Next Week’s Meal Plan: 5 New Fall Favorites

I’m super curious: How do you save recipes you want to cook and eat? I recently started a file in my saved Instagram photos called “I want to eat” because honestly, even I get writer’s block when it comes to meal planning. And I’d rather not start from scratch looking for recipes every week.

My family keeps a short list of favorites that get rotated in and out of our monthly menus every season, but this week I’m test-driving a few recipes that I think will be crowd-pleasers — in hopes of adding some new ones to our roster.

I believe meal planning is the secret to stress-free weeknight dinners. Since I’m frequently asked by friends and family what I’m cooking for dinner each week, I share my weekly meal plan here. Whether you’re just learning to meal plan and looking for a real-life example of how this works or you’re an old pro on the hunt for inspiration, here’s a peek at how I’m feeding my family this week.

• The Beginner’s Guide to Meal Planning: What to Know, How to Succeed, and What to Skip
• The Best Way to Use a Weekend for Meal Planning Success
• Ask Yourself These 5 Questions Before You Start Meal Planning
• 5 Strategies for Picking Recipes for a Week of Meal Planning

I have a 6-year-old who is burger-obsessed and recently fell in love with a veggie burger at a restaurant nearby. I’m not one to be sneaky about vegetables, but if I can start out the week with a vegetable-heavy dinner that my kids will love, I consider that a big dinner win. Bonus: Any leftover avocados from this recipe can go into tomorrow’s tacos.

Full disclosure: I’m skipping cooking the halibut here and subbing in baked-from-frozen fish sticks. My kids couldn’t care less about fish outside of salmon, shrimp, and fish sticks — and fish sticks really don’t get the love they deserve. If you wanted to make these even easier, you could totally buy bagged slaw, too.

Everything else this week revolves around me eating this for dinner. How could I not fall in love with a takeout classic at home when it looks this beautiful? Plus, it has all the makings of a dinner win for my family: fast, flavorful, and family-friendly.

Okay, so technically this isn’t a new fall favorite, but rather a fall standby that I’m happy to welcome to the table again. I’m roasting the vegetables during Sunday’s Meal Prep Power Hour so all I need to do on Thursday is sauté some kale and cook the orzo.

Friday is always pizza night in our house, and I’m planning on using this week’s to use up leftover vegetables in a thoughtful and beautiful way. Red onions from Monday, peppers from Thursday, last night’s kale, mushrooms, and squash all pulled together with a smoky mozzarella from our local cheese shop.