Do you want to cook for your family, but don’t want to risk going through all the effort for a bust? You need no-fail dinner recipe resources that won’t let you down, and that’s exactly what I’ve got for you.
I am a busy mom. I work part-time, I write this blog, I cart children to extra-curricular activities, and I attempt to keep the train on the tracks at home. It’s a lot. If you’re reading this post, you’re probably in a similar boat. If, like me, you also like to cook and want to feed your family homecooked meals regularly, you might be struggling to figure out how to pull this off.
My secret: don’t overthink it! Stick to recipes you know will turn out the majority of the time. For me, that means mixing no-recipe cooking with tried-and-true dinner recipe resources that I know create meals that are delicious and accurate. This is not to say that I never try new recipes from new sources or that you shouldn’t either. I just rely on these dinner recipe resources to do the grunt work of making dinner for my family. They do the heavy lifting, and I’m so grateful for them.
Dinner Recipe Resources
No-recipe cooking
If you’ve been around Sara in Season for a while, you’ll know that I am a huge fan of no-recipe cooking. I basically just throw stuff together a lot and call it good. And it usually is good!
For me, no-recipe cooking is ideal for weeknight dinners when I don’t have a lot of time to follow a recipe. I need food on the table that’s nutritious and delicious. Ain’t nobody got time for extravagant recipes on weeknights. I mostly work from my list of weeknight no-recipe dinners during the week as the most used of my dinner recipe resources. I know that everyone in my family will eat these meals and I can realistically get them on the table for dinnertime. They are winners!
Favorites
If you’re new to no-recipe cooking and you need a place to start, I’m happy to share some of my family’s absolute favorites!
Tacos
Tacos are a mainstay in most families with young children. Build-your-own dinners are usually very successful because everybody gets to exert a little bit of control over their meal. Grab a taco kit and all the fixins and you’ve got a dinner your whole family will love with very little effort.
Meatloaf
Meatloaf gets a bad rap, but I’m not really sure why. We all love it in my family. It’s also super easy to throw together without a recipe. I take ground meat (usually turkey), an egg, a handful of breadcrumbs, ketchup, mustard, Worcestershire sauce, garlic, and some seasonings (salt, pepper, Italian seasoning) and mix it all together. Then, I throw the mixture in a loaf pan or muffin tins if I’m running low on time. Bake at 375°F until it’s cooked through. I like to serve with already prepared mashed potatoes (heat up on the stove and stir in a spoonful or two of sour cream) and a roasted veggie.
Pizza
We love homemade pizza in this house! Although I love to make my own pizza dough, weeknight homemade pizza calls for a ready-made dough ball from the grocery store to use as the base. Add whatever toppings you like and throw in a hot (450°F) oven or onto the grill (my favorite method!). Round out the meal with a bagged salad. Everyone will be happy. Promise.
Cookbooks
Cookbooks are another of my favorite everyday dinner recipe resources. I love cookbooks, so I try a lot of them, but I only have a few that I return to over and over for weeknight meals. For me, these are the G.O.A.T.s of cookbooks at my current stage of life. I’m always looking for more cookbooks that will reach this status. If you have any recommendations, I’m all ears!
Everyday Dinners
It should come as no surprise that a cookbook entitled Everyday Dinners would make my list of everyday dinner recipe resources. This book seriously lives up to its name. It is jam-packed with perfect weeknight recipes and great tips for how you can prep ahead to save yourself some time during the dinnertime crunch. If you are a busy person who struggles to get dinner on the table, you need this cookbook!
Favorites
If you’re intrigued by Everyday Dinners or if you have it languishing on your shelf but haven’t cracked it open yet, I’d love to recommend a few recipes to get you started.
Tomato basil gnocchi
Everyday Dinners has a sheet pan gnocchi recipe for every season. Every season! All of them are delicious and make the most of each season’s flavors, but our favorite is summer’s tomato basil gnocchi. This is the definition of dump and go. Dump uncooked gnocchi, halved grape tomatoes, olive oil, pesto, traditional Italian seasonings on a sheet pan and toss to combine. Roast at 425°F for 20-25 minutes, top with grated Parmesan, and dinner is ready!
Chicken Romano meatballs
If your family loves meatballs of all varieties like mine does, you’ve got to try the chicken Romano meatballs from Everyday Dinners. They’re so easy to mix together, brown them, and shove them in the oven to continue cooking. They’re perfect over egg noodles or rice with a veggie on the side!
This is a great recipe to try out to see if you might like Everyday Dinners because this recipe was also posted on the author’s blog – How Sweet Eats (more on that later). Full recipe is available here.
Sticky, saucy grilled pork tenderloin
Pork tenderloin is not talked about enough. It’s the perfect weeknight protein because it takes almost no time at all to cook. I’ve tried a lot of pork tenderloin recipes, but this saucy, sticky grilled pork tenderloin with chipotle corn salad rises above. You just whisk up an easy marinade of honey, soy sauce, brown sugar, garlic, and salt and pepper, let it marinate for about 15 minutes and then grill until it’s cooked through. The corn salad is a great accompaniment, especially if you struggle to get your kids to eat vegetables.
What to Cook When You Don’t Feel Like Cooking
My friend Ruby deserves all the credit for this one. She so sweetly sent this cookbook to me as a little surprise a bit ago and it quickly rose up the ranks of my favorite dinner recipe resources. What to Cook When You Don’t Feel Like Cooking is Caro Chambers’ attempt to get busy moms in the kitchen and make dinner feel doable. The recipes are broken down into chapters by how much time they require, which is an absolute gamechanger for me (and probably for you too). She also gives variations for most of the recipes that allow you to customize them to your family’s tastes or make them easier to accomplish. If you try out this cookbook, she also has a Substack by the same name that gives many more similar recipes. She’s a gem, you guys!
Favorites
Of course, I’m going to share some of my family’s favorites from What to Cook When You Don’t Feel Like Cooking. These are the meals we return to constantly. If my kids eat them, yours probably will too!
Crunchy sheet pan sliders
My kids are really into sliders. Maybe it’s the novelty of small sandwiches? Who knows, but I’m into it because they’re easy to make and pretty delicious. Caro includes recipes for a few different types of sliders in her cookbook, but our favorite is hands-down the crunchy sheet pan sliders. They’re baby cheeseburgers with potato chips baked it. Delicious!
Crunchy refried bean taco-dillas
If your kids aren’t bean-averse, this is a great recipe to try! Make your own refried beans (or buy a can of them if you’re pressed for time), load them into flour tortillas, smother with cheese, and bake. Don’t skip the lime crema!
Enchilada rice skillet
Enchiladas are a classic weeknight meal that most families can get behind. But sometimes the rolling just seems daunting. This enchilada skillet is the perfect dump and go enchilada situation!
Blogs
Seeing as I started my own blog, you know I support other bloggers. In the food category, this isn’t hard. The food blog space is a crowded one. Because it’s so crowded, it can be hard to find really good food blogs in all the noise. Luckily, I’ve found a few really great blogs that serve as fantastic dinner recipe resources. I consult these blogs often and rarely have even a mediocre outcome. If you’re looking for reliable food blogs, here are a few.
How Sweet Eats
Brought to you by the same person as the Everyday Dinners cookbook, How Sweet Eats is the perfect food blog for me at this stage of life. Jessica Merchant, the woman behind the blog, has three young children and makes approachable recipes that come together intuitively. Almost every recipe she uploads to How Sweet Eats looks right up my alley (unless it’s shellfish-based), and I’ve never tried a recipe and had it be a stinker.
One of my favorite features of How Sweet Eats is the weekly meal plan Jessica curates every week. I never use it as a meal plan, but it’s a great place to find inspiration for my weekly menu. If you truly don’t know where to start planning your meals for the week, start at the meal plan!
Favorites
When I sat down to choose favorites from How Sweet Eats to share, I really struggled to pare down my list of favorites to just a handful. I did it, but please know that there are so many more truly excellent recipes on How Sweet Eats than the few I’m sharing here. This blog is one of my top dinner recipe resources for a reason!
Tortilla pizzas with pepperoni chickpeas
I make these tortilla pizzas with pepperoni chickpeas so often it’s almost embarrassing. But when they’re as easy and delicious as they are, it would be a shame not to make them all the time. Bonus for my veggie friends: all the taste of pepperoni with none of the meat!
Chicken Caesar sandwiches
Everyone in my family loves Caesar salads, so I like to switch up how we eat them. My favorite way to eat Caesar salads these days is chicken Caesar sandwiches made with grilled chicken. Moist, smoky chicken topped with the delicious umami flavor of Caesar salad and nutty, salty parmesan cheese – sign me up every day of the week!
Butternut squash & sausage tortellini soup
Especially in the winter, I want to eat soup all the time. It just warms me up from the inside. My kids can be a bit picky when it comes to soup, so I have to make soups that I know have a fighting chance with my kids. Luckily, throwing tortellini or another filled pasta into a soup is usually a pretty good way to get my kids to eat soup. Sausage is another thing they love. So a soup that combines both like How Sweet Eats’ butternut squash & sausage tortellini soup is a winner that’s worth repeating often.
Skinnytaste
The first food blog that I ever really go into was Gina Homolka’s Skinnytaste. The theory behind Skinnytaste is that Weight Watchers recipes can be delicious and healthy. I’m not on Weight Watchers, but I love that the Skinnytaste recipes aren’t heavy and don’t make me feel bad about myself. If you are on Weight Watchers, this is a no-brainer addition to your list of dinner recipe resources. If you aren’t, I still think Skinnytaste is worth a try!
Favorites
Once again, I really had to narrow my list of favorite recipes from the Skinnytaste website. She has so many truly delicious ones!
Lasagna roll ups
Hands down the most requested dinner in my house is Skinnytaste’s lasagna roll ups. My kids absolutely inhale these. And they provide a filling dose of protein and a serving of veggies (if I add spinach to the sauce, which I often do), so I make them whenever the kids ask me to.
Sloppy Joes
If you grew up eating Sloppy Joes, the filling probably came from a can. Trust me when I say these Sloppy Joes are leaps and bounds better than the canned variety. This filling is perfectly sweet and tangy and is packed with veggies. We skip the mushrooms in my house, but if you live with a bunch of mushroom lovers, make as is!
Chicken enchiladas
I love chicken enchiladas. They’re always my go-to order at a Mexican restaurant and one of my favorite things to make at home. Because I love them so much, I’ve tried a lot of recipes for chicken enchiladas over the years. The Skinnytaste chicken enchiladas are the best. The secret is in the sauce, so don’t skip making it yourself. Canned enchilada sauce pales in comparison!
Half-Baked Harvest
When I want to step up my homecooked dinners a notch, I turn to Tieghan Gerard’s blog, Half-Baked Harvest. Tieghan’s recipes might take an extra step or two or include an ingredient I don’t normally have in my kitchen, but it’s always worth it. Her recipes are absolutely delicious! You need a slightly elevated dinner recipe resource in your arsenal, and I highly recommend that this be it.
Favorites
I’ve made fewer Half-Baked Harvest recipes than I have How Sweet Eats or Skinnytaste recipes, but what I’ve tried has knocked it out of the park. I want to share the recipes I have made multiple times since I discovered Half-Baked Harvest because they’ve been good enough to go the extra mile more than once.
Sun-dried tomato chicken pasta
I love one pot dinners! Especially one pot dinners that get gobbled up by everyone at my table. This creamy sun-dried tomato chicken pasta certainly fits that bill. It’s creamy and cheesy and bright all at the same time. Give it a try!
Homemade Hamburger Helper
Another one pot wonder from Half-Baked Harvest, this homemade Hamburger Helper is a recipe every mom should have in her arsenal. I was obsessed with old school Hamburger Helper as a kid, but this is so much better and includes shredded zucchini for extra veggies. The extra time and effort are 100% worth it!
Sticky ginger sesame chicken meatballs
Because my kids love meatballs, I look for any and all meatball recipes to try. I especially love it when I find a meatball recipe that includes flavors that aren’t super familiar to my kids because meatballs are a great vehicle to get them to try something new. It was in that spirit that I tried out these sticky ginger sesame chicken meatballs a few years ago. Not only were they a huge hit, they also got my kids more into Asian flavors, which opened up a whole new world of recipe options for us. If you need a recipe to dip your kids’ toes in the waters of Asian flavors, I think you and your kids will love this one!
Other posts
If you’re in your foodie era and want some more cooking inspiration, you might find these posts helpful:
Do you use any of the same dinner recipe resources as I do? If not, what are your favorite dinner recipe resources? Share with your friends down below or over on Instagram @sarainseason please!