With three kids involved in different activities, two parents with work schedules that don’t always cooperate, and just everyday life thrown into the mix, dinner around here sometimes requires a little creativity.

In a perfect world, we like to eat around 5:00. In reality, 5:00 is often exactly when someone is starting practice, finishing a game, needing a ride somewhere, or walking back in the door. Sometimes Brett is out of town for the week and I’m holding down the fort. Other nights I’m logging onto a Zoom meeting at 5 or 6 because West Coast time doesn’t always play nicely with nationwide meetings. 🥴

I’ve learned that on those nights, I don’t necessarily need dinner to be faster. I need dinner that can work around us.

These are five of my favorite ways to make that happen.

1. Chicken & Broccoli Braid: Make Dinner Ahead

The Chicken & Broccoli Braid is a longtime Pampered Chef recipe and one of those meals that works especially well when I know the evening is going to get hectic.

A big reason I love it for busy nights is that I can do some of the work ahead of time. Having the filling prepped and ready means there is much less standing between me and getting dinner into the oven when we have a small window at home.

It’s also a meal that still works when everyone can’t eat at the same time.

One of my favorite tricks for a late plate: If one of the kids is coming home shortly after everyone else has eaten, I’ll make their plate and turn one of my Insulated Serving Bowls upside down over it. It acts like a little dome and helps keep dinner warm until they get home.

With a teenage athlete who is often coming through the door later than everyone else, little tricks like that come in handy!

2. Taco Bar: Let Everyone Eat on Their Own Schedule

There is a reason tacos show up so often in our meal rotation.

Everyone likes them, everyone can make theirs the way they want, and most importantly on a busy night, everyone doesn’t have to eat them at the same time.

I’ll get the taco meat ready and keep it warm until everyone has made it through the kitchen. You can keep it warm in a slow cooker or transfer it to an Insulated Serving Bowl.

Then I prep the cold toppings ahead of time. Containers with ice packs are especially handy if they’ll be sitting out for a while, and a Tortilla Warmer keeps the tortillas soft and warm. You can also have everything ready for someone to give their tortillas a quick 20 second warm up in the microwave when they get home.

Then dinner basically becomes:

Come home.
Build tacos.
Eat.
Head back out the door if necessary. 😂

Bonus busy family tip: Garlic Parmesan Seasoning is one of my secret weapons. I can put that stuff on just about anything and suddenly my kids are more interested in eating it. I’ll take the win.

3. Meatball & Pasta Bake: Let the Air Fryer Multitask

Our Meatball & Pasta Bake is another regular around here, especially because I can get two parts of dinner cooking at the same time.

The pasta cooks in one part of our air fryer while the meatballs cook in the other. It’s basically like having a little double oven on the counter.

That’s the kind of “shortcut” I appreciate.

I’m not necessarily looking to cut corners on what we’re eating. I just don’t want to stand in the kitchen managing three different pans when I could have an appliance doing some of the juggling for me.

Add a vegetable or salad and dinner is handled without using every burner on the stove.

4. Homemade Pizza: Prep Once, Bake When They’re Ready

Homemade pizza is one of my favorite answers for a night when I know everyone will be wandering through the house at different times.

Instead of trying to time one big dinner perfectly, I’ll prep the ingredients ahead of time and let everyone have an individual pizza when they’re actually home and ready to eat.

Get the dough, sauce, cheese and toppings ready earlier in the day and suddenly making dinner at 5:00, 6:30 or 7:30 isn’t nearly as annoying.

It also works really well when everyone has different preferences because each person can choose their own toppings.

And this is another place that Garlic Parmesan Seasoning makes an appearance around here. A little on the crust? Yes, please.

5. Snackle Box Dinner: Take Dinner With You

And then there are the nights when trying to get everyone home for dinner just isn’t going to happen.

Those are Snackle Box nights.

I’ll load ours with things like sandwiches, fruit, veggies and whatever other snacks or sides make sense that day. Then we have an easy dinner we can take with us and eat in the car, at the field, courtside, or wherever the evening happens to take us.

Is a sandwich eaten courtside the family dinner I pictured when I planned our week?

Probably not. 😂

But everyone got fed, we didn’t have to hit the drive thru, and I wasn’t trying to magically squeeze an extra hour into a day that didn’t have one.

I’m calling that a win.

Dinner Doesn’t Have to Look Perfect to Work

I’d still choose having everyone home and sitting around the table together whenever we can.

But with three kids, activities, work, travel and everything else that fills our calendar, I’ve also learned not to make that the standard by which I decide whether dinner was a success.

Sometimes feeding our family well means dinner together at 5:00.

Sometimes it means keeping a plate warm for someone coming home late.

And sometimes it means passing sandwiches around from a Snackle Box while we’re sitting courtside.

This season is busy. Dinner doesn’t have to make it harder.

A little prep, a few good go to meals, and being willing to improvise can go a long way toward getting everyone fed — even when everyone is going a different direction.