One Pot Creamy Pesto Chicken Pasta

Pesto lovers unite with this quick one pot pasta meal!

I love a meal in one pot and I love quick fixes for weeknights. I probably have a few recipes that are similar to this one but I really did enjoy the addition of spinach and sun dried tomatoes. I love pesto anything so this was definitely going to be a keeper!

Best Tuna Melt Sandwich

Tuna melts with a zing of Dijon and the crunch of celery and red onion!

I've made plenty of tuna melts over the years and I am not sure if I've ever made any with red onion. I think it's a fantastic addition to tuna salad and goes along really well with the Dijon instead of yellow mustard in the recipe. I'd love to try this particular recipe with bagels - years ago, I tried a recipe for chicken salad on a bagel and fell in love. It's my favorite vessel for chicken salad.

Creamy Herb Pasta

A quick, easy pasta dish with creamy herb sauce!

Hello and happy 2023! I'm attempting to see if I can get myself on a posting schedule. My goal is to maybe post once a week and go from there. I think I only posted 3 recipes last year, so I'm already a third of the way there :)

I know everyone is now very anti-words in recipe posts, but I'm going to throw some out there because I've been so MIA. I started my career in mid-2021 as an accountant for tv/film production companies at a local firm. After 14 years as a stay-at-home mom, it was a huge transition. I still struggle with trying to juggle everything but I'm trying to cut myself slack and really work on my time management. There are a lot of times where I forget to thaw meat that I need and I have to say, my 2022 birthday gift was an Instant Pot and holy baloney - that has been a lifesaver.

This recipe is a great recipe for chaotic nights. I really love when things can just be thrown together and it's very simple ingredients. I feel like you could switch up the vegetable if you really wanted to.

One Pot 30-Minute Cheeseburger Pasta

All the goodness of cheeseburgers in a quick pasta dish with peas thrown in there so you get your veggies too!

I think I'm starting to edge into the recipes I started making when we first moved back in April 2020 to our new home. I cannot express how excited I was for the amount of natural lighting - it has really made taking pictures of food way easier - especially since I have gotten rid of my DSLR and am just using my phone. This recipe was a great, easy meal for the hecticness of moving. I didn't have pictures of it, but I loved it with ketchup. It was giving me a bit of tatortot casserole vibes and it needed the ketchup to make it complete!

Korean Beef Bowls with Veggies

Ground beef and onions seasoned with the most delicious Korean sauce served over rice with stir fry veggies!

I LOVE little bowls like this that have loads of veggies and are over rice or quinoa. This one has this amazing sauce that really sets it apart from other recipes that I've had. Nothing else really holds a candle. You can vary the vegetables to your liking but I really liked the red bell pepper, zucchini, and carrot combo. Such a colorful and delicious meal!

Linguini Carbonara

Rich classic carbonara with linguine pasta, peas, and bacon.

Matthew (my oldest) would eat carbonara every single day if he could. So we have it for dinner often and I have saved different recipes to try (my favorite is pesto carbonara). This is very much so a classic carbonara and really easy to make. It's so rich and full of flavor.

Easy Low Carb Big Mac Salad

A lower carb version of a McDonald's staple!

I love Big Macs, but I try not to eat fast food because I find myself constantly disappointed by the quality. I'll crave a Big Mac and get it and feel like crap afterwards. I don't know if that's a "I'm in my 30s" thing or just because I don't eat a lot of fast food or if it's because fast food quality really is subpar nowadays. I digress. I love making copycat recipes at home and have made a Big Mac copycat, but I really like salad too and then I don't end up with a bunch of extra top buns. Win win!

Bacon Cheeseburger Salad

When you're craving a bacon cheeseburger, but make it slightly healthier!

I have posted many salads at this point and may be beating a dead horse by once again explaining how I love eating salads for dinner. But I really like salads for dinner but also want them to be somewhat filling and these kinds of recipes are great for that because there are filling toppings. This one has all the yumminess of a bacon cheeseburger but without the buns. It's a great low carb option, but also could definitely work in a pinch if you forgot your hamburger buns or they go moldy or whatever. The dressing is easy and wonderful too!

25-Minute Spicy Ramen

This ramen has ground pork, carrots, cabbage, sweet peppers, and a kick of heat!

My family has been eating different variations of ramen lately and this one was super fun because it has ground meat and seems like it's way easier to throw together than the others (it's really not but it seems that way with ground meat). I think this is one of the first ramen recipes I've made with any kind of nuts and I really love savory dishes with peanuts - SO MUCH. So all in all, this has a really great balance of flavors and textures. And it's quick to make!

Chicken Tetrazzini

Chicken spaghetti with a delicious cheese sauce and extra cheese that is broiled on top!

Chicken tetrazzini is one of my favorite pasta dishes of all time. I wanted to try a slightly different recipe and this one was the first one I had saved in my Pinterest boards. It's extra cheesy and super quick to throw together. Although it is in a baking dish, it's just broiled, so there isn't a long wait time for it to bake and be ready.

Hoisin Stir Fry Bowls

This stir fry bowl has loads of flavor and a spicy peanut sauce to finish it off!

Stir frys are the perfect quick meal. They have so much flavor and you can put so many veggies in them. My oldest in particular probably likes stir frys more than other Asian style cuisine simply because the veggies maintain their crunch and he doesn't like when veggies get soft and mushy. I adore this particular stir fry for it's peanut butter sauce and chopped peanuts topping. I don't know why but I love all of these style recipes with peanut sauces and crunchy peanuts or cashews on them. There is so much savory goodness with those additions!

Loaded Turkey Taco Salad

Load up your taco salad with all the fixings and a homemade cilantro lime dressing!

I've been making a lot of Taco Tuesday meals with turkey lately. Part of that is due to my hereditary high cholesterol kicking in and the other part is that ground turkey doesn't taste too different from ground beef with taco seasoning mixed in, so it isn't this huge "culture shock" of a different protein. I really enjoy this particular salad recipe because there are no tortillas to fuss with and I love salads. I also love that there is corn and beans plus a homemade cilantro lime dressing that is super quick to make.

Spicy Chicken Salad Wraps

When you want a quick meal with loads of flavor and a kick of heat!

Occasionally, I put wraps on the meal plan and it's often for days I know are going to be super busy. I really liked this recipe because a lot of the flavor comes from the dressing which is one of my all-time favorites: Caesar! We loaded ours up with all the fixings and they were so great. I love the croutons especially so you get a good bit of crunch!

Ratatouille Pasta

The classic French vegetable dish turned into an amazing sauce for a meatless pasta meal!

I have never had ratatouille but I really wanted to try it and I took the opportunity to try it when Nick was away for army training because it's meatless. The kids were not the biggest fans of it because they don't like eggplant and only Cami likes zucchini. I, however, enjoyed it a ton because it's a pasta dish with a bunch of fresh veggies. I definitely want to try actually ratatouille at some point, so if anyone has a tried and true recipe for it - point me to it!!

Spicy Chicken & Avocado Tacos

A super simple chicken taco recipe loaded up with avocado and creamy cilantro lime sauce.

So I initially had this post almost ready to go and then realized that I remember making these and looking at it and going...where's the heat? How is it spicy? So when I did the marinade, I chose to add cayenne. Otherwise there is literally nothing that adds any bit of spiciness to the recipe. This is a really simple way to make chicken tacos and has lots of bright flavor from the lime. I love the creamy cilantro lime sauce a ton.

Penne Alfredo with Broccoli and Bacon

This quick pasta dish has homemade alfredo and crisp broccoli with some yummy bacon in there too.

This March is flying by compared to last March and it's crazy. I remember making this meal last year and being grateful that the bacon wasn't being overpicked and I was able to find some broccoli and pasta. I appreciate this recipe with how quick it is. I find a lot of pasta recipes that are able to be made in under 30 minutes - maybe that's why I like pasta so much! I also like this recipe because it's lite on meat, but you could absolutely add some chicken to it if you wanted.

PF Chang's Turkey Lettuce Wraps

This copycat recipe is simple and quick and perfect for a meal on a busy day or night.

Spring break is upon us and honestly it's super weird. That's when my kids left in-person school last year and didn't go back. It's strange to me to see recipes from a year ago and think of the struggle that was finding foods. I've always loved meal planning but I found out just how hard that was when the supply is inconsistent. Especially when it's meat and produce that are affected. It took months for our stores to fully recover and I think now a year later, they finally are just putting out toilet paper and paper towels without them being ransacked. This recipe was one I kept hoping to make but struggled to find butter lettuce leaves. I was really happy to finally find them and be able to make it.

Quick 20-Minute Chicken Tacos

Find the recipe on The Recipe Jackpot

Cheesecake Factory Cashew Chicken Copycat

Crispy chicken in a spicy soy sauce with cashews and green onions all over a bed of rice makes for a fantastic dinner

I still haven't been to Cheesecake Factory even though I have made many copycats throughout the years and we literally have one in our mall. Still haven't gone. Maybe we will once the pandemic dies down a little, but until then, I'll just keep making copycats. I love this copycat because I adore cashew chicken stir fry or whatever this dish is.  I really liked this method of making a slurry from rice flour and I really loved the spicy soy sauce too.

Turkey Parmesan Pasta

This amazing 7 ingredient dinner is ready in under 30 minutes and is a one pot meal!

I really love pasta dishes because they are so quick and they are typically easy on the wallet too. I was happy to find this really easy recipe because I have been trying to use more ground turkey than beef. Again, this is a really simple dish to throw together with only 7 ingredients. You may already have many of these on hand. It's a one pot meal - some of my favorites - and it's ready in under 30 minutes.