Easy Quick Family Meals, Always in Rotation

Rotisserie chicken from Costco for $4.99 is hard to beat! It is a huge amount of meat that lasts for days. On the first night, we just rip off all the meat into a Tupperware and eat it as-is. We bake the potatoes in the air fryer (45-60 minutes at 360) and everyone adds the fixings they like – butter, sour cream, shredded cheese, or just salt and hot sauce (don’t knock it til you try it!). One of my kids likes steamed broccoli and the other likes it roasted in the air fryer so we make it both ways.

Night 2 of the rotisserie chicken is soup using chicken broth from a box, and adding garlic and onion powder, garlic cloves, ginger, carrots, celery, tofu, broccoli, and Asian noodles (cooked in a separate pot of boiling water). We tear the leftover chicken breast directly into the bowl and ladle the soup over it, just to warm it up. (Sometimes hubby boils the bones from the rotisserie chicken for richer broth, but that is too much effort for me.) The kids usually gobble this one up. One of them doesn’t like rotisserie chicken after night 1 so he subs more tofu.

We use individually frozen tilapia or sockeye salmon filets from Costco. Remove from packaging and air fry from frozen at 360 degrees. For tilapia, I airfry for 3 minutes to help it thaw a little so I can rub some oil, salt, and garlic powder over it before putting it back in the air fryer for another 3 minutes. Sockeye salmon takes longer depending on its size, ~12 minutes total. Check for doneness by using a fork to cut through the middle. We set the rice cooker earlier in the day so it’s ready to go, and I steam sugar snap peas or green beans in the microwave and then mix them with a garlic oil (simmer sliced garlic cloves in olive oil until they start to bubble slightly, on low-medium heat so they don’t burn). The kids don’t love this meal but they will both tolerate it. Only one of them eats sockeye salmon; the other prefers atlantic salmon.

This one generates a ton of dishes but is easy to put together and is a crowd-pleaser. 1. Ground turkey browned on the stove with taco seasoning. 2. Bell peppers and onions, sliced and cooked on medium-high heat for that slight char. 3. Refried beans from a can, microwaved. 4. Shredded mexican blend cheese. 5. Flour tortillas. We get the uncooked kind and heat it up in a pan on the stove. 6. Romaine lettuce, chopped. 7. (optional) Avocado, mashed with lime and salt. It sounds like a lot but everyone gets to customize their meal. Kids make a meat, bean and cheese burrito, hubby makes a burrito with everything, and I can omit the tortilla and make a taco salad. Everyone is happy.