What's a meal your family loves?

[soiree]

We've gotten in the habit of eating out on the weekends and I'd really like to stay in more, cooking maybe a more elaborate meal. I have more time to cook on the weekends and I'm looking for inspiration. I'm pretty set with weekday, quick meals. 
Our go to is steak, a potato of some sort and oven roasted veggies. Or sub a whole chicken. This is always the birthday dinner request. What's your family's fav meal?

[daisy]

Hmmm. I’m weirdly having a hard time answering this question!

Most of them really like either regular beef chili, or white chicken chili, always with noodles cooked separately that they can add in. And different toppings.

Everyone but my son really likes lasagna.

What they all really love is chicken Alfredo, but it’s not hard. I just use the super simple joy of cooking Alfredo sauce. Or we make instant pot Alfredo and they totally love it (I kind of follow the recipe from the shugary sweets blog, but I have changed it a bit to upsize and use whole containers of ingredients.

Chicken Parmesan is usually a hit and I leave everything separate so people can add what they want. Breaded Chicken, Sauce, cheese, Noodles.

[sudsy]

My graze tables. Not super labor intensive. Make a bunch of apps, cut up fruits and veggies with dip, cheese, crackers. Cute plates and cups. Voila!

My kids like my meatballs. I either make them Italian style with more Italian seasonings and pair it with pasta, or their favorite is the honey garlic meatballs I make. I usually pair those with mashed potatoes for myself and some other starch for them because they are broken and won’t eat mashed potatoes. I also make mini meatloaves that they don’t mind. Chicken dish-wise, my meals are all super quick because they prefer a rotisserie chicken over anything else. Usually a chicken and rice dish or chicken with gravy.

Mine are also on a grilled cheese and tomato soup kick, which is super quick and easy for me, but if you wanted to make stuff from scratch, I bet there would be a million tomato soup recipes on Pinterest.

Every meal also has steamed or roasted veggies and some kind of fruit too.

[peachesncream]

Homemade build-your-own pizzas. A little labor intensive (I make the Skinnytaste 2 ingredient dough) but always a hit.

My kids also really dig Asian, probably specifically Thai recipes. We love a good Drunken Noodles.

[sweptaway]

For project cooking, I do love a roast chicken
Spaghetti and meatballs or bolognese or baked ziti
Chicken cacciatore.
Pot roast.
My husband has made birria,carnitas and kimchi jiggae, which are all pretty labor intensive.

[emma]

Carbonara, everyone loves it and while it’s fairly simple it can take a bit of practice to get the eggs right and not scramble them. So it’s on my fancier project meals list.
Other favourites:
Homemade pizza is always a hit
Coq au Vin
pumpkin stuffed with everything good
Toad in the Hole - classic British dish of sausages baked in Yorkshire pudding batter
Homemade spaghetti and meatballs
Fisherman’s pie

[4PrivetDrive]

My kids are currently obsessed with chicken wings. So I just buy a pack from Sam’s and grill them and they can use any dipping sauce they want.

[SweetPotato]

I like gnocchi or ravioli from scratch when there is extra time

[justbecause]

Roast chicken with thanksgiving like sides.
Beef stew with soda bread.
A homemade lasagna feast. (Salad, meatballs, rolls).

[piratecat]

All of our meals are still quick and easy but one of our favorites is the super easy salmon dish that was trending on social media a while back — teriyaki salmon mashed over rice with kewpie mayo and sriracha and eaten with nori.

[wasabi]

My kid pleasers:
Any pasta dish, Alfredo is king for my 13yo, spaghetti for the boys, or baked ziti
Meatloaf (as long as it doesn’t have onions), mashed potatoes
Ground beef tacos with refried beans (omg the hold this one has on my 1 yo.. tho he eats it like a taco bowl)
Sausage Sheetpan meals w/ sweet potatoes/ carrots or Brussels sprouts (except this part doesn’t get eaten by anyone but me 95% of the time)
Chicken spaghetti (I guess this goes with pasta)
Cajun pasta with sausage and shrimp (oh man more pasta)
Red beans and rice (I just do a quick canned bean/instant pot version) with sausage or chicken
Enchiladas are usually a hit

This one is a recent favorite that even my daughters friend whose family owns a Mexican restaurant came back for seconds of
damndelicious.net/2023/04/28/crispy-baked-chicken-tacos/


ETA: omg I don’t know how I misunderstood this post so much lol, I think I glazed and just went with your last sentence. When I have more time to spend on meals I try to do homemade things that aren’t usually homemade so I can cut out more crappy ingredients. Stuff like from scratch and cheese, and chicken nuggets.

When I have more time for enchiladas, I do like to do this homemade enchilada sauce. Much better than canned
www.budgetbytes.com/red-enchilada-sauce/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=20720320779&utm_content=690120824536&utm_term=enchilada%20sauce&gad_source=1

[coffeecake]

My H makes a really good homemade bolognese sauce. We do that about one weekend a month. I also like Stanley Tucci’s tomato soup. We’ll often have that with grilled cheese or paninis on Sundays. I also like to make homemade minestrone soup.

[AmyG]

when everyone is here they like most anything in a burrito or taco,
beans, eggs, chorizo, pulled pork, beef, green chili whatever, just add enough salsa and put it in a tortilla flour or corn and they'll probably eat it. lol

Love a beef roast in the crock pot, add a bouillon cube, a little water, with onions, carrots, celery and big pieces of potato cook til the beef falls apart.
pork shoulder in the crock pot often gets a can of red enchilada sauce poured over it while it cooks, shred it up and eat it all.
fresh bread even if it's a loaf of frozen bread. they can make a meal out of a loaf of bread and butter hot from the oven it seems

things we got here at hih
egg roll in a bowl but are kinda egg roll out
thai chicken with shredded carrots in with the chicken
and shakshuka I need to make it since we have so many eggs from our chickens

[AmyG]

If you wanna make week nights even easier, my mom always roasted 2 chickens or xl size pork roast or beef roast so there'd be already cooked meat to eat on other days of the week and juices with some of the meat to make a soup or stew

[lizblue]

This is not the healthiest, but damn, H and DD love it.

www.allrecipes.com/recipe/222582/baked-spaghetti/

[cabbagecabbage]

My family is the worst! Ok, not really but we have the vegetarian child and the picky omnivore child. My tried and true meals that everyone enjoys are: simple pasta dishes: spaghetti, pasta with garlic oil and broccoli, or breakfast for dinner with eggs and pancakes. Those are literally the only meals everyone eats.

My vegetarian kid is killing me. No matter what I make her (homemade veggie lasagna with only things she likes, quiche, whatever) she barely tolerates it, tells me she won’t eat it again, and asks for a frozen bean burrito or ramen. So the realest answer is about $60 in grilled steak, a vegetable garnish to be eaten just by mom, and two microwaved bean burritos is the most popular dinner at my house.

[rachers]

We order out way more than we should so I’m trying to rein it in.

My DD and DH both love old school comfort foods so this week I’m making:

Taco soup (sometimes called 5 can soup I think)
Poppyseed chicken - super easy over rice and great leftovers
Meatballs and butter noodles
Steal, roasted veggies - I actually love this because DD and I split a steak so it’s pretty inexpensive

[imapenguin]

When we’re home and can take our time with a meal I usually braise short ribs (almost always a half baked harvest recipe) or have MH smoke a turkey breast. Neither are complicated, but both take time we don’t have very often.

[spicysalmonroll]

One of those "extra time" weekend meals that we all love is when I fry fish for fish tacos. Takes a little while to do batches, makes a mess, not the healthiest so we don't do it too often but it hits so good.

[leahcar]

I'm bad about eating out on the weekend too. It's easier to eat at home, for me, when the weather cools down a bit.

We love stuff in the dutch oven. It takes a long time, but is not necessarily labor intensive. It's 30ish minutes, max, hands on and then a very long time in the oven.
Italian beef - we usually eat it on rolls with provolone cheese
Birria
beef stew
pot roast
All of those make quite a bit so it usually gives us a day of leftovers too.

I've also been making bread in the dutch oven now that my gluten free child is not at home. Fresh bread makes other stuff feel more special.

My family grew up with a big meal on Sundays and I do that when time permits. I usually make a dessert from scratch and that's the time intensive part of the meal.

We love "football" food and do that a couple of weekends a month in the fall. A big pot of chili- or we grill wings- or just a bunch of appetizers. Something that lets people pick at food as they want to eat. It's nice when we're home all day even if I'm the only household football fan.

[angelashly]

Last week I did a crockpot roast, mashed potatoes, and greens and they are still talking about it.

Others:
Mississippi roast
Chicken parmesan
Chili
Copycat OG pasta fagoli soup
Enchiladas with rice

[angelashly]

Oct 19, 2024 15:16:16 GMT -6 SweetPotato said:

I like gnocchi or ravioli from scratch when there is extra time

I really want to try to do gnocchi. Do you have a recipe?

[Wtfshouldmynamebe]

Mine love cedar plank salmon. I buy the salmon when on sale and use the grill with a plank.
They are also big fans of chicken piccata

[bobyn]

B loves helping me make baked potato soup in the crockpot. His favorite part is the mashing, obviously.

We also love Japanese chicken curry nights.

[SweetPotato]

Oct 21, 2024 8:21:32 GMT -6 angelashly said:

Oct 19, 2024 15:16:16 GMT -6 SweetPotato said:

I like gnocchi or ravioli from scratch when there is extra time

I really want to try to do gnocchi. Do you have a recipe?

I can’t find a link for it - we have Nick DiGiovanni’s cookbook and there is a “yolky gnocchi” recipe we like that uses a brown butter sauce and egg yolks.

[angelashly]

Oct 21, 2024 9:12:53 GMT -6 SweetPotato said:

Oct 21, 2024 8:21:32 GMT -6 angelashly said:

I really want to try to do gnocchi. Do you have a recipe?

I can’t find a link for it - we have Nick DiGiovanni’s cookbook and there is a “yolky gnocchi” recipe we like that uses a brown butter sauce and egg yolks.

Thanks!

[tinyjoys]

My kids love homemade meatballs & marinara sauce, like a simmer all day marinara sauce. My favorite labor meal is coq au vin or french onion soup. They also love meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and peas (canned, in true 1950s meal fashion).

Last week, I made a lazy stroganoff inspired meatballs (frozen meatballs, thinly sliced onion, a pint of baby bellas quartered, pepper, two cans of cream of mushroom soup with garlic, two cans worth of beef broth) in the crockpot and it's all my kids have been talking about since.

[soiree]

Oct 21, 2024 8:32:30 GMT -6 Wtfshouldmynamebe said:

They are also big fans of chicken piccata

Chicken piccata is also a huge hit at our house. We have it at least 1x month. 
I'm making chicken piccata meatballs for dinner tonight. 

[roselab]

This thread is making me sad because I realized that there isn't a meal that my whole family loves. I live with 3 somewhat picky eaters (dh being the pickiest at times), and although there are plenty of things that I make that they eat, for the most part they eat it because it's what I made and all that is for dinner. And the stuff some of them really like, the others don't. Ds loves when I make chicken fajitas but DD hates them, dh loves any baked pasta, but my kids don't eat red sauce at all so I have to leave some pasta plain for them to eat, both kids love french onion soup but dh won't eat it at all, etc. Chicken Parm is one of the meals that gets the least complaints, although I leave the sauce/cheese off the chicken for the kids, so it's basically just breaded chicken.

[spicysalmonroll]

roselab, My son is the same way. He eats mostly all of our dinners because that's what we serve him but nothing is his favorite. My mom spent hours cooking our favorite meal for our birthday- my brother was lasagna and I was this special chocolate pudding pie that has layers so it takes a while to set in between. I have such fond memories of her making our b-day item. I offer it to my son every single year (even McDonalds, donuts, ANYTHING) and at 8, he still just says grilled cheese- that he eats several times a week. It makes me sad for him that it's not something "special".
When he was a toddler we had to do feeding therapy and I'd look at kids his age shoving their face into spaghetti or ice cream and I remember telling the therapist that he tolerated some food but there wasn't a single food that he got "excited" about. I never would have thought at 8 he'd be the same way.