some options for bulking it up or just creating something a little different (remember to add additional needed items to your shopping list)
- Get some whole grain rolls, heat up the leftovers and make hot sandwiches
- Make sauteed greens and serve on the side
- Make soup by heating up a carton of beef broth or stock in a large pot, then add several servings of the leftovers (chop up the sausage) and cook until just hot
- If you’re short on time, just reheat the sausage and veggies and serve!
Thursday
Salad Bowl with Leftover Salmon
- Use your favorite dressing or make a quick vinaigrette
Friday
No recipe needed for tonight, just follow the quick steps below. Serve alone or with a quick side salad using leftover salad veggies from last night’s salad bowl.
Chicken Tacos
- Use leftover chicken thighs – pull the meat off the bone and chop it up.
- Pull out these items to use as toppings (or make up your own combo):
- Shredded cabbage, pico de gallo, sour cream or plain greek yogurt, olives
- Heat up corn tortillas in a pan or in the oven, fill with chicken and toppings and enjoy!
Shopping List
Purchase organic, GMO-free if at all possible. Your produce group should always be the list with the most items!
Produce
- 1 small head green cabbage (Sun, Thu)
- 1 large red onion (Sun)
- 3 cloves garlic (Sun)
- 1 Red potato (Mon)
- 1 Sweet potato (Mon)
- 1 sweet onion (Mon)
- 2 medium zucchinis (Mon)
- 1 bunch fresh scallions (Tue, Thu)
- 1 small chunk fresh ginger (Tue)
- 1 head fresh leafy red or green lettuce, or romaine (Thu)
- 1 cucumber (Tue)
- 1 bag baby carrots (Tue)
Healthy Packaged Foods
- Small package of golden raisins (optional) (Sun)
- 1 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes (Sun)
- 1 6 oz can tomato paste (Sun)
- 1 pkg 8″ corn tortillas (no flour) (Fri)
- Orange marmalade (Tue)
- Pico de gallo (frig section) or good “fresca-style” salsa (Mon, Fri)
- Olives (optional) (Fri)
Meats and Dairy
- 1-1/5 lbs sweet Italian sausage links (Sun)
- 4 (or 6) bone-in skin-on chicken thighs (Mon)
- 1-1/2 lb salmon (Tue)
- 1 sm container greek yogurt or skyr (Fri)
Pantry Staples
These items are probably already in your pantry but check your inventory just in case.
- Olive oil
- Sesame oil
- Red wine vinegar
- Honey
- Tamari or light soy sauce
- Fish sauce (optional)
- Salt
- Pepper
- Red pepper flakes
- Adobo seasoning
- Italian seasoning blend
- Garlic powder
Breakfast and Lunch
The quantities can be modified as needed in order to generate some additional leftovers, which you can take for lunch at least one or two days. Save extras in lunch size containers and mark them with the date you made them. Put the oldest ones in the front of the refrigerator. Eat or freeze within 4 days.
Take a look at this post on how to automate breakfast and lunch to review the variety of options available for easy healthy breakfast and lunch meals.
Talk to us!
Did you find an error? Tweak any recipes? Skip or swap any? C’mon over to the Facebook Community and tell us about it.