5 Weeknight Dinners to Make This Week, Family Edition

The Wall Street Journal just published a riff on the quiet quitting trend titled “Try Hard, but Not That Hard. 85% is the Magic Number for Productivity.” This is valuable advice (that I will probably never follow). But it leads me to wonder: If you give even 85 percent of yourself at work, what does that leave for your weeknight meal game? In my home, it doesn’t add up to much.

On school nights, if my family of four can sit together at the table and actually eat the same thing two out of five weekdays, I consider that a win. The other nights, when practices and games and after-work drinks send us in different directions, I play short order cook or Doordash concierge. That means that the magic weeknight dinner effort in my household is at a measly 40 percent (though I often make up for lost time on the weekends).

But that doesn’t mean I can’t dream. Below is my—as realistic as possible—weeknight meal plan for a week in September, one of the roughest months to consistently cook for your family. Everyone is acclimating to the shorter daylight hours and heavier workloads, including from the chemistry teacher who assigns 54 pages of textbook reading plus seven articles on the weekend (canyoubelieve?).

I organized my inspirational meal plan by situation rather than day, because every week is a wild card—you never know when someone might fall sick, or when you might have more time for extra prep, or when you find yourself blissfully alone, free to make whatever you’re craving.

Going forward, our Food52 editors will be taking turns sharing weeknight meal inspiration. In the meantime, we would love to hear what you make from the Food52 archives. Please share your favorite weeknight meals in the comments and we’ll add them to future columns.

For the night you want to bring everyone to the table

This meal highlights a major love of mine: handheld foods that you assemble at the table. Unlike a more involved taco night, Melissa Clark’s salt-and-pepper pork is quick and easy. The Sichuan peppercorns are the most difficult-to-source ingredient on the list and yield tingly chunks of pork shoulder that you wrap in lettuce and top with herbs. I usually pair it with a side of rice and sauces like nuoc cham and hoisin.

For the night when 6 p.m. hits & you have no plan

Take the lonely zucchinis sleeping in your produce drawer and turn them into the most luscious pesto you’ve ever tasted. You can vary this in a zillion ways or even blitz the caramelized zucchini with your own fresh pesto—I do.

For the night when everyone has other plans & you’re cooking for one

A good dahl (or dal) like this one goes a long way, and is lightning-quick to prepare. You can turn it into a soup by adding more water or coconut milk plus baby greens, or you can serve this with rice. Either way, the leftovers are delicious for days.

For the night when you need to scale your meal up (or down)

Slow and low roasting is my favorite method of cooking salmon. Samin Nosrat taught me this in Salt Fat Acid Heat, but Sally Schneider’s recipe is very similar (and there’s no need to skin the filet). Pair it with one of these side dishes for this versatile fish. Or use Sarah Jampel’s steamed broccoli with caper vinaigrette, number two on Paul Hagopian’s recent top 10 list of our best broccoli recipes.

For the night when someone is feeling fluish

With everyone spending more time together, someone’s bound to come down with something: A cold, strep, a mysterious infection that brings your partner to the hospital for days (true story). Sohla’s gingery chicken soup calls for russets and red lentils (you’ve got them on hand if you’re making the dahl), and her stock is super simple: an hour and a half of simmering two chicken drumsticks. If you can’t fit that into your day, you can simmer them in bouillon instead.

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What's on your weeknight meal menu this week? Let us know in the comments below