8 Healthy Recipes For A Family Friendly Dinner
Here’s a list of kid friendly dinners that parents will enjoy too, for simple and nourishing weeknight family dinners.
Satisfying everyone’s preferences at meal time can be stressful, especially when you want those meals to be nourishing. Pizza night is pretty easy, but salads? Maybe not. I think prioritizing the favorite ingredients and meals that you have in common and finding versatile options that can easily be customized, goes a long way. For pickier eaters, maybe finding ways to hide vegetables or prepping ingredients in a way that’s more tolerable (like shredded chicken over a whole chicken breast, or puréed soups) is helpful.
It’s also great to find ways to make meals more appetizing and appease more palates. Sauces and dressings like BBQ sauce, ranch dressing or honey mustard can give a boost to certain meals. Maybe adding some cheese or more flavor through herbs and spices will take a meal from boring to appetizing.
Avoiding a meal rotation rut is important too. We all get into repetitive routines but it’s easy to get sick of foods and meals you have frequently, even if they’re satisfying. Having enough variety in your meal rotation to prevent the rut is helpful. And to help you do that, I’m sharing a variety of family friendly dinner ideas and recipes below. These are both kid and adult friendly, and overall versatile to customize to your family’s preferences.
Healthy Family Friendly Dinners
Baked Chicken Nuggets
Recipe by Half Baked Harvest (made it corn flakes)
Recipe by Ambitious Kitchen (made with panko)
As an adult, I still appreciate a good chicken tender. These are great baked options, made with corn flake powder or panko breadcrumbs, and spices, then baked crispy in the oven. Half Baked Harvest also provides a lot of sauce recipes to make from scratch to serve with the nuggets. These can be served with steamed vegetables, roasted vegetables, baked sweet potato fries and even on a salad. It’s a very versatile recipe to have in the meal rotation.
Slow Cooker Cilantro Lime Chicken Tacos
Growing up, taco night was a no-fail favorite. This is a simple chicken taco recipe, made easier in the crockpot. It uses spices you likely have on hand with garlic and lime juice. Use flour or corn tortillas then add in the shredded chicken. Top with things like shredded lettuce or cabbage, sliced scallion, guacamole or avocado, salsa, hot sauce and sour cream. This is a great batch cooking recipe to make extra and freeze for future taco nights!
Mini Chicken Quesadillas
These quesadillas are made with shredded chicken (rotisserie or homemade), refried beans and cheese for a high protein and fiber rich dinner. Sides can include salsa, avocado/guac, and sautéed peppers (for those who like them) or other veggies. I would use olive oil instead of canola oil, or use no oil at all. I typically toast quesadillas without any oil and in a dry pan. You can also use regular sized tortillas if you don’t need mini.
Chicken & Spinach Meatballs
These meatballs can be used in the recipe below too! They’re made with spinach mixed in with the ground chicken to add extra greens. The pieces of spinach in her photos look big, so I might try chopping finer to blend in more if that’s a concern. You can also adjust the amount of spinach that you think will be best tolerated. The obvious choice to serve meatballs is with pasta, but they’d be great in a pita pocket sandwich or on a rice bowl too.
Pasta with Vegetable Pasta Sauce
This recipe is great if you’re looking for family friendly meatless meals. It’s made with tomatoes, zucchini, red peppers, onion, carrot and garlic. I’d imagine this recipe is forgiving and you could add in a different variety of vegetables depending on what you have or want to use. I think cauliflower and mushrooms could be great options too and wouldn’t affect the color of the red sauce much. For more protein you could pair this sauce with bean based pasta like chickpea or lentil pasta. You could even use this as a sauce for baked chicken parm or lasagna.
Pasta with Broccoli Basil Pesto
This pesto is made with broccoli, arugula and basil as the green base. I might swap the arugula for something more mild like spinach, or even peas would be tasty. I’d also use regular parmesan cheese, and you can omit the pine nuts or sub for walnuts if you want to. For a thinner texture I’d mix with pasta water as you add in the cooked pasta to toss. For protein you can use bean based pasta, shredded or sliced chicken or shrimp.
Chicken Burgers and Sweet Potato Fries
Burger Recipe by Salt and Lavender
Fries Recipe by Kristine’s Kitchen Blog
I love making a big batch of chicken burgers for the freezer. They reheat well and can be served in various ways. Burgers are obviously great on a bun with a variety of toppings, not only lettuce, onion and tomato. You could do BBQ style with a good BBQ sauce, caramelized onions and mushrooms or fajita style with peppers, onions and cheddar. I also love them as the protein on a dinner plate with sides, on a grain bowl or in a pita sandwich. For the sweet potato fries recipe, I’d recommend using organic corn starch as corn is often GMO with high pesticide use when it’s not organic.
BBQ Ranch Chicken Quinoa Bowls
Grain bowls are great for serving multiple people, because each person can add the toppings they want to, or it can be prepared more simply for picky eaters and kids. This is another slow cooker chicken recipe, though you could grill or roast the chicken too. Toppings can include roasted veggies, thawed frozen corn, cherry tomatoes, sliced scallion and shredded cabbage.