10-Minute Healthy Family Meals
Looking for healthy meals in a very short time without
the expense of last minute prepared food items can be
a real challenge for families.
One of the foundational rules for getting to a 10-minute
meal is premeditation or the planning stage. The best
day to stage your week is Sunday. Use this day to
prepare for those days that you know you’re going to
need a simple and healthy choice for your family. Menu
planning three to four days ahead can make a world of
difference and prevent those last minute poor choices.
Getting Started
A way to get started is by developing six to eight menus
from which you can select. For example if you know
that one or two nights coming up will be, especially busy
you’ll have something to fall back on and prevent
repeating yourself too many times in a month. If you
are having difficulty creating your 10-minute menus, ask a friend if they could send you a recipe that has
worked for them in a pinch.
With your menus selected, choose to shop and prep in
advance. You could even completely finish the meal
so it only requires reheating on busy evenings. Also,
consider multi-tasking on Sunday by prepping several
dinners at once.
Another great tool that is returning to many households
is the slow cooker or crock pot. If the vegetables and
other ingredients are chopped and resealed in separate
bags on Sunday, it will only take you five minutes in the
morning to mix your protein, vegetables and stock
allowing you to come home to a finished dinner.
(Vegetable, beef and chicken stock can easily be pre-
purchased together to simplify this process.)
Points to Remember
During even the most hectic of evenings your family will
be able to eat healthy if you remember just a few
important things. The first of which is that the most
time consuming part of eating healthy is the prep work.
This is especially true of chopping vegetables and
precooking items, which makes spending a Sunday
afternoon prepping two or three last-minute meal
options an easy way to preserve your sanity and your
family’s health.
Don’t forget that your kids can help with a lot of this
prep work. Make it a family affair by getting your kids
involved. Younger children can wash and drain the vegetables, while older kids (who can safely handle a
knife) can be dicing, slicing and chopping those
vegetables.
Also, your younger kids are going to love being
responsible for handing you bowls, wooden spoons and
measuring cups. This is a once-a-week opportunity to
connect with your kids in a relaxed environment. You
might be surprised to find that the benefits go beyond
your family’s physical health.
Ten-minute Recipes for the Family
The following recipe ideas are going to be nutritional,
delicious and quick. These are the kinds of recipes that
you want to keep on hand for those days when you
know you’re not going to have time to take 30 to 40
minutes to prepare dinner.
To be Continued….with Recipes
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