Back to School Easy Weeknight Meal Ideas
I participated in an Influencer Activation on behalf of Influence Central for Honeysuckle White. I received complimentary products to facilitate my review as well as a promotional item to thank me for my participation.” #SimpleTurkeyDinners
Back to School Easy Weeknight Meal Ideas
Back to school is already in full swing and adjusting to your schedules can be tough for everyone. There are a few ways to help with weeknight meals though. There’s no need to go out to eat all the time. It’s expensive and quite honestly, it gets old. Most questions I get from Moms are how do you cook every single night? Just because I make a meal every night doesn’t mean it’s all homemade. Usually it’s only partially homemade. Heck, who am I kidding. There are days I’ve looked in the pantry and just whipped something up depending on whats in there. Having a plan is definitely the way to making your life a bit more simple during a hectic weeknights.
If it’s going to be a really, really busy week I may try and cook all of my meat products on Sunday. It depends on what I’m cooking though. I want to make sure it will last until Thursday or Friday. I cook lots of chicken and turkey too. Sometimes I can turn a big turkey or chicken into 3 meals easily.
Here’s an example of a few easy weeknight meal ideas:
I start off on Monday by putting my Honeysuckle bone in turkey in the crockpot on low for about 8 hours. I usually make it with chicken stock for a burst in flavor. By the time I get home, it’s ready to eat. I can easily warm up some frozen vegetables and dinner is served. That was easy.
Tip: I love the Honeysuckle White Bone-In turkey because it’s raised without growth-promoting antibiotics. They work with 700 independent farmers to produce these wholesome turkeys! This comes without the premium price tag you usually see with this type of product. Love that! Don’t let the bone intimidate you either – look at it as a free bouillon packet to add flavor! Be sure to check them out on the Honeysuckle White Facebook page here too.
There’s always so much meat on from the turkey so for my next meal I will create a turkey pot pie recipe. I already have pre-made pie crust that I purchased at my local grocery store saving me the time from creating a scratch recipe. Now I add one large can of condensed soup (I like cream of chicken or cream of celery) and add it to a big mixture of frozen vegetables and shredded turkey. I mix it until all the soup has covered the frozen veggies. I lay out on layer of pie crust on my greased pan. I add the mixture. Then I top it with the other pie crust layer. I whip one egg to create an egg wash that I can spread on the top layer of the pie crust. This whole process takes me less than 10 minutes. I bake it only 350 degrees for about 30 minutes or until the top of the crust is nice and lightly browned. My family loves almost any kind of pot pie recipe. Left over meats go hand in hand with this recipe. I’ve even used sausage and chicken together before too. My chicken pot pies come out different tasting every time because of the different leftover meats I use.
Lastly, I use the remaining turkey to create a super simple spinach salad. If I’m watching my calories (as I am in this photo) you will see that I use a whole lemon as my salad dressing. It’s way better than it sounds and gives a boost in your metabolism too. I feel wonderful after eating a healthy meal like this one. Plus, it’s just another idea for a simple weeknight meal idea too. Besides, Turkey is a lean, tasty substitution for foods traditionally prepared with beef or pork such as sausages and burgers.
Good to know: Honeysuckle White turkey products are only available in select states. For those on the East Coast (ME, NH, VT, NY, NJ, MA, VA, RI, CT, PA, MD, DE, WV, NC, SC, GA, and FL), look for Honeysuckle White’s sister brand, Shady Brook Farms!
