Meal Plan

Many of them can do double duty as either breakfast and lunch or lunch and dinner.

When it comes to buying groceries on a budget (but not sacrificing quality or choice), nothing beats shopping at Aldi. Sure, the no-frills atmosphere can take some getting used to, but these miniature food marts pack all of the essentials — plus some fun and inspired limited-edition buys — into just a few aisles.This Power Hour is all about getting the most bang for your buck at Aldi.

Making meal prep easier is just the beginning...

Even though I love to cook (and do it for a living!), lately I find myself wondering, What do people even eat? more often than I’d like to admit. As the months at home drag on, with my attention focused on the national stage, I’ve got little imagination for what to put on the table each night. Even when it’s hard, I try to make dinnertime a safe space to connect.

Bring on the cheesy casseroles, soups, and stews.

A delicious black bean soup, lentils with slow-simmered flavor, and more recipes my family relies on.

And how it transformed our dinners into something surprisingly simple.

Cozy, colorful, and feel-good food for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

In an effort to curb my spending on food, I’m looking to my pantry for dinner inspiration this week. Cooking from the pantry is also a time-saver, because it means fewer shopping trips. I am a big believer in curating a well-stocked pantry and keeping long-lasting basics in the fridge and freezer, because I know that if I have beans, canned tomatoes, broth, rice, eggs, and cheese on hand I can make a week’s worth (or more!) of dinners without setting foot into the grocery store.

Fancy French gougères and an Ina-approved appetizer are just the start of this holiday meal prep plan.

When Halloween candy is the only thing on the brain, make these easy, yummy dinners to get everyone out the door faster!

If you can resist filling up your Trader Joe’s shopping cart with just snacks and cheese, the cult-favorite grocery store is actually a brilliant place to help you meal prep for a super busy week. It’s a one-stop-shop for breakfast essentials like coffee and oats, and their already-prepped ingredients like hard-boiled eggs and frozen stir-fry blends make quick work of lunch boxes and weeknight dinners.

Some kids are notorious for craving predictability at dinnertime. They like the same pasta served in a particular bowl. Or they only eat tofu pho, which sounds adventurous, without green things, from one Vietnamese restaurant, and only on Thursday nights. (We’d like the table by the window, please.) Or they eat gyoza, but only at a certain friend’s house, because her dad really does make it best, and in that case he’ll have 20. I have one of these children.

I’m kicking things off with a week of easy, mostly healthy dinners for my family of two (two and a half?), as we gear up for the arrival of our first baby in a few months. While my eating style — veggie-heavy, wholesome, and comforting food — hasn’t changed much since becoming pregnant (save for my frequent tater tot cravings), I do have less energy at the end of the day now and am much more inclined to seek out low-stress, low-effort quick and easy dinners.

I still remember the sweet sense of victory I felt when I cooked one dinner that my whole family — including my toddler — adored and gobbled up. I’m still new to this, but have learned that feeding toddlers is tricky business that requires patience, understanding, creativity, and persistence. These days I put my meal-planning efforts into building a roster of easy dinners that my whole family enjoys.

One of the smartest strategies for serving homemade meals all week long is already in your kitchen: It’s using your freezer. The trick is to stock your freezer with make-ahead meals that taste just as good upon reheating as they did the day they were made. The meals all freeze wonderfully, so take your pick between eating them all this week or popping one (or all of them) into the freezer for future dinners.

If there’s one thing harder than deciding what to make yourself for dinner, it’s coming up with easy dinner ideas for your kids. You want to get something on the table that’s fairly quick to make and doesn’t require a lot of effort. And you also want a meal that the kids (and ideally the whole table!) will devour, while contending with food preferences that can ping-pong from week to week. And it can feel even trickier when you have a picky eater on your hands.

When it comes to feeding her family of four, Joanna Goddard — the voice and founder of the much-loved lifestyle site Cup of Jo — is all about keeping it simple and ultra-comforting with weeknight dinners that she, her husband, and her small boys can love. Like us, she’s a big fan of Trader Joe’s and happily takes advantage of smart store-bought shortcuts to minimize time in the kitchen, as well as maximize time with her husband and adorable boys.

When there’s a toddler in the house, it makes all the difference to have a handful of dinner recipes that don’t take long to pull off. Now that your kiddo is running around, you can’t turn your back for a second! And even more importantly, you need meals that will please the newly choosy palates of little eaters without boring bigger eaters to tears.