These Healthy Dinner Ideas will show you how to cook quickly and efficiently – these strategies help you get dinner on the table FAST!

How to choose quick dinner ideas

Knowing what to make for dinner is probably the toughest part of dinner itself. Either you don’t know what you’re craving or you’re worried it’s going to take too long. Well, never fret with these strategies!

1. Pick recipes that have ingredients you already have on hand at home – this way you reduce waste. Have a ton of carrots? Look up carrot recipes! Want to do something with that chicken laying on the counter? Maybe look up some chicken pasta or casserole recipes.
2. Use Pinterest to discover last-minute recipes and hone in on your cravings. You can use it as both a visual search engine or just browse your home feed for inspiration!
3. Keep a list of all your usual go-to dinner recipes for easy access when you’re running out of inspiration. This way you know you’ll get to eat something you like, but don’t have to think too much about what that is.
4. Use Instagram and search specific hashtags like #lowcarb #broccoli or #groundbeef or even just #recipes to find new Instagram accounts and browse their recipes for ideas.

Make a meal plan for weekly dinner ideas

I think meal planning is really the only way to go when you’re trying to keep on track with dinner ideas. I will usually fill in 5-6 days’ worth of meals in a meal planner and account for my schedule that week when planning everything out. You can use some of the dinner prep strategies above when making out your meal plan for the week ahead. Having everything on paper helps you stay on track!

Most of the dinner recipes you will find below:

• Have 10 ingredients or less
• Come together in 30 minutes
• Come together on one pan or in one pot
• Freezer-friendly potential
• Can cook in the slow cooker all day while you’re at work
• Come together in the Instant Pot

Choosing healthy dinner ideas

Now that you have an idea of how to make quick and easy meals, how do you ensure that those dinner ideas are healthy?

Well, typically healthy dinners will be between 300-500 calories, relatively low in fat, sugar, sodium, and high in protein. Most of the dinner recipes listed throughout this post fit these guidelines, and use whole foods, so you won’t have to guess if you’re eating clean.

Dinner recipes with 10 ingredients or less

One of the best ways to cut back on the time you spend on making dinner is to limit the number of ingredients needed to make the meal. Below are some delicious dinner recipes with 10-ingredients or less. Most of the dishes below are low carb options too since grains take the longest to prepare and cook besides proteins.

I love stuffed chicken with veggies like the caprese chicken and jalapeno popper chicken breasts shown below. You basically just cut some slits in the chicken hasselback-style, or you can open up the fold of the breast and stuff with toppings. Grill or bake, and you’ve got dinner ready in under half an hour! You can always serve with a side of potatoes, rice or salad to boot.

Just as you can stuff chicken to keep the ingredient count low, you can also use vegetables as the vessels for stuffing. Add some chicken and quinoa to portobello mushrooms, or saute some ground beef and add to poblano peppers like the ones shown below.

Adding everything to a skillet and choosing a simple sauce as with the sausage, peppers and onions recipe below also allows you to use less ingredients while keeping cook time to a minimum.