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Now that the holidays are over and the routine called life has resumed in full force, many parents are trying to establish steady but healthy routines with their kids. Easy breakfasts, kid-friendly lunches, and quick dinners are essential. Making that meal magic happen daily can be tricky, especially if you’ve got picky eaters.
Enter HelloFresh and its wide selection of family-friendly meals, quick dishes, wholesome breakfasts, and lunch choices. The service takes most of the guesswork out of family meal planning, making it a welcome addition to hectic schedules everywhere. And right now, you can use our special Curator code (GLOBALHF20) to get free breakfast for life and up to 20 free meals when you sign up for your first box.
If you want to save time and eat healthier with the family this year, read on for a few tricks.
1. Plan your meals together
Meal planning often falls on one person in the household, which can be exhausting. If that’s you, take back your time by making meal-planning a family affair. Grab a notepad or create a meal-plan board in the kitchen, then get everyone together to pick dinners (this can be while you’re already enjoying a meal).
Kids love to contribute selections to the weekly meal plan, which makes them likelier to eat dinner on their meal plan day. It also sets the week off to a great start because everyone knows what to expect all week long.
If you’re using HelloFresh, you can meal plan as a family by selecting 3, 4, or 5 of the 40-plus weekly meals on the menu. Each selection comes with a photo, estimated recipe time, and nutritional info so you can make smart choices for your family. Plus, you can swap the protein in many of the recipes.
The service also offers a wide selection of breakfasts, lunches, and snacks, so reach for those on busier weeks when you know you won’t have time to put it all together yourself.
2. Take time to prep
Some believe meal prepping is a chore, while others love to throw on music or a podcast or divvy it up within the family and get it done. Either way, spending a couple of hours at the beginning of each week to pre-cut veggies or fruit, bake some chicken for easy lunches, or cook up grains so they’re ready to go saves massive time throughout the week — especially if you’ve got multiple activities or sports to get to.
With HelloFresh meals, prep time is also minimal, although it does depend on which meals you select. So, while you may have to chop veggies or cook grains, the portions are already divvied up, and everything is right in front of you.
Have kids take ingredients out of the bag and organize them for you, or get older kids to help wash, zest and cut up produce. Having everything in front of you and ready to go doesn’t just help you to stay organized, but it allows you to focus on the actual cooking part so things don’t burn. Plus, you’ll have more time to get a start on those dishes.
3. Make extra for leftovers
Leftovers make for great lunches or quick dinners as the week progresses, so don’t be afraid to make a little extra. With HelloFresh, a four-person meal kit is more than enough food for two adults and two young kids. So perhaps the kids can share one meal, leaving a bonus meal for the next day.
Or, if you have picky eaters that won’t eat salmon, for example, but you love it, make a four-person meal kit with salmon as a main. Save two portions for another night and serve kids the remainder of the meal with a different protein. Or, put together a quick “snacky dinner” with cut-up fruit, veggies, sandwich fingers, or a tortilla with shredded cheese. That way you get a delicious meal, and they get fed.
4. Try new ingredients on a budget
When you have picky eaters, the struggle to diverge from what they like is real. No one wants to spend extra money at the grocery store on a whole bag of something the kids might not eat, so parents often stick with what they know.
That’s another benefit of a meal kit like HelloFresh. They allow kids to try something new, but if they don’t like it, you can grab your backup staple item from the fridge and toss the leftovers into a dish for a perfectly portioned leftover lunch the next day. You haven’t invested a ton of money, there’s no food waste, and your kids have at least sampled something new.
5. Stock your freezer
When meats, poultry, or fish go on sale, buy in bulk, divide into portions, and freeze. Your cost per meal will go down exponentially. Plus, having a freezer full of easy proteins you can grab and cook as needed is an excellent way to pull together an easy dinner based on what you might have left in your fridge toward the end of the week.
Meanwhile, you can always salvage the ingredients if you’ve invested in a meal kit like HelloFresh and don’t use it that week. Save the recipe, freeze the protein, put aside any pantry items that will keep, then repurpose the veggies elsewhere. You can grab new produce the following week and use the rest of the kit then.
6. Eat as a family
It’s easy to fall into the habit of multitasking while eating. Throwing on YouTube for the kids so that you can respond to emails in between forkfuls may be necessary on a busy day. However, some studies have shown that families that eat together without distractions tend to eat less fast food and more produce.
That same research indicates that family meal time can encourage healthy eating habits and help with social and emotional development. It also promotes bonding, which can get more challenging as kids age and grow more independent.
7. Don’t be perfect
At the end of the day, as long as your family is fed and nourished, you’re doing okay. If your kids don’t eat enough veggies, or your picky eater filled up on Goldfish again, know that it happens. So what if you burned part of the meal or didn’t make every item (or any items!) from scratch? Know that you’re doing your best, and taking advantage of meal kits or pre-prepared items can be a lifesaver.
No one is perfect, and everyone calls in the backup pizza or hits the drive-through when necessary. Find what works for you and your family, and go with it. Letting go of perfection can only lead to healthier physical and emotional choices for the whole family.
Ready to try HelloFresh? Now’s a great time to take it for a spin. HelloFresh is currently offering free breakfast for life and up to 20 free meals. Sign up now for your first box using code GLOBALHF20.
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