Top 5 Best Healthy and Quick Meals for Busy Parents

In this article, you will learn about my Top 5 Best meals for Busy Parents.  During the weekdays, it can be extremely hectic grabbing the kids after school and wrapping up a long day at work.  The last thing you want to deal with is making your hungry kids wait while rushing to fix dinner.

These meals are DadMBA approved.  I’m not an experienced or gourmet cook.  The good news is if I can make these meals, you can too!  The meals below will only be focused on the main dish so make sure you incorporate all 5 food groups to make your meal balanced.

My criteria for the Top 5 Best Meals for Busy Parents involve being: 

• Quick and Easy – Minimal Prep Time & Cooking Time
• Favorites for both the parents and kids
• On the healthy side

1. Salmon Basil Pesto Meal

Enjoy this delicious meal that’s good for both the kids and parents.  Outside of the great taste, the best things I love about salmon is its health benefits.  According to WebMD, Salmon is the #1 for Brain Food for kids.  This is due to the Omega-3 fatty acids (DHA and EPA) which are essential for brain growth and function.

And talk about easy.  This meal requires just the fish and the Basil Pesto Sauce (courtesy of Costco) and only 10 minutes of cook time.

Ingredients:

• 1 to 1.5 LB Salmon Filet for Family of 4 
• Basil Pesto Sauce 
• Seaweed & Rice (Optional)

Prep:

• For the salmon filet, cut into 4-5 large strips
• Spread the Basil Pesto sauce liberally on top (we coat the entire salmon with this sauce)
• Set Oven to Broil

Cook:

• Put the salmon on top-most rack and cook for 5 minutes with the Basil Pesto side up
• Flip over & spread Basil Pesto sauce on uncooked side
• Cook for another 5 minutes.  *Caution: Watch closely to not overcook and prevent burnt food from smoking up your house.

Tips:

• The kids love eating the fish just like sushi.  Just put the fish and rice together and wrap with seaweed to make it like a burrito.
• Alternative to Basil Pesto sauce: You can use salt, pepper, lemon juice and olive oil on both sides of the fish.  Cook the same as above.

2. Spaghetti & Meatball Meal

Due to my love for spaghetti growing up, my mom thought that I was going to end up and marry an Italian woman so I could eat this everyday.  The Italian woman never happened, however my love for spaghetti never faded. This has passed down to my kids who have grown to love this meal too.

Ingredients:

• Bag of Pre-cooked Meatballs
• 2 Bottles of Spaghetti Sauce
• Spaghetti Noodles

Prep:

• Just boil water for noodles.

Cook:

• Allocate 3-5 meatballs per person.  Since the meatballs are pre-cooked, just add directly with spaghetti sauce.  Bring the sauce to a boil, and then simmer for about 15 minutes while stirring occasional.
• Cook spaghetti noodles simultaneous.  Cook in boiling water for about 10 minutes and stir occasional.

Tips:

• Spaghetti is awesome as leftovers.  Typically we just put the leftover noodles and spaghetti sauce together in one container.   Just heat up and enjoy this at a later day!

3. Restaurant Rival Steak Meal 

This is the most controversial meal due to its perceived positive and negative impact on health.  Red meat is a good source of Iron, Zinc, Protein and Vitamins for growing kids.  However with red meat, there are possible concerns about increasing heart disease, diabetes and other risks over the long-term.  

Here is the most objective article I found by healthline.com outlining both the positives and negatives.  My mentality is to eat in moderation and you will be fine.  Seek your doctor’s professional advice if you are concerned.

With those caveats being outlined, now onto the mouth-watering steak meal.  You can master great steaks rivaling the restaurant for ¼ the price. Also as summarized in the “Plant-based meat. It’s what for dinner.” article, steak is one food for me that will not be replaced anytime soon by a plant-based alternative.

Ingredients:

• Buy quality meat – My favorite cuts are Filet Mignon or Ribeye as they are the most tender.  Choose a leaner meat if you are looking to be more health-conscious.
• Montreal Steak Sauce, Worcestershire sauce, Olive Oil

Prep:

• About 1 hour before cooking, put the Montreal Sauce, Worcestershire sauce and Olive oil on steaks (both sides).  Leave out at room temperature.

Cook:

• On grill, cook for 7 minutes on each side.  I do this on medium high.  This will cook to about medium rare (pink in the middle)
• My kids like the meat more cooked, just add 2 more minutes cooking time for each side.
• After cooking, let the meat rest for 5 minutes before cutting and serving.  As denoted on the steak school website, letting it rest allows the juices to redistribute preventing it from flowing away and leaving you with an overcooked piece of meat.

As an Amazon Associate, I will receive a small commission if you purchase any of the recommended items below.

Tips:

• Don’t have a grill?  You can broil the steak in the oven (7 minutes each side on top rack).  Caution: Watch closely to not overcook and prevent burnt food from smoking up your house.
• Not sure if you are under or overcooking your steak? Use a food thermometer like this weber digital instant read. The USDA recommends steak to be cooked to 145°F (medium).

4. Chicken Nuggets & Fish Sticks Meal

Using one of my favorite appliances called the Innsky Air Fryer, you can quickly cook this dinner for your family.  The biggest benefit is no prep time at all. 

According to Healthline, the health benefit of using an Air Fryer vs deep frying is the minimal use of oil (1 tablespoon is typically enough) resulting in less overall fat and calories.  

Ingredients:

• Bag of frozen chicken nuggets or Bag of frozen fish sticks 

Prep Time: N/A

Tips:

• The Air Fryer is flexible for meat, vegetables, fried foods and more.  You can also use this to re-heat food resulting in a more crisp and less greasy meal.

5. Rotisserie Chicken Meal

This is our #1 fallback choice when we simply have no time to prep and cook food.  Before picking up my kids, I jet to our local grocery store and grab rotisserie chicken which is hot and ready to eat.  Simply cut it up and serve.

Rotisserie chicken also saves well.  On our weekly trips to Costco, we sometimes grab chicken for later in the week.  As one fun fact about Costco and Rotisserie chickens, Costco goes great lengths to keep their chicken priced at $4.99. This has helped them sell over 90 million chickens last year. Let me repeat that crazy stat – 90 million chickens!

Your Top Questions Answered to go along with Best Meals

You may be wondering “What about veggies?” and “What other quick meals have you tried”?  Read on to get additional insight.

What about the Veggies?

Our families eat veggies to keep us regular (you know for bathroom option #2).  Vegetables are rich in fiber which reduce constipation and keep the digestive tract working well.  Need further motivation to eat veggies?  Read about surprising benefits of vegetables in this CNN Article.

Easy Veggie Option for the Kids

We buy frozen organic vegetables at the grocery store such as mixed vegetables, broccoli and edamame.  The article from Insider.com does a great job explaining why frozen veggies offer the same if not better nutritional value than fresh vegetables.  

For us, we love the frozen veggie option for the kids as it is easy to fix. Unlike fresh vegetables, we do not need to worry about it going bad or eating it within a short time period.  Thus, this makes this very cost effective for us.

Steam Cooker Appliance

Thanks to our Babycook steam cooker appliance, this makes cooking vegetables extremely easy and fast.  All you need to do is add water and let the appliance does the rest.  

We have literally used this appliance for all of our kids’ meals making it the most used appliance in our household.  It did break down after 3 years which we dutifully replaced with a new one due to its high use in our household.

Easy Veggie Option for the Parents

We purchase the ready-made salad kits at the grocery store.  Just throw everything in a large bowl, mix up the toppings and salad dressing.  The best aspects of these salads are the extensive variety and being fresh.  We try to buy only what we will eat for the week (2-3 bags) to minimize wasting it.  

The ready-made salad kits taste great and are super easy. Also, no more accidentally using spoiled salad dressing from the back of the fridge which has happened to me countless times before.

What other quick meals have you tried?

We have tried a few different meal kit services delivered to our home in the past.  They ship a big box of food which is filled with fresh ingredients and packaged meats for a set number of meals. 

Through this experience, I enjoyed expanding my food horizons and refining my cooking skills. Opposite of my normal approach of cooking with less, these meal kits do well giving you a wide assortment of ingredients carefully measured to the right portion. The food is delicious and especially gratifying with all the hard work you put into making it!

For the negatives, I felt the value and portion size were always lacking (my wife and I seldom feel full after the meal).  Another negative was the overall prep and cook time which would take 1 to 1.5 hours from start to finish. Also since there were multiple fresh meals shipped together, there was a need to cook all the meals in a short timeframe.

After having kids and thus being time constrained (See article Future Dad Advice), we stopped using these meal kit delivery services altogether.

Grocery Store Meal Kit Advantage

More recently, we have opted to do the meal kits offered by the grocery stores.  This hits on my enjoyment of learning to cook new meals as well as being super delicious to eat.  

Unlike the delivery meal kits where they sent multiple meals at once to maximize shipping costs, the grocery stores offer individual packaged ones.  This is perfect for us where we have a bit of extra time like Sunday Nights to prep and cook a nicer meal for the parents.

Call to Action

Try the Top 5 Best Meals for Busy Parents and see how this works for your family.  If you have any quick and delicious meals that work well for your family, please feel free to share.  I am always hungry and happy to learn about new meals!

About DadMBA: Through his schooling (he does have a MBA) & more importantly being a Dad, he has provided practical advice to family & friends on finances & other life topics.  He loves helping others thus the creation of DadMBA.