What I Cooked This Week: Summer Family Meals, Turkey Burgers & Pasta Salad
I don’t know what it is about July, but somewhere around this point in the summer my motivation to cook starts to disappear right along with my patience for turning on the oven.
This week’s menu ended up being a pretty good mix of summer family meals, easy dinners, and using whatever sounded good that day. We prepped when we could, kept cleanup simple, and somehow everyone stayed fed, which honestly feels like a win this time of year.
Parmesan Sheet Pan Chicken with Green Beans
Sheet pan dinners deserve every bit of the hype they get. Everything cooks together, cleanup is easy, and somehow it feels like more effort than it actually was.
Turkey Burgers with Pico
These felt like peak summer food. We topped them with fresh pico and called it dinner.
If you’re looking for easy family dinners that don’t require a lot of effort or ingredients, these turkey burgers have become one of our regular summer meals because they’re simple, quick, and work with just about any toppings you have on hand.
Huevos Rancheros
Breakfast foods for dinner might be one of my favorite dinner categories – especially when the eggs start piling up on the counter.
Totchos
If you’ve never had totchos, imagine nachos but with tater tots instead of chips and somehow even better. We did taco-style, but you do you!
Breakfast for Dinner
Sometimes dinner is pancakes and eggs and nobody complains about it.
Honestly, breakfast for dinner nights might have the highest approval rating in the house.
Italian Pasta Salad
This was one of those meals that gets better after sitting in the refrigerator for a few hours and somehow tastes even better the next day for lunch.
Italian pasta salad is one of my favorite summer side dishes because it works with burgers, grilled chicken, sandwiches, or honestly just eaten straight out of the container while standing in front of the refrigerator. It is amazing as a main dish also!
If you need an easy side dish for your next cookout or a main dish for weeknight dinner, this one has become a regular around here.
Honey BBQ Chicken with Homemade Mac and Cheese
This was probably the favorite meal of the week.
The honey BBQ chicken was easy enough for a weeknight but still felt like something a little more fun than our usual dinner rotation. Paired with homemade mac and cheese, nobody left the table hungry.
If seeing what other people actually cook each week gives you ideas for your own menu, you might like my free Weekly Meal Planner and Grocery List printables too. They’re simple, practical, and designed for real life — not color coded perfection.
What was on your menu this week? I’m always looking for new ideas to add to our rotation.
