4 Healthy Meals In A Hurry

Okay, so it's one week til Thanksgiving (WHAT.) and I feel like November has been a whirlwind of epic proportions.

There's holiday stuff (decorating, shopping, the works) and there's also, you know, like, a full-time job in there and also I'm married so maybe I'd like to hang with that guy for more than ten minutes without passing out at 7 pm.

Right? Anyone with me?

Anyway, if you're in this boat with me, I'm sure that the mere idea of making dinner every night sounds, I don't know, HORRIFIC.

If you've been here for a while, you know I love to meal prep, but not the traditional meal prep where I cook everything for the week on Sunday. That will never happen. I honestly hate everything about that.

In our house, when we cook a dinner, we simply make enough for a small army, and we eat that for the next two or three days, and then we cook dinner again. Simple, right? Everyone should do it, it's that easy.

Easy, yes, but you still need time to make it happen. I get that people, like me, are very busy. My husband is a part-time student and works full-time, and I know there are tons of people juggling school, work, families, what have you. Sometimes, we run out of food and have nothing defrosted and no time to cook it. Also, sometimes, I really just don't feel like cooking. At all.

Which is where my friends, DoorDash and chicken nuggets come in.

Those are not particularly healthy options, so two weeks ago, I had this idea.

What if I made a couple dinners ahead of time, and froze them so that I can just pull them out and throw them in the Instant Pot?

Okay, I know freezer meals are not a new idea, but, like a used car, it's new to me.

So I did what we all do when we have a "new to me" idea.

I went to Pinterest. Praise God for Pinterest. I would be lost and also a terrible home-maker without it.

I found TONS of meals and recipes there. Some were way too healthy, and some were not healthy at all. I found one site that had a free printout of all their meals, WITH a master grocery list.

GENIUS.

Plus, all the meals were Whole30, which I do enjoy, so it was a no-brainer.

We tried four of them, and I'll be honest, I didn't do them totally right, but I'm learning.

Two of them are still in our freezer, and I'm looking forward to trying them this week. It's so nice knowing that if I have no plans for dinner, I can just pull an ENTIRE MEAL out of the freezer and let it thaw all day and throw it in my Instant Pot.

This recipe list had 10 Whole30 freezer meals, some of which are not my jam so I skipped those, but I'll share my thoughts on the ones I did try. You can find the whole list here.

First, we tried the Steak Italiano.

It was delightful. I had a thought to cook them first and freeze them, but it wasn't my best idea, and the steak was a little dry, so I would recommend ACTUALLY following directions and leaving it raw until you're planning to eat it. This recipe does call for crushed red pepper, and it does make the sauce a little on the spicy side. I didn't love that, but Elliot did. So, if you're not into spicy food, leave out the red pepper flakes.

The next meal we tried was Tuscan Chicken Stew.

On Tuesday, we pulled it out of our freezer, and threw it in the IP while we worked out. When we were finished, we had a hot, delicious stew to enjoy before decorating our tree!

The only tweaks we would recommend for this recipe is to cut the potatoes in smaller chunks. I don't like giant hunks of potato in my soup, and Elliot would prefer no potatoes and to have the stew over rice, but he would prefer rice over any other starch, so there's that. We also added a little extra salt to bring out those lovely Italian flavors.

We still have the Cool Ranch Chicken and the Pot Roast in our freezer, and we're looking forward to trying them next week! These meals can easily be frozen for up to 3 months, so you can have them in your back pocket anytime you completely forget about dinner, or you just really don't feel like cooking. Everything gets busier around the holidays, so this is a great way to keep some healthy, homemade meals available even on a time crunch!

“Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!” Psalm 46:10

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28