Hello everyone! My husband and I have been working out and we need some help on ideas for dinner. Our son has sports and we dint get home til after 7pm by then we get home and prepare dinner we end up finish eating like 845ish we both know it is not good for us to have heavy dinners any suggestions as to what we can do. Our breakfast mostly consist of shakes or cereal with fat free milk. So we really dont want to have that for dinner too. Any suggestions are greatly appresiated.

Hi Campana! I like to have some food already prepared in my fridge for evening likes this. On Sundays I usually make 2-3 packages of chicken (generally whatever is on sale) and use that to make chicken salad, chicken tacos, chicken and rice, etc. throughout the week. I try to vary it up because chicken can get dull for my fiance (I'm okay eating it more often, but he likes more variety). I also make tons of roasted veggies, keep salad greens on hand, etc.

It's a bit more work on one day, but makes the rest of the week super easy. Some people will do this in even bigger batches by cooking in their crock pot, and freezing bags of shredded or chopped chicken they can just thaw throughout the month.

^ Great ideas.
How about also preparing 30-minute dinners? I don't know too many recipes, but there are blogs dedicated to quick dinners!

Don't forget about using the crockpot. You can find lots of healthy recipes on the web.

Whenever I want something quick, I make a simple grilled chicken or grilled salmon plus a side salad (either Ceasar, Waldorf w/balsamic, or Cobb). If I arrived home at 7pm, my meal would be ready by 7:20.

My boyfriend and I get home from work around 5:30 and we're usually eating by six!

He's the cook so what he'll do is prepare all the veggies on Sunday. He'll wash, chop and divide them up into 5 baggies for the rest of the week. When we get home during the week all he'll have to do is cook the carb- brown rice, potatoes or whole wheat pasta, the chicken and heat up the vegetables. He's found it's taken about 30 minutes off his cooking time. It does however take up about 1.5-2 hours every Sunday, but it's worth it to be able to eat before we're starving and end up eating too much.

I enjoy cooking but when I actually make something I realize that I like to use the good stuff (goooood butter) and etc., so usually what I make is more calories than I would like to consume. So those meals are for my weekend.

During the weekday I pretty much eat "prepared" stuff. My favorite are the frozen fishes from Costco like the Highlander basil tilapia which is only 120 calories! I eat that with some salad and it fills you up! The marinated salmon is good too. I like that it's so easy to prepare and is healthy.

I love "meal salads" like Salad Nicoise or Cobb Salad, if you buy canned tuna or roasted chicken they only take about 20 minutes to make.

Lentil curry like dal is also quick and yummy. Oh and if you buy store bought dough you can make a healthy homemade pizza.

Me and my fiancee also generally work until 7pm so we eat late most nights.

I like to cook on weekends and freeze in portions so that I can just heat up most of my food during the week. However, I used to sometimes make full dishes at night before bed, then refrigerate for the next day's dinner.

BeLovedSpirit I use Rachael Ray recipes for my 30 minutes meals!

What type of foods do you like? How quick are you looking for?

If 45 minutes isn't too long, I often marinate bone-in skin-on chicken thighs in the morning (or previous night), then at dinner roast them along with some veggies.

If 45 minutes is too long, then I use marinated boneless thighs or breasts and broil them, takes around 10 minutes, depending on size.

Fish is super quick!

Pasta is also really quick. That with some shrimp or pre-cooked meat can be all done in 15 minutes.

Batch cooking saves a ton of time. I don't usually prepare full meals ahead of time, but I'll have tons of veg or protein cooked up. That way I can pick and choose what I want, throw in some new, quick-cooking ingredients and have a different type of flavor profile in little time.

I also like meal salads; my favorite is to cook a pork roast in the crock pot with a can of salsa, then throw it over a green salad with a small amount of plain Greek yogurt to sub in for sour cream, and some cheese and salsa on top.

I also throw together quick soups. Take any broth (make your own from leftover bones for extra nutrients), add pepper, a bay leaf, and any spices that strike your fancy. I like to use cilantro, lime and chili powder in mine. While the broth is heating, chop up your meat. Ideally, it should be cooked ahead of time (like if you cook an extra portion during another meal and then save it). If not, chop raw meat into pieces and quickly cook it in a skillet. Beef and chicken are my usuals. Once broth comes to a boil, throw in your veggies. Any veggies you like and have on hand. Turn the heat down to medium, take a shower while it simmers. After your shower, the veggies should be tender but not turning brown yet. Throw your meat in and leave it in long enough for the meat to get edibly warm.

Stuffed peppers come together in the crock pot remarkable well. You can prep them in the pot insert and leave them in the fridge overnight, then the next morning just throw them on before you leave the house.

Take a whole chicken; shove herbs and spices under the skin. Leave it in the slow cooker on low when you leave the house, come home to chicken so tender it falls off the bone. Make a salad or steam some veggies to go with it.

Throw thawed, boneless skinless chicken breasts in the crock pot. Douse them generously with chili powder. Cook on low all day. When you get home, use two forks to effortlessly shred the chicken. Stir in some salsa until you like the consistency, warm on high for another hour. The chili powder and salsa will melt into something resembling adobo sauce. Enjoy chicken tacos.

Have you noticed a theme yet? My fiance and I both work long hours, and many days we work opposite shifts, so we need to have meals that come together effortlessly.

As another thought, have you considered make lunch your big meal of the day, and having something small for dinner just so you don't go to bed hungry? That's how they eat in some European countries.