Q&A | I don't feel like cooking on the weekends. Help!
Kristen,
I've read your blog for years now and have gained a lot from the frugal tips, inspiration, etc. I have done meal plans for years and it helps so much. I have a mental block on what to eat/fix on Friday and Saturday.
We plan and can afford to eat out once a week, so we do that Friday or Saturday. But that leaves the other day with nothing planned and I/we really don't want to cook a meal come Saturday night. How do you plan for the weekend? Seems like your weekly meal plans don't include Saturday and Sunday. What do you or other readers do on those days?
Sincerely,
Holly
It's weird, but I know exactly what you're talking about. Somehow, cooking on a weekend feels different and I don't even know why.
We almost always have pizza on Fridays, which makes that night easy for me to plan. And then usually on Saturday night, Mr. FG and I have our date night, and the kids make something easy for themselves.
Sunday nights are a pretty casual affair, and frequently consist of a snacky type of dinner, with cheese, crackers, fruit, fruit dip, lunch meat, popcorn, and maybe some frozen hors d'ouevres (like Asian dumplings from Costco).
So, that's what we do, and here are a few ideas for your Saturday meals:
- Do a quasi-homemade meal on Saturdays. For instance, you could buy frozen stir-fry and frozen egg rolls, which would be cheaper than take-out but easier than from-scratch cooking. Or buy a container of jarred sauce (like Tikka Masala). You just brown chicken, add the sauce, simmer it, and put it over rice. Very little thinking involved!
- Whenever you make a freezable dinner during the week, double it and freeze half for a future Saturday night (make extra hamburger patties, or extra meatballs. Double your pulled pork recipe.)
- Do a snacky meal like we do on Sunday nights.
- Have a breakfast for dinner night (waffles, pancakes, lazy crepes, or French toast. Add sausage or bacon. Blend up some Orange Julius.)
- Buy some quick-cooking convenience meats that you can throw on the grill with little to no prep (shrimp, bratwurst, chicken sausages?)
- If your family will cooperate, consider a fend for yourself night and let them loose in the kitchen. Sandwiches? Mac n cheese from a box? A bowl of cereal? Have 'em do whatever.
- If you have time/energy on Fridays, do something to prep Saturday night's dinner. Marinate some meat, salt a chicken, put some meat in the fridge to defrost. Somehow, even a small prep step makes it easier to get myself into the kitchen the next night.
_______________
Readers, I know a bunch of you frugal people keep right on cooking through the weekend. So, help Holly out!
How do you get dinner on the table on weekends without spending a bunch of time in the kitchen?
I get this too! Weekends are hard--and it's so easy to cave in and go out or order pizza, Chinese, etc. In our home, weekends are often unpredictable, which doesn't help either. I use my crock pot A LOT on Saturdays and Sundays. If I can get something simple (a roast with gravy, which I shred for hot roast beef sandwiches, or a whole chicken or soup of some sort) in the crock pot in the morning, I don't have to think about dinner again and I know we won't spend more money on eating out.
These are such great ideas to meal prep when we're not in the mood to cook. My MIL is staying with us, so she's helping with the cooking. However, she's going back to China later this year or early next year, so Mr. FAF and I will need to resume our cooking.
We usually cook meals for the whole week on Sunday afternoon. It takes both of us a couple of hours. It saves us lots of money, but it's honestly something that I read every weekend. I think a lot of it has to do with how time-consuming some Asian dishes are. My husband loves Chinese food and doesn't want to have just a sandwich for lunch or dinner, hence the time sink @_@
Our Saturday and Sundays are almost always what I call a "dump" meal. I clean out and take stock of the fridge on the weekend because I do my grocery shopping on Sundays. It tends to bring together the most random meals...but we are fed and avoid food waste. I'm not a fan of the crockpot, but that could be another easy way to get food on the table. Also, we plan a breakfast for dinner at least once each week, sometimes two! It's pretty simple to scramble up some eggs and make some toast!
Just cook double on one--or more-- weekday eves. Food last that many days, and no one should object. Also, eggs, sandwiches, soup are all enjoyable variety in my mind. My family never objected to shortcuts, either, when the house still had young people around. Retired, I almost always cook double.
I have recently learned--since Aldi arrived here--Aldi has yummy heat-it-yourself pizzas. Add a salad, and you've got a meal.
I LOVE Aldi's pizzas! So good for the price.
Which pizza is it? There are a few there that I've tried and didn't like. One was organic-frozen and one was fresh. Both were pretty mediocre. We love Freshetta Brick Oven pizza from Walmart or grocery stores.
We like their refrigerated pizzas (near the deli meat), specifically the thin crust ones. They are kind of like getting Papa Murphy's take & bake pizzas, but cheaper. Their garlic bread is great too (bread aisle)
Ditto- pizza is the only thing I've had from Aldi's I didn't care for. Maybe I should try again. I'm not one to return things so I'll be 'eating' the expense if I don't like it LOL.
I get the cheese pizza in the del section and add mushrooms and green peppers. I bake it directly on the oven rack and it gets nice and crispy like we like it! Cheap (pizza $5, add ons $1) serve with a simple salad.
Sheet pan meals are amazing and easy.
What are sheet pan meals?
Yes! I always feel like I'm cheating when I fix a sheet pan meal, lol. In addition to easy, they are SO delicious - seems like any vegetable tastes 100% better oven roasted.
Kelley - typically it's a meat, along with whatever vegetables all put on a big sheet pan and cooks all at one time. For instance, marinade some chicken thighs for a bit, put them on the pan along with carrots & potatoes that have been tossed in olive oil and salt/pepper and stick in the oven for 45-50 min. (You'll need to flip your veggies at mid point) Google Sheet Pan Dinners for tons of ideas!
When all 3 of our children were home, one food they all loved was pizza. We normally had pizza Friday nights for supper and again on Sunday evening. Often Sundays they all had friends there too. Everyone loved it! I have to admit, I got very tired of pizza but if they were happy and ate it, I was happy too. Microwaved pizza makes good after school snacks.
I love all Kristen's suggestions. I love fend for yourself night - our is usually a dinner that is assembled rather than cooked like sandwiches, salad, cheese and crackers/snacks. I also love frozen pizza - I always have one in the freezer and at $3-4 each, I can have that and some fruit or veggies and that is it. My grocery store also has a section of prepared meals that require a little bit of cooking but no thought. Cheaper than eating out but still a good dinner. And I buy frozen chicken nuggets in bulk just to have on hand when something unexpected happens or I have a lack of motivation...
Since I work all week and clean on Saturday I rely on the crockpot or pressure cooker many Saturdays. I also like to do oven meals in cool weather. Anything that isn't a lot of hands on. I often do that on Saturday and we eat leftovers on Sunday. My mother's old Emily Post mentioned a well known hostess who always served pancakes and chicken on Sunday evenings. People came happily for the company even though the food never varied. Sort of like Kristen's pizza Fridays, a set menu for one night sure helps.
On Saturdays, we rotate cheap, homemade, less-than-healthy faves like grilled cheese, hotdogs and egg salad. Pair with soup, salad or chips.
We almost always have pizza on Friday nights. I'm trying to learn how to make my own from Kristen but in the meantime I buy the frozen uncooked $3 pizzas from the grocery store. I usually make 3 or 4 pizzas. That and a salad is dinner for Friday nights.
Saturday we go out to eat.
Sunday nights are grill nights. For evenings when we don't have any energy, we have the premade frozen hamburgers and hotdogs.
We grill a lot on the weekends because it seems a little harder to do through the week since there isn't as much time.
Saturday and Sunday nights is actually when I cook more "involved" meals, simply because I have more time. I try and make them big enough that we can eat left overs for most of the following week. It's during the week when I push the "easy" button and make very simple meals or everyone fends for themselves. Especially if we don't have a lot of weekend left overs.
Casseroles and soups are my go-to items in the colder months and grilled meats/veggies during the warmer months.
Me too! I love to cook and weekends are the only days I have time to make more elaborate meals.
I actually love making crock-pot meals for Saturday/Sunday. It's nice to be home and smelling the food all day! I frequently make a giant pot of chili or soup in the crock pot. Another favorite is loaded sweet potatoes, since they come together quickly.
I'll also do fend-for-yourself meals or fancy salads on weekends!
I love everyone's suggestions!
I work outside the home so Saturday and Sundays are the only days where I feel I can cook a meal that involves heavier prep or longer cooking times. I would like to cook those types of meals during the week, but it just isn't possible. It may require an additional stop at the store for fresher ingredients that I didn't want to spoil during the week, but I know I'm cooking it and plan a list and a day to stop at the store. I view cooking tasty meals for my family as a creative thing, almost like art, so I don't usually mind the extra work to cook a better dinner on the weekends than I could on the weekdays - as long as weekend activities don't prevent it. Not having to rush to get dinner on the table and enjoy the process more has its own charm, too. I don't do this every weekend, but it's something I keep in mind to get a little better "class" of meal on the table for my family every once in awhile.
Other times it's whatever pork item I was able to buy earlier in the week that still is good at that point (since pork usually lasts the longest), with a boxed side like cous cous and a frozen vegetable.
I also look out for something I can purchase to-go from a local restaurant that is on the cheaper side where bringing it home to eat is still less than us all eating out and leaving a tip for the server. For instance, I can get 4 pieces of wonderfully barbecued chicken, a side of beans and four half pieces of garlic bread for $12 at a local restaurant. It feeds our family of 4 pretty easily. Even if we have to eat a snack from the cupboard afterward because it truly wasn't enough - we are still better off financially than eating out.
Oh gosh, I guess I'm not necessarily the right person to answer. I love spending my time in the kitchen on weekends and that's when I do bulk cooking. I think Kristin hit the nail on the head with her suggestions. I started making double batches of dinner throughout the week and it's been a game-changer for having meals on hand.
We use the Instant Pot to make a soup or stew. We double up a recipe during the week so as to have leftovers. Weekends count as a "cheat day" where we eat things with bread such as hot dogs or pizza. I keep hamburger patties, chicken patties and tater tots in the freezer for weekend quick meals....add a salad or an iceberg lettuce wedge and you're done. A big baked potato with toppings counts as a meal around here. Also, breakfast for dinner.... scrambled eggs and sausage and biscuits from the freezer. I also freeze portions of pulled pork or chicken to have handy for a sandwich or to top a baked potato. A casserole is easy to throw together while fixing Thursday nights dinner then you just have to pull it out and pop it in the oven on the weekend.
Well...there's always the whole cook once eat twice thing (think tacos, and the like)
Use up the leftovers...certain veggies and meat combine to make great fried rice...made some myself this week using a leftover pork chop, bacon, and assorted veggies...made enough for the next night's dinner
And theirs nothing wrong with baking up some potatoes on both nights...just top them with different things (chili, good old sour cream...just use your imagination)
agree with all the others...freezer meals, crock pot, breakfast, etc., etc..
Oh...and potlucks with friends is a nice break from the daily slog...just keep things simple
Hugs
My husband cooks on Saturday and Sunday nights usually. I cook the weeknights. It helps on multiple fronts: I get a break from cooking w/o eating out, he gets to make what he wants which isn't always the same as what I would cook, the kids see both parents taking on kitchen duties so we are modeling a more equal division of labor. I work from home and my husband commutes an hour each way which is why weeknight cooking is mine or we'd split it up more.
Great suggestions! I really like breakfast for dinner (especially cereal - easy, fast, cheap) but I also like the idea of semi-homemade! Sometimes I trade perfect for done, but it's good to remember that Sunday night it's ok to pull out leftovers or something "unhealthy" from the freezer like eggrolls. It's still cheaper than takeout! One other tip if you have a small family: pretty often Hubs and I will eat out on Saturday and then eat the leftovers the next day because restaurant portions are so huge.
So, if you are having snack foods, breakfast, and stuff like that for Sunday "dinner", what do you have for Sunday lunch and breakfast? Lol- whatever, I guess!
Saturdays are just another workday for us, though we sometimes go out for dinner. We usually do big late Sunday 11-12 breakfast and dinnertime 4-6 pm-ish old-fashioned "good Sunday dinner" meals, and that then becomes "planned-overs" for weeknights. But we don't have kids in sports and aren't church-goers.
Hmmm, well we're big football fans here, so on Sundays (at least in the fall) I don't like to spend a lot of time in the kitchen. I try to make "fun food" when there's a game on - stuff that can be enjoyed in front of the television. That usually means finger food - nachos, pizza, dips, and other appetizer type stuff. It's great fun, to be honest - it never really feels like cooking when you're making your own junk food! 🙂
I usually do fish on Fridays with a salad or a veggie and potatoes or pasta salad. Reason being that my husband's coworkers don't appreciate reheated fish in the microwave. 🙂 Saturdays are usually leftover night. If we don't have leftovers then we have tomato soup & quesadillas or grilled cheese(sometimes we skip the soup and just eat a quesadilla or grilled cheese), salad, or breakfast which usually consists of pancakes, waffles, or scones with eggs (if eating scones) and bacon. I usually make a meal on Sunday because my husband eats leftovers for lunch during the week.
I love your snack dinner idea! We do that sometimes, but usually after we have had a big dinner or social event with friends and family and we have lots of healthy and favourite treats, but not enough of any one thing. This Saturday is our church bazaar, so the ladies of the church look forward to taking home leftover sandwiches and treats to help with an easy dinner after a busy day!
We have a great butcher shop in our town, so I try to keep some sausages and turkey burgers in the freezer for the weekend cooking blahs.
Instead of 'fend for yourself' on Saturday night, ours is more of a 'fend for each other' idea! As in...it's a nice time for hamburgers off the grill, and all of us can pull together to make it. Yes, sometimes the patties are bought frozen, sometimes they are homemade...but either way they are better than any takeout! 🙂 Same story if we do burritos or whatever...nobody is just home from work or had a rough day at school, so it's 'pull together and win!' night.
Sunday night often ends up being soup, again, yes sometimes clam chowder or tomato soup from a can, or sometimes recipe-less homemade soup from whatever is on hand. Ends up a good way to use up odds and ends...
When we have a busy night or nights when I know I won't want to cook I plan to make a meal the night before that we undoubtedly leave leftovers. I'm not really a "leftovers" kind of person but when I realized how freeing it was yo know that I wasn't breaking our budget and that I didn't have to cook, it was motivation enough to stick with it. Now it's a habit so it doesn't feel so "hard" to eat them. Things we make that leave leftovers include ATK's Mexican Lasagna, Baked Ziti, ATK's Penne Chicken & Broccoli, chili, and soups.
I like slow cooking, hands off type meals for weekends. Something that makes a lot of leftovers, like a pork roast or a pot of spaghetti sauce or chili. My little reward is being home to enjoy the good smells 🙂
Hi Kristen,
This probably won’t help at all, as weekends for me means I have more time to spend in the kitchen, which I love. I will usually make something that I don’t have time to make during the week such as a roast or a more elaborated meal. Have a lovely day.
Fi
I also make an old-fashioned Sunday dinner -- the "best" meal of the week. Actually, it didn't occur to me to do otherwise. I like the idea of making a double batch to have another meal, but with seven eating it just seems overwhelming. I do fry hamburger and onions ahead of time and freeze. It's a big help for some recipes, and I don't think raw hamburger freezes that well.
P.S....LOL. Obviously hamburger freezes okay. I mean the frozen, thawed and then cooked product doesn't taste as good to me. Maybe it's just me that feels that way though.
It was fun to read through the suggestions!
We used to live quite a distance from our church, so I got into the habit of making enough dinner on both Fridays and Saturdays to have for leftovers for two meals. If I didn't do that, we ended up going through a drive-through and we were really trying not to do that! So it forced me to make a bigger, nicer dinner on both those nights so we would have food.
Now, we live closer to our church, but I still attempt to make enough so we have leftovers on Sunday. It's just so much easier! If I don't, we will either make sandwiches, or pick up a rotisserie chicken and salad.
I think the biggest thing is to just DO it regardless of how you feel. I don't feel like cooking dinner tonight...but I'm going to! 🙂
If you are out and about on Saturdays, both Sam's and Walmart have roasted chickens for $5 (which is about what a chicken would cost raw) that can make an easy meal. You can add an easy veggie (frozen, canned, or salad) and then something like garlic bread from the store or packaged rice/noodle sides. It makes dinner happen in about 10-15 minutes with minimal effort.
Fridays tend to be our leftover nights. I cook at least 5 days a week and all those leftovers, if they haven’t been taken to work as lunch by my husband, need to be eaten before the weekend. Saturdays we always eat out. We go to 5:00 Mass and then out to dinner.
We do the same thing... though it isn't a set day of the week for us. I call it Make your Own Potluck. I just basically heat up all the leftovers and we mix and match. Everybody doesn't always have to eat the same thing.
Easy meal ideas:
Raid the fridge/smorgesborg/leftovers.
A good idea to make part of your meal plan, if you want to avoid food waste.
Breakfast for dinner.
The easy stuff, like bacon, sausage, scrambled eggs, toast, cereal, oatmeal. Not the fancier stuff like french toast or waffles. OTOH, overnight french toast is pretty easy.
Bag o'stuff.
Contessa, Voila, and other brands have meals in a bag. I find they're a little skimpy and have too much sauce, so I add more veggies and sliced meat and bingo! They're healthier and more satisfying.
I teach K, so I'm wiped out by Friday night and not up for a big cooking project. There are usually a bunch of containers in my fridge housing leftover starches or some cooked veggies from weeknight meals. Lurking in the crisper there's often at least one vegetable that I didn't even have time to cook during the work week, despite my best menu-planning ambitions. I gather these up and figure out a suitable theme (Italian? Southwestern? Greek?) and plan a frittata. If we have a neutral meat (like roasted chicken) or sausage or bacon, that can be included in the frittata, along with a cheese and some seasonings that work with the whole mix. It never takes me more than 30 minutes, and often the frittata's out of the oven 20 minutes after I step in the kitchen.
Any other veggies or salads left in the refrigerator get served on the side, along with toast if we don't have much starch in the frittata. I love not having to plan this meal, and the bonus is that I wake up to a cleaned-out fridge on Saturday morning!
Good luck finding your own weekend cooking rhythms!
This is cool; I like knowing how everyone else does stuff! 🙂
Fridays are almost always pizza for us, usually homemade. On Saturday it depends on how busy the day is going to be. If we've got stuff planned, I do something quick and easy, usually pasta. If I've got a lot of time, I'll take the opportunity to make something more elaborate or time-consuming that I wouldn't have the energy for during the week. Sunday nights it's either a big salad or nachos; something that's just "assembling" rather than real cooking. It's just me and my husband, though, and I know that makes a difference.
For us, Fridays are usually smorgasbord, or sometimes eggs or grilled cheese, something simple. I second the notion of using the slow cooker for at least one meal of the weekend. I'm working on a lot of different projects around the house weekends, and sometimes I have great plans to make a nice dinner, but I'm just too wiped out to do it when the time comes. Throwing things in the crockpot in the morning when I have the energy means I'm covered if I run out of oomph later.
I am the opposite, too tired after work M-F to cook meals anymore. I cook Saturday and Sunday enough to make it till Wednesday and I make a large batch of whatever to freeze for a second meal. Last weekend I made taco meat, meatballs, parmesan potato halves, vegetable soup and I bought extra ham for paninis which are easy and quick on weeknights.
If you have kids make them assist but I know cooking for 2 can be just as much work.
I just love the extra time to cook I have on weekends. During this season (fall and winter) I love cooking huge stews so I can also freeze some. I find it sometimes more challenging to cook through the week because of all of the things I can't make then cause there is no time. But my default 'emergency meal' is always pasta. Usually something from Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall (parmigiana aubergine is perfect to be cooked in large quantaties, frozen and thawed when needed) or Nigella's pea, ham and cream spaghetti. It takes less time to make then order out and have to wait for it. We only go for take out when we both feel to ill to even grab a pan which happens about 3 times a year. I always feel terrible after those meals, even though while eating them they taste allright.
Anyhow Holly, good luck with all of your tips!
Can you share your favorite stew recipe?
DH and I both work full-time. He cooks on weeknights and I cook on weekends. We try to cook double or triple batches to give each other some slack, in case we are late, tired, have other appointments, etc. For instance, he will cook a sauce that we have with rice and a tin of green beans the first day (because both the sauce and the rice take time, the green beans are easy to heat up), and heated up over couscous with a fresh salad the next (because the sauce and the couscous are easy, he has some time to spend on prepping a salad). I will boil many potatoes, and use whatever is left to make mash or fried potatoes the next day.
Dds (6 and 9) are now also helping, for instance grating cheese, peeling potatoes, frying eggs.
Baked potatoes with everything on them.sour cream, chopped onions, cheese, chili.....whatever. progresso soup added garlic poured over toasted buttered rye. Large packaged salad with added salted sunflower seeds and blue cheese dressing and dryed cranberries. Thin crust liitle caesars with cheese, red sauce, olives, green peppers, onions, mushrooms and previously mentioned salad. Big glasses of milk.
I'm a lucky Gal!! My husband enjoys cooking "simple" things, so HE usually cooks on weekends !! : )
Thank you so much for the ideas! I’ve already started doing better to plan for the weekend. I think I needed to start by asking the question and then the ideas started flowing. I’m going to add a lot of these mentioned here to the list I started.
Lots of great ideas; I love the everyone fend for themselves, sheet pan dinner and breakfast. I also love the idea of a relaxed invite people over and everyone bring your favourite antipasto. I also work during the week and try to cook up on the weekend but I usually do this Sat or Sun arvo and keep dinner Sun night simple as Sunday can be pretty full and I like an easy night to recharge for the week ahead. If we have leftover roast we love lamb and gravy toasted sandwiches (has to be a jaffle maker and just enough gravy to coat well but not too sloppy), toasted cheese +/- tsp canned cream corn ( gets VERY hot so allow to cool a bit), and I have also started making Sunday night a kinda egg night; very quick, very cheap and highly nutritious; soft boiled eggs with soldiers, fried eggs on toast, baked eggs on their own or with ham/cream/herbs. and my current fave shakshuka. When a dear friend got married her mother hosted a large number of the extended family for breakfast on the day and she taught me you can do a large tray with the shallow concave pots with bread cut with a round cookie cutter, ham/bacon (not sure if you have to cook the bacon first) and cracked an egg on top and bake. Cooked breakfast for a crowd in minutes. And I love omelettes.
Deidre,
I'm curious- what does that mean "soft-boiled eggs with soldiers"? Thank you!
Toast soldiers are little sticks of toast that you dip into soft boiled eggs.
Most weeks I empty the fridge Thursday night bc Friday is trash day and we have bears so garbage with food can't be outside anywhere until we leave for work even then it may need a strap. This motivates us to eat food up as best we can & for me to shop on Saturday morning if I work Sunday. I always have Monday off so I cook then and again in Thursday but simple. This week I made a pan of roasted root veggies and brussel sprouts which I ate some with pork chops and then Thursday I made Rachel Ray' s roasted root veg soup, which is great with hot sauce! I bought a can of Amy's chilli for one meal and made fried egg sandwiches another. Then Friday night made grilled cheese and tomato soup bc I knew it would start raining and it sure has and hasn't stopped in over 24hrs here.
And also as someone else said when it's football season we have pizza on Sunday 😀
Thanks for the great ideas everyone!
Alot of times, I will grill several meats on the grill like hamburgers, chicken, hotdogs and pork chops to have for several meals and not have to cook every evening. Also, I will make up a big batch of potatoes and a big salad.
May not be helpful because we're retired and we live very simply. I cook a meal in my Instant Pot 2-3 times a week...usually a one-Pot-meal for a late lunch...like chuck roast with onion, potatoes and carrots...pork loin...stew, soup, with fresh or frozen veggies or salads. I always make enough for leftovers for 1-2 meals. In the evenings we do snacky things...a spoonful of peanut butter and a couple slices of cheese and olives...sometimes cheese and crackers....or soup. I'm also trying to learn to love sardines, easy and healthy. On Saturday nights my hubby pops popcorn and on Sunday nights he makes cheese tortillas. Friday nights we either go out or pick something up. I love simple!