I hear all the time that eating healthy is too time consuming so today I am sharing more than 20 simple dinner ideas for any busy person. These aren’t recipes that I have created and posted on the blog. These meal ideas are simply cooking up whole real food and making a meal out of them. What you will see here is what I make almost every single night of the week. I am busy too and like to make dinner in 30-45 minutes or less. Plus, most of these dinners are perfect to double up on the meat and vegetables to ensure there are leftovers for lunch the next day! We eat extremely simple and it allows my husband and I to easily live a healthy lifestyle. I do make quite a few recipes that I share on the blog as well because I try to share my most simple and easy recipes with you all to make eating healthy easier. Some of our favorite recipes from the blog include:
- Italian Marinaded Chicken Kabobs
- Paleo Chicken Strips (I like to prep these in advanced for the week)
- Some sort of variation of one of my One Pan/Sheet Dinners
- Fire Roasted Tomato Basil Chicken
- Chicken Fried “Rice”
- Beef Stir Fry (I will also make this with chicken)
- Pan-Seared Cajun Chicken
- Crockpot Turkey Chili (on the cooler months)
Let’s get to it!
Every night consists of a protein, vegetable and most times a complex carb. We eat naturally raised/processed red meat 3-4 nights a week.
Red Meat go to’s:
- beef
- venison
- sirloin steak
Now that the weather is nice, I grill hamburgers weekly. I like to grill a bunch on Sundays so we have them prepped and ready to eat for lunch for the week. Venison chops are my favorite and they come nice and thin. So, all I have to do is melt ghee or coconut oil in a pan over the stove and sear them up. I like to add sliced mushrooms to them too. It literally only takes 5 minutes to cook venison chops. I pretty much only like sirloin steak because it is lean and doesn’t have bones. I will either grill the steaks or cook them in the cast iron skillet. When cooking them in the cast iron skillet, I place the skillet on the stove over medium high heat and add ghee. Once the pan is hot, I add the seasoned steak and cook it for 3-4 minutes per side. If the steak is thick and the middle needs to be cooked more to my liking, I toss it in the preheated oven at 400 degrees for a few minutes. The bottom right photo above is venison kielbasa which I love! It is a big sausage so all I do is boil them for 10-15 minutes and they are done!
When it comes to making the vegetables, I either steam, roast or do a quick tossed salad. In the winter months I buy a lot of frozen vegetables that can be steamed in the microwave. A microwave may not be the best option for cooking your vegetables, but it does save a lot of time and you can get more variety of frozen vegetables than fresh in the winter months. Now that a lot more vegetables are in season, I will buy more fresh vegetables and steam them in my steamer. If you aren’t a big vegetable fan, I highly recommend roasting your vegetables. It adds an entire new and delicious flavor to them! All I do to roast my veggies is wash/chop them and add them to a bowl or ziploc bag. I then drizzle melted coconut oil or ghee with salt and pepper and toss the veggies until they are fully coated. Lay the vegetables out on a baking sheet and cook at 425 degrees for 20 minutes, toss, cook for another 20 minutes. If I had a salad for a side, I generally always use arugula and add grape tomatoes and toss it with olive oil and lemon juice or whatever Primal Kitchen Foods dressing I have in the fridge.
Most nights we have a healthy carb too.
Carbohydrate go to’s:
- Sweet potato
- Yukon gold and baby red potatoes
- Squash
- Plantain
- Rice
I love roasted sweet potato the best and I do this one of two ways. One way is to wash and chop the sweet potato into chunks and toss it with melted coconut oil, salt and dill. I lay them out evenly on a baking sheet and cook for 20-25 minutes at 425 degrees, toss them and cook them for another 15-20 minutes. The other way I roast them is by cutting them in half length wise, grease the cut side with coconut oil or ghee, lay cut side down on a baking sheet and cook for 30-40 minutes at 425 degrees (it will depend on how big the sweet potato is). Both ways are seriously so good. Roasted Yukon and baby red potatoes are our favorite ways to eat them. All I do is chop them and toss them with melted ghee, salt, pepper and garlic salt and cook them at 425 degrees for 20 minutes, toss them, and cook for another 20 minutes. These Rosemary and Garlic Smashed Potatoes are also a favorite of ours! Butternut squash is my favorite and I cook them just like potatoes. First I peel it and cut it in half to clean out the seeds. I chop it into chunks and toss it with coconut oil, salt and pepper and lay the chunks out on a baking sheet. I bake it at 425 degrees for 20 minutes, toss, and cook for another 20 minutes. I like to make fried plantains on taco nights. All I do is add a pan to the stove over medium heat and add coconut oil. I cut the plantain into coins and once the pan is hot I sear the plantains on each side until they are golden brown. I transfer the fried plantains to a paper towel and lightly salt them. So freaking good! I buy jasmine white rice and follow the cooking instructions on the bag. I will also make additional sweet potato and rice to keep in bulk in the fridge to make other meals out of.
Our white meat go to is chicken. We will sometimes have turkey or fish, but most weeks it’s chicken. In the warmer months grilled chicken is my favorite on our charcoal grill. Otherwise, I like to cook it in a cast iron skillet over the stove. You can follow the cooking instructions for that here. I also like to make a variation of the chicken recipes listed at the beginning of this post. Most times, it is grilled or pan seared chicken, though.
Taco night is a weekly occurrence because it is so simple! Most nights it is a taco bowl or salad consisting of arugula, spring mix, jasmine white rice, homemade ground beef taco meat, grape tomatoes, salsa, and avocado or Primal Kitchen Foods chipotle lime mayo. The top left photo is a taco loaded sweet potato. I roasted the sweet potato in the oven until really soft and covered half of the sweet potato with my favorite taco fixings. In that photo, I have homemade ground beef taco meat, grape tomatoes, green onions and guacamole. I have been on a lettuce wrap kick lately and love to make taco lettuce wraps. All I do is wash and pat dry a few pieces of green leaf lettuce and add my favorite taco fixings. When I make fish tacos, a lettuce wrap is my favorite way to eat them.
There you have it! 20 plus simple dinner ideas that any busy person can make! I still plan out my weekly dinner menus, but instead of creating a new or elaborate recipe each night, I just pick what meat and vegetables we will have. Making dinner this way has worked for my husband and I for years to stick to a healthy lifestyle and hit our goals. I hope you found this helpful and will be able to use some of these ideas to make living your healthy lifestyle that much easier!