Week of Weeknight Meals: September 2025

After an unintentional two-month Week of Weeknight Meals series hiatus, I’m back in action today with a peek into last week’s weeknight dinners! 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 used 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 comfort food and salads, freezer meals and easy air fryer dishes. Hopefully at least one of the meals below will pop out at you if you’re looking for some dinnertime inspiration this week!

I also brought back notes on what our boys ate for dinner each night. I know the way every family feeds their kids is personal and different and just ask that you respect what works for our family. Our boys occasionally eat what we eat, but they’ll also often have deconstructed versions of our meals or their own kid-friendly dinners that are a little more simple (and less flavorful — ha!).

Week of Weeknight Meals: September 2025

• Monday: Freezer Crockpot Chicken Corn Chili

Ryan was traveling for work on Monday night and whenever he’s out of town, with him goes any motivation I have to cook something more involved. I ended up heating up some crockpot chicken corn chili I froze a couple of weeks ago in Souper Cubes in our freezer. I get the most use out of my two-cup Souper Cubes because the 2-cup size is typically perfect for one serving of soup, lasagna, chili, stew, etc. for me. It was a quick and easy dinner for me which was key because it was an activity night filled with karate and soccer for the boys.

On the boys’ plates: Grilled cheese with chili (for those who like the chili), blueberries and bell peppers

• Tuesday: Air Fryer Rockfish Tacos

When you bring home 60+ pounds of fish from your Alaska family vacation, you find yourself eating fish a few times a week for months! Thankfully I’m a seafood lover through and through so this is fantastic news for me! Ryan was still away on a work trip on Tuesday, so I threw together a simple dinner for myself and cooked thawed rockfish seasoned with fish taco seasoning (this is my favorite seasoning) in the air fryer. I topped the fish tacos with lettuce, tomatoes, green onion and a homemade cilantro lime ranch dressing I already had prepped and ready.

On the boys’ plates: Quesadillas, strawberries, green beans

• Wednesday: Grilled Chicken with Carrot Apple Slaw and Corn Salad

Aka our most-made meal of the summer! This one is clearly following us into fall because we love it so much and it’s so easy! Ryan grilled some chicken thighs marinated in Japanese BBQ sauce and dijon mustard while I threw together our favorite carrot apple slaw and a simple corn salad. To make the corn salad, I combined thawed frozen sweet corn with freshly squeezed lime juice, cilantro, red onion, green onion, salt and feta cheese.

On the boys’ plates: Applegate chicken nuggets with ketchup, carrot apple slaw, corn, apple slices

• Thursday: Salmon Salad

Bagged salads for the win!! This meal came together ridiculously fast thanks to a pre-made Asian salad kit we topped with air fryer Alaskan salmon. Yep, more Alaska fish!

On the boys’ plates: Salmon with cucumber slices, peach slices and buttered toast

• Friday: Shepherd’s Pie

My parents arrived in town on Friday and I figured a meal of ultimate comfort food would be a delicious Friday night meal after Chase’s soccer game. I very, very loosely followed this recipe but honestly I need to make this one again and measure everything because it was so good and I changed more than a few things. Comfort food at its finest!

On the boys’ plates: Hot dogs with carrots and strawberries

Question of the Day

Please feel free to share any delicious dinner recipes you’ve made recently!