Week of Weeknight Dinners: May 2025

Good morning, friends!! I hope you’re checking in after a good weekend. The past few days have been filled with plenty of the good stuff — time with friends, a fishing derby, our first swim at the pool of the season, a karate tournament, kayaking — and now I’m feeling ready to take on the week ahead. As for today’s blog post, hopefully you’re stopping by the blog today in the mood to see some food because I’m sharing a roundup of last week’s dinners below, as part of my Week of Weeknight Meals series. I began this series a couple years ago to give you guys a peek into what our real weeknight dinners look like, as a throwback to the old days of the blog when I use to post my meals three times a day.

As always, last week’s meals were simple to prepare and all photos were snapped in real-time — no fancy food photography allowed! You’ll see a mix of casseroles and curries, Instant Pot meals and reheated freezer food. Hopefully at least one of the meals below will pop out at you if you’re looking for some dinnertime inspiration this week! (Pssst: I’ll bring notes about the boys’ plates back next month. I just simply forgot to write them down this week and my brain is mush and cannot remember them!)

Week of Weeknight Dinners: May 2025

• Monday: Green Chicken Enchilada Casserole

It was a very rainy day on Monday and a warm and comforting casserole sounded perfect for dinner. I loosely followed a new-to-me recipe for a Green Chicken Enchilada Casserole from the blog All the Healthy Things and we thought it was delicious. My changes to the recipe were minimal and simply included adding pinto beans and corn to the casserole before baking. We loved the texture and flavor they added to the dish and I would absolutely add them again!

• Tuesday: Instant Pot Butternut Squash Chicken Curry

Ryan had dinner plans with a friend on Tuesday evening, so I was riding solo and turned to the freezer for an easy dinner. I previously froze individual portions of my Instant Pot Butternut Squash Chicken Curry in Souper Cubes so all I had to do was reheat and eat! I love this soup topped with fresh cilantro and served with a side of naan bread. While unfortunately we didn’t have any naan, I made do with a slice of buttered multigrain bread (ALDI’s Super Seedy Graintastic bread — it’s wonderful!), which worked well enough for me!

• Wednesday: Steak and Potatoes with Cucumber Salad

I’ve taken to keeping a couple of steaks on hand in our fridge lately for those random “what the heck am I going to make for dinner” nights. I pan-seared this steak on the stovetop in a bit of butter and used Kinder’s Organic Buttery Steakhouse seasoning to give it the most incredible flavor. I am on a mission to try all of Kinder’s seasoning blends because they are absolutely fantastic!! On the side we had mini golden potatoes roasted in olive oil, rosemary and garlic salt as well as an easy cucumber salad. To make the cucumber, I finely sliced it with my rotary grater and tossed it in Makoto ginger dressing. So simple and so good!

• Thursday: Lasagna Recipe Using Cottage Cheese

Thursday’s dinner was the lasagna recipe I’ve been making non-stop! I finally shared it on the blog last week to give you guys the full breakdown. When I typed it up, I also calculated the nutritional information for the recipe and each LARGE slice of this cottage cheese lasagna boasts 39 grams of protein! (One 9×13 tray make 6 generous portions — hooray for volume!) It’s definitely a saucy/cheesier lasagna which I personally love and it reheats so well both from the freezer (I give tips for freezing the lasagna in my blog post) and as leftovers the next day. There’s a reason I almost always double the recipe when I make it!

• Friday: Air Fryer Steelhead Trout with Potatoes and Broccoli
  

Our Friday ended up much fuller than we anticipated, as we had friends over for an all-day play day at the lake! It was such a fun afternoon but didn’t leave me much time to think about dinner by the time 5:30 p.m. rolled around. (Eating early is and always will be my jam.) I fell back on my go-to thought process when this happens and rummaged around in the fridge around for a protein, a veggie, and a starch. I thankfully had some fresh steelhead trout fillets on hand and seasoned them with garlic salt before cooking them in the air fryer. Sides were simple and included steamed broccoli tossed in butter and garlic salt and reheated roasted potatoes leftover from Wednesday night’s dinner. For a fast and not-too-thought-out mean, it was a good one.

Question of the Day

Any go-to dinner recipes you’ve been loving lately? 

What was the best thing you ate for dinner last week?