Easy Family Dinner Ideas

You want to have family dinner every night, better yet with homemade meals. You need more than easy dinner ideas or a meal plan. You need these tips!

Tell me if this sounds familiar: you want to make homemade meals for your family and eat together every night, or most nights. But at the end of the day, whether you work or stay home with kiddos, you are exhausted.

Kids are screaming and need 40.9384 million things, like, yesterday. Teens are fighting or have disappeared and your husband is running late and won’t be home for backup until later. And so you order a pizza, because who cares anyway?

While I am the first to raise my hand when pizza is on the line {ya’ll know I never pass up a pizza!} if this is your regular pattern and you want to change it, LET’S CHANGE IT.

I hear from women all the time that they want to make homemade meals for their family but don’t have the time or energy for planning and don’t have the right ingredients on hand.

I have a newsflash for you: You don’t need a meal plan. You don’t need a service to deliver food and meal ingredients to your door. You don’t need one more thing on your plate.

You need a Kitchen Organization and Meal Time Preparation Plan. Success comes from prep work and maintenance after that. And that is where I come in. I am a kitchen organization master. I am a kitchen prep and meal planning guru. And I want to share all of my secrets and tips with you.

I want to give you all this information so you can spend a few days getting your kitchen in order, and then all the rest of the days just getting ideas, doing basic meal plans for your family and most of all feeling peace. Feeling prepared. Feeling ease when it comes to family dinner and finding easy dinner ideas.

I have a few tips to help you get more organized so you can be successful at making homemade meals.

Family Dinner Organization Tips

Family Dinner: Pantry Tips

Stock your pantry with things you eat regularly. Do you cook with canned veggies? Have at least 3 cans of what you use on a regular basis. Do you cook with pasta? Buy 4 boxes the next time you’re at the store. Organize these items in bins or baskets. The key here is that you can SEE every single item. Lost items are wasted money and space. Reorganize your panty monthly and add low stocks to your grocery list.

Family Dinner: Freezer Tips

Even if you just have a tiny above-the-fridge freezer, you can utilize it to make meal times easier. Freeze items you use frequently, like cheese or meat or even butter. When you make a meal, make it double and freeze half. Read this post for a super comprehensive list of what you can and should be freezing.

Family Dinner: Fridge Tips

Keep a running shopping list (your phone makes this easy!) throughout the week so you know exactly what you need at the store when you go. Don’t buy it if it’s not on your list! Buy fresh items that get stored in the fridge weekly or every couple of weeks. Make a list of what you need to have in there at all times based on the meals you most often make.

The Scientific Benefits of Family Dinner

Guess what else? There is actual scientific proof that eating dinner together as a family has real, tangible benefits. I wrote an entire article about it, but here are a few of my favorite takeaways:

The Center on Addiction did a study that reported teens who have frequent family dinners {5-7 per week} are more likely to have high-quality relationships with their parents. It is no secret that teens who have good relationships with their parents are less likely to use drugs and alcohol. I think this is a pretty compelling argument for why it is so important to have family dinner together!

Another study showed that teens who sit down for family dinner on a regular, weekly basis {5-7 meals per week} are less depressed, use drugs and alcohol less, and actually do better in school. This is AMAZING. Depression and suicide rates are increasing among teens, and if simply eating meals together will help that??? I have no words. That is incredible.

They also are more likely to eat fruits and vegetables. I have experienced this with my own kids, but I had no idea it was an actual fact. These kids in the study also had higher levels of other essential nutrients, like calcium.

Family dinners are also a great time to encourage kids to try new foods. A study showed that kids who are repeatedly exposed to the same new food over and over were more likely to eat it by choice at the end of the study. Family dinners provide this same type of environment for kids to try and re-try new foods.

Easy Meal Ideas

Now you need some easy meal ideas, right? Well, I have some for you! These also fall under the “easy recipes for kids” requirement too – they are all super family-friendly recipes!

Now, you all know I have wayyyyy more easy dinner ideas! Here is an archive of all the different recipes on my website, there is even a section for 30-Minute Meals.

BUT. Do you still feel like you’re missing some vital information for being able to make homemade meals as often as you’d like too???

It’s because you are. I have SO MUCH MORE information I need to give you so you that you can be continually successful at making homemade meals for your family regularly – even on days when you didn’t have time to prep. Even on days when you didn’t have time to shop.

You can access all of the information you need by signing up for one of my monthly membership programs! The Homemade Meal Hero membership will give you all the information you need! You’ll also get access to a VIP Facebook group where we share weekly deals, meal plan ideas, and more! What do you say? Ready to change your life?

You want to have family dinner every night, better yet with homemade meals. You need more than easy dinner ideas or a meal plan. You need these tips!