Next Week’s Meal Plan: 5 Easy Summer Dinners

Is it just me or does the warmer weather just absolutely dampen your motivation to cook at home too? It feels like the weather went from breezy to balmy really quickly, and my dinner mojo went away right with it.

So here’s the plan for this week to keep me cooking — no heating up the oven, no grilling, and making as many no-cook recipes as possible. Call it lazy if you want to, but I’m calling it my warm-weather meal planning strategy.

I believe meal planning is the secret to stress-free weeknight dinners. Since I’m frequently asked by friends and family what I’m cooking for dinner each week, I share my weekly meal plan here. Whether you’re just learning to meal plan and looking for a real-life example of how this works or you’re an old pro on the hunt for inspiration, here’s a peek at how I’m feeding my family this week.

• The Beginner’s Guide to Meal Planning: What to Know, How to Succeed, and What to Skip
• The Best Way to Use a Weekend for Meal Planning Success
• Ask Yourself These 5 Questions Before You Start Meal Planning
• 5 Strategies for Picking Recipes for a Week of Meal Planning

Let’s call this what it really is: lazy lasagna! There’s no heating up the oven because all the magic happens on the stovetop. Buy a Caesar salad kit for a side and extra sausage for Friday’s pizza and dinner is complete.

I cannot wait to make this salad! I love it so much I’m planning on making a double batch to eat as lunch throughout the week. I’ll serve this with some freezer garlic bread for my kids to swipe up all that juicy tomato goodness.

No, I’m not cooking salmon for these wraps (remember, we’re keeping things chill this week). Instead I’m grabbing some smoked salmon and folding it into these wraps. P.S: If you’re grabbing a Caesar salad kit for Monday’s dinner, you might as well grab a second one for tonight too.

Yay, yay, yay! We could make these on the stovetop, but why not let the slow cooker do all the work? Serve these sloppy Joes with crisp cold pickles, watermelon slices, and some potato chips.

Pizza Friday is still going strong this summer, and I totally plan on buying pizza dough for tonight’s dinner and making a few skillet pizzas for the family. I’m making sausage, mushroom, and olive for myself and my husband, and cheese and tomato for the kids.