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The Easiest Sunday Dinner Ideas Ever

It’s the weekend. You’ve been traveling or playing or parenting or partying.

It’s a wild ride of friends and family and (hopefully) fun, but the routine of your “normal” life is a distant memory and more than once Sunday afternoon arrives with no time to get the laundry, food shopping, and prepping done before it is Monday and your work week charges forward.

Sunday evening, you’re faced with grabbing a bite from wherever you can because there ‘isn’t a thing’ in your fridge that you can pull together that counts as a Sunday dinner idea. Sigh.

The weekend whirlwind is worth it, but you do pay the price for relying on take-out too much with a little more sodium retention and bloating than you’d like.

You’ve been eating out all weekend and you’d just like something simple and home cooked. I hear you, and I’m here for you on this one.

Here are some quick, reliable, satisfying and easy Sunday dinner ideas (that you can also take to work for lunch on Monday) that you can make from the little bit that should be laying around in your pantry and resilient items from your fridge and freezer.

The Easiest Sunday Dinner Ideas Ever:

Spaghetti with Anchovy Sauce is a staple — the recipe here is as close as I could find to the ad hoc version I make at home.

Don’t stress if you aren’t a ‘chovy lover — they melt into a salty sauce full of omega-3’s and iron.

I just take a tin of anchovies and a little olive oil and melt them in a pan over low heat while the pasta water is boiling. The semi-offensive fish melt completely.

If garlic, shallots, or onions are on hand, I toss them in the pan too. Drain whole wheat pasta and add them to the saute pan for a minute before serving.

If you have olives, a can of diced tomatoes or a box of frozen spinach, they can really round out the dish (add them to the saute pan and heat them through before you add the pasta).

If turning on the stove is too much for you, I respect that.

Open the freezer.

Frozen shrimp should be a staple, like always, in your freezer. When you walk in the door, toss ‘em in a bowl of water and in 20 minutes, they’re thawed and you’ve got a shrimp cocktail that you can eat with a pantry salad.

Or you can cook those shrimp off in a stir fry with a bag of frozen veggies and a shake of herbs from the spice cabinet.

Some other reliable go-to, got no time and haven’t hit the market in a while recs:

  • A can of healthful lentil soup or chili with a handful of Mary’s Gone Crackers
  • Scrambled eggs with frozen veggies sauteed in and a bowl of air popped popcorn on the side
  • Soy free veggie or garden burger with frozen spinach, sriracha and edamame on the side
  • Oatmeal with 2 teaspoons of nut butter and a big handful of frozen berries mixed in

See that? You do have sumpthin’ to eat! You just have to think outside the take out box.

But don’t forget you still have to remember to get groceries delivered on Monday morning, so you’ll be replenished for the rest of the week, so you can do it alllllll again!

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