Quick & Healthy Dinners For Busy Nights
Welcome back for another round of quick and healthy weeknight dinners. At this point, we hope you’ve started a decent dinner menu for the week. Today we have three more options ranging from savory to spicy to just plain fresh!
As with the rest of the week, all of these dinners come together in 45 minutes or less. The Mongolian ground beef recipe, in particular, is incredibly straightforward to make and regularly makes appearances at our dinner table.
Today’s Checklist
If you’re following along with the 40FRESH Challenge, here’s your homework for today:
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Make Thursday’s dinner menu
Add ingredients you need for Thursday’s dinner to your shopping list
Tuscan Chicken
Estimated Time: 40 minutes
Creamy Tuscan Chicken with Cherry Tomatoes
Although most recipes for Tuscan chicken will call for sundried tomatoes, we prefer this recipe from The House on Silverado that uses fresh cherry tomatoes. Not only are you getting more nutrition from fresher ingredients, but you don’t have to worry about any Nope ingredients in the sundried tomatoes. While it’s possible to find certain brands at the grocery store that are Limited, many brands include preservatives and/or coloring agents. Farm fresh for the win!
This recipe can certainly be enjoyed on its own, but we prefer to pair it with a starchy side like mushroom rice. If the thought of cooking up another dish alongside the Tuscan chicken doesn’t freak you out, give this recipe from RecipeTin Eats a try. For the vegetable broth, either make your own or use a Limited item like this one from Pacific Foods.
Mongolian Ground Beef
Estimated Time: 25 minutes
Easy Mongolian Ground Beef Recipe
Our whole family loves this recipe and we love how quick and easy it is to prepare! That said, there are two ingredients you’ll need to replace in this dish to make it 40FRESH friendly. The hoisin sauce and low sodium soy sauce are both on the Nope list.
However, both of these have easy replacement options. In the latter case, you can simply swap in regular soy sauce for the low sodium soy sauce. For the hoisin, we like to swap that out entirely for a sambal oelek sauce instead. This will require a bit of additional legwork for you, too. The sambal oelek sauces sold in stores also have ingredients that land them on the Nope list. Fortunately, you can easily make your own in 10 minutes using a recipe like this one from Dwell by Michelle. As for how much to include, it’s really up to your personal preferences on spice level. Start with 1 Tbsp if you’re sensitive to spice.
With those two ingredients swapped out, all you need to complete this meal is a bit of rice! Throw in equal parts rinsed rice and water into your Instant Pot and set to pressure cook on high for 3 minutes with a 10 minute natural release.
Chicken, Pear, Gorgonzola & Walnut Salad
Estimated Time: 45 minutes
Chicken, Gorgonzola, Pear, And Walnut Salad
As we promised earlier in the week, we have another entrée salad to add to your weeknight lineup. The best part about this recipe from Italian Food Forever is that it already comes with a salad dressing that is 40FRESH friendly!
One item that you’ll want to make from scratch is the poached chicken. This recipe is easy to get going on the stove while you’re working on the rest of the salad prep. However, you’ll want to use water in place of the chicken broth unless you’ve already made your own from scratch. Unfortunately, the chicken broths sold in stores all come with Nope ingredients.
Your Dinner Menu
You know the drill by now! Crack open your food journal and pencil in your dinner of choice for Thursday. Since you’ve put together a few options at this point, feel free to start experimenting with different dinners to see what strikes a chord with you.
After you have your Thursday menu picked out, don’t forget to add any ingredients you’re missing to the weekly shopping list.
Up Next...
Keep up your breakfast, snacking, and drinking habits and give yourself another well-deserved X on your accountability calendar. You’re almost complete with four weeks and there’s only two more habits to layer on. If you’re struggling with cravings, make sure to go back and review your systems. It only gets harder from here.
Tomorrow we’ll complete the last of the quick and healthy weeknight dinner series. What did you think of today’s recipes? Let us know in the comments which one is your favorite.