Grab andngo dinners

[WanderingJuniper]

So Autumn will be nuts for us. I need dinner ideas that are inexpensive and basically grab and go. We cannot afford to eat out right now but need the convenience of fast food. Any tried and true ideas? Minimal prep from me is even better. I prefer whole food based ideas but am not against some packaged or prepared foods for the next 8 weeks.

[Singingmom]

I love my crock pot in fall for those reasons. Minimal prep in the mornings. One of my easy favorites is frozen chicken breasts/tenders, a jar of salsa, two cans of drained black beans, canned or frozen corn, a box of chicken stock, then use an immersion blender for soup after it cooks or shred the chicken and serve over rice. You could cook rice ahead in bulk for a few meals.

Or flip your lunch and dinner, making something hearty for lunch and sandwiches, roll ups, or heavy snacks on the go at dinner time. The kids could assemble and wrap sandwiches or put snacks in baggies (cheese, crackers, fruit, carrot/zuccini sticks) after breakfast.

[Virginia]

During the fall (and sometimes the spring), I am literally gone from my house for 12-17 (yes) hours per day. The thing that's helped me the most is prepping food on a Saturday/Sunday afternoon, cooking it, and then pre-portioning it into containers.

It makes the week go SO much more smoothly, though, so it's worth it.

What about salads or soups stored in mason jars so they're really easy?
If we're really in a pinch, we make smoothies from frozen fruit, Greek yogurt, peanut butter, oats, etc. But there's only two of us- I'm not sure how quick that'd actually be for a larger family

Easy Make-Ahead Meals:
-Frozen meatballs with BBQ sauce. Buy frozen meatballs and sauce from the store. Cook in crockpot for four hours on low.
- Cook up a bunch of pasta. Pre-portion it into containers. Dump a little sauce/cheese on top (can add pureed veggies to the sauce, if you want). Ready to pop in microwave when you're ready.
- Pre-make some wraps (turkey, ham, chicken salad you buy from the store, cheese, lettuce, tomato, whatever), cut them in half, and put them into baggies. Truly "grab and go."
-Fruit- bananas, apples- with the small Jiff peanut butter single serving containers (or put into your own containers, if you have ones that small)
-String cheese (I like to wrap lunch meat around string cheese and call it "lunch")
- Pre-portioned almonds, peanuts, trail mix, etc.

Can you tell the theme for me is "pre-portioned"? And this is something your kids can easily do in assembly line order as one of their chores. If something is already packed in an individual serving sized container, I'm more likely to grab and eat on the go

[2sunshines]

What devices do you have? Crockpots would be the first thing to come to mind. You can make a huge plethora of meals with one with very minimal prep work.

If you have an instant pot that again opens up a huge amount of options for quick meals that are still very whole foods based.

Salads are easy and can be made in advance and kept in the fridge. Obviously the traditional leaf/veggie salad. But also things like cabbage salad, pasta salad, etc. Add some diced chicken breast and call it a well rounded meal.

In busy seasons we also rely heavily on fresh fruit and raw veggies (often with dressing or dip) because they are SO quick and easy. And can be added alongside pretty much any meal.

Making a whole chicken or two in the crock pot on the weekends and then shredding and putting in the fridge allows you quick and easy access to shredded chicken all week to use as a basis for a variety of recipes. Same could be done with browning ground beef and adding seasonings -- like taco meat or something similar (depending on your family's preferences).

[WanderingJuniper]

This is helpful keep the ideas coming.
I have a crockpot and a few tried and true meals they like but lots of flops to.

Has anyone used gf noodles in crockpot recipes?

[ECingMama]

I made mini meat loaves in a muffin tin

Grabbed all week

[2sunshines]

Originally Posted by WanderingJuniper

This is helpful keep the ideas coming.
I have a crockpot and a few tried and true meals they like but lots of flops to.

Has anyone used gf noodles in crockpot recipes?

I know that lots of people do pasta in the crock pot, however, I've tried it and I think they get too mushy. That said, I'm sure there is a way to perfect it, but I just don't trust "slow and low" for pasta, when it traditionally needs such a different cooking method (boiling hot and quick).

Here is how I would handle pasta dishes. Do the rest of it in the crock pot (whatever you are going to mix with the pasta) and either just make the pasta fresh (since it's a fairly quick thing -- even something you could assign to an older child) OR I've had lots of success making the pasta ahead of time and putting in the fridge. We find that cold gluten free pasta gets crumbly when re-heated in other traditional methods so our preferred re-heat method is to bring a pot of water to a boil, put the already cooked but cold noodles in it just for a minute or two to refresh and warm up, then drain. And bam, fresh gf pasta.

[Beth1231]

[knitlove]

for the next month we will have 30 to 40 min between church and scoccer on Sunday and for the whole year we will have about 20 min between dance and small group on Tuesday.

[ViolaMum]

Originally Posted by ECingMama

I made mini meat loaves in a muffin tin

Grabbed all week

I do this sort of thing a LOT! Add an egg to mashed potatoes, spoon on top of the meatloaves before baking and you have "cupcakes" for dinner. Make a well in the meatloaves before baking and you can add veggies, too.

I add eggs and a little milk to leftover mac and cheese, bake in the muffin tins and we have another quick meal that can be eaten room temp or warmed in the microwave.

If you have weekend time, hand pies are a big hit here. Or a batch of no-knead bread with sandwich fixings mixed right into the dough before baking. (My Italian grandmother used to make bread, pasta, and sauce every weekend. One loaf of bread usually had leftovers from the sauce mixed right in and her kids would take a slice to school for lunch instead of making a sandwich.)

[Aerynne]

So by grab and go, are you making dinner at home and then eating it elsewhere or are you just wanting make-ahead food to eat at home?

For things to take with you, Thai spring rolls are pretty easy and quick, as are sushi bowls (everything you would put in sushi, just in a bowl- rice, cut up nori squares, pickled ginger, whatever veggies you like [I like bell pepper, mango, avocado, and cucumber]). You could add some meat or fish as well if you eat those.

[ViolaMum]

Muffaletta!

It's really just a big fat pressed sandwich. To be authentic, you have to use salami and some other pork, but we usually just do deli turkey. Then either olive tapenade or pepper relish. My kids love thinly sliced dill pickles. Slice a loaf of bread horizontally and layer on your fillings. (Pull some of the middle of the loaf out first.) Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate. It helps to put a cutting board on top and whatever heavy stuff you've got in the fridge to press it. I usually do it the night before, then slice when it's time to eat.

[WanderingJuniper]

Originally Posted by Aerynne

So by grab and go, are you making dinner at home and then eating it elsewhere or are you just wanting make-ahead food to eat at home?

Um . . . Yes?
Some nights we can make dinner at home and take it with us. Other nights we need to grab prepped food to eat at home before we run out the door. It depends on if it is a game night, practice night, piano night, class night for hubs and what my work schedule is.

I'm new to not being home to prep these things during the day and really struggling to get this figured out. We have always been an eat dinner together family and this fall we cannot.

This week I am relying on my crock pot some. We will have . . .
-quinoa and chicken enchiladas (crock pot)
-steak fajitas (crock pot while at work then assemble at home and wrap in foil to take with us)
-black bean quesadillas easy and fast for the kids to make before I get home and can be wrapped in foil to take with if needed.
-hamburgers and pasta salad (oldest can cook burgers and middle can make the pasta salad the night before. wrap up the burgers like take out and put the pasta salad in individual mason jars)

I also broke down and grabbed some packaged foods that I know my kids like but are not so healthy just so I know there are some days they can make something in literally 3 minutes if needed.

[ViolaMum]

In that case I'd stick with as much as I could that can be prepped over the weekend. If you prepare the components of a meal and store them in the fridge, you can put things together much more easily.

For instance, cabbage holds up really well for a week in the fridge after it's cut. I make a cabbage salad mix (head of cabbage and a bunch of scallions, sliced, and maybe grated carrot), put that in one big container, and add a mason jar of dressing and a jar of crunchy topping (toasted seeds, croutons, etc.). My kids make their own lunch salads over the course of a week from that, but you could easily take smaller portions with you, or dump all three together right before you leave and take it all. I try to have some sort of salad mix like that in the fridge all winter - greens, dressing, topping.

Do you have a rice cooker? The keep warm function means it functions much like a crock pot. AND you can do plenty of other things besides rice - soup, oatmeal. (My sister's has an insert for steaming veggies.)

Anything you would bake in a large pan can be done in a fraction of the time in a muffin tin. Most casseroles do just fine in small quantities.

[RealLifeMama]

To eat at home really fast, we find chili or soup is really quick to serve and eat.
It just gets scooped out of the crock pot into a bowl, and unless people want to add toppings, it does not need assembly.