8 Delicious Dinner Ideas & Tips to Make Meals Easier

Hello, Friends!  I hope you had a great weekend.  It was cold and snowy in Indiana.  We woke up to surprise snow on Friday and no school for the kids.  It was wonderful.

I have hit my dinner making stride and have some really delicious dinner ideas to share with you. Our meals are all colorful, leave me with leftovers for lunches most days and are kid and adult approved.  I hope you leave feeling inspired to make some delicious feels for your family.  Let me know in the comments what your favorite meal idea is or if you have any questions!

1. BBQ Pulled Pork Nachos

The adults at our house love these.  We use a base layer of tortilla chips, add in leftover bbq pulled pork from having it earlier in the week, cheese and a drizzle of bbq sauce.  Heat until cheese is melted.  Top with more bbq sauce or sour cream.  Tip: Serve the kids ate a mix of leftovers or easy sandwiches on a night when you make something they don't love.

2. Zatarain's Dirty Rice Mix

My kids LOVE this boxed mix dinner.  I buy two boxes to feed us dinner and leaves us with a serving or two of leftovers.  You just add cooked ground beef to the box mix and can add shredded cheese on top.  It's the easiest meal that we've been enjoying for probably 20 years.  Tip: Add a little water to the rice when you reheat it in a saucepan on the stove.  It'll taste brand new.

3. Fish Sticks and Mac & Cheese

We like these skinny fish sticks with boxed mac and cheese.  Tip: I make the dinner a little more filling and healthy by adding roasted cauliflower/broccoli, homemade bread and fruit.  This is the easiest meal to always have ready to go on the nights that you want a fast meal.

4. Taco Night

I love to make a big taco salad plate for myself on taco night.  I made homemade guacamole this night because I had ripe avocados.  I just do avocado, lemon juice, salsa, fresh tomatoes, purple onion, fresh fresh jalapeno, salt and pepper.  The rest of my family made their own taco plates - nachos, soft tacos and a taco bowl.  Tip: I chop all our favorite toppings and then the kids pick and choose what they want to have for taco night.

5. Homemade Lasagna

I don't go to this much trouble for dinner every night, but when I have more time on a Sunday or during the week, I love lasagna.  I always make one of these recipes - Life Changing Lasagna where you don't precook your noodles.  Or this Crockpot Lasagna recipe.  They're both delicious.

Night 1:  Lasagna, side salad and fruit.

Night 2: My best leftover tip is to not serve the same meal two nights in a row.  Your family will probably enjoy leftovers more if they have a day or two in between eating them.  For the second night, I served lasagna, roasted broccoli and a different fruit.  It felt like a fresh meal on the menu.

6. Cheese Grits and BBQ

I got a recipe from a friend for cheese grits after she served them at our Christmas luncheon.  They were amazing.  Mine weren't as smooth as her so I need to work on my grits making skills, but they were still tasty.  No one else at my house would try them.  Darn melty cheese hating family of mine.  So I enjoyed them for dinner and a couple of lunches.  Next time I'll make them and take them somewhere that I can share them.

Pulled pork BBQ.  Kevin buys ours online and has it shipped to the house.  We have tried Pork Belly and a few others.  They all arrived fully cooked.  You just reheat and eat.  One pound usually gives us one dinner and leftovers for nachos or lunches during the week.  I added in roasted sweet potatoes, green beans and fruit.

Leftovers made a delicious lunch!

7. Homemade Soup

I try to always keep the ingredients on hand to make chicken noodle soup.  It's fast and easy and so much better than the canned soup.  Here's my Chicken Noodle Soup recipe.  I served it with soft pretzels and cucumbers.

Tip: If you have leftover soup... Separate the soup and the noodles/veggies when you refrigerate the leftovers.  It will prevent the noodles from absorbing all the broth and it'll taste fresh when you reheat them together.

8. Chicken Breast Bites

I mentioned these on Friday and I'm talking about them again today because they are really good!  They're so much cheaper than nuggets at Chick-Fil-A.  The chicken is great quality.  This package cost around $12.  That's obviously more than a rotisserie chicken, but you get all good quality white meat that is ready to heat and serve and you don't have to mess with bones and the yuck that comes with a rotisserie chicken.

I set up a salad bar for my family.  Tip: None of my kids love lettuce, but they love a lot of the salad toppings.  They each made their own plate and filled it with lots of veggies, chicken to dip in sauces and fruit.

They were tasty!  They had a good flavor.

Tip: If you have a busy night, serve your meal on paper plates.  It'll make clean up so fast.  I served our big salads with DOTS pretzels, cheese cubes and TGI Fridays patio skins.  It was a delicious meal and then I ate leftover salads for lunch all week.

I hope you got a few new ideas for dinners at your house!