Easy Dinners don’t have to be boring! These 3 Dinner Recipes are packed with flavor and high in protein. Plus, the whole family will love them!
Grab the recipes here with printable recipe cards (or email version):
Pulled BBQ Chicken: https://simplymadeeats.com/8415/dutch-oven-pulled-chicken/
5 minute Cole slaw recipe: https://simplymadeeats.com/9322/pulled-pork-coleslaw/
Shrimp and Pineapple Skewers: https://simplymadeeats.com/19437/shrimp-pineapple-skewers/
Air Fryer Gnocchi:
https://simplymadeeats.com/19456/air-fryer-gnocchi/
Time Stamps:
00:00 Intro
00:42 BBQ Chicken and Coleslaw
03:58 Shrimp Pineapple Skewers
08:54 Air Fryer Gnocchi with Italian Sausage
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#easyrecipes #quickmeals #weeknightdinners #busymomrecipes
Today we’re making three easy summer dinner ideas. Hi, I’m Tara with Simply Made Eats and welcome to my channel. It is summer time, which means I want loweffort, but I still want to be eating high protein. And that’s what I have for you guys today with these three easy dinner ideas. These are perfect for summer. We’re going to get started off with a Dutch oven barbecue pulled chicken, which is great for sandwiches. I like serving these on Hawaiian rolls with kleslaw. And then second, we’re going to do some shrimp with pineapple on skewers. We’re going to grill these over a bed of rice. Super yummy and really easy. And then third, we’re doing an air fryer. And we’re going to serve it up with some Italian sausage so we have that extra protein. You could also do this one with meatballs. Super simple. So, let’s get to the recipes. One of my favorite meals in the summertime is pulled pork sandwiches, but it takes forever, like 8 to 10 hours. Cooked slow and slow, which is so delicious, but sometimes we just don’t have the time for that. So, today we’re doing some barbecue chicken sandwiches. These are pulled and shredded. They are so good and they’re coated in barbecue sauce. I love serving these on Hawaiian rolls or like bio buns with some kleslaw. Super yummy. This one only takes an hour to make. So, let’s get started. We are starting off with my creamy kleslaw recipe. I like to make this one first because it has sugar in it and it needs to dissolve in the fridge for a little bit. It’s seriously so easy. We’ve got some mayonnaise, apple cider vinegar, we’ve got a little bit of granulated sugar, and then we’re just doing salt and pepper. You want to whisk this up until it’s nice and combined. It makes it so creamy. And then I’m just using a store-bought bag of kleslaw mix. If there’s a packet in there, I will just toss that and then use my own sauce, obviously. But we’re just going to cover this up with some plastic wrap and stick it in the fridge and get started on our chicken. Sorry about my workout outfit, guys. We are like in summer with kids and puppies and it’s just like whenever I can film, I’m filming. I’m not even changing at this point. We’re going to start by just dicing up an onion. And then we’re going to mince up some garlic. For our chicken breast, we have four chicken breasts, large ones, so about two pounds. We’re just going to trim these up a little bit. And then for the spices, we we have paprika, garlic powder, onion powder, salt, and pepper. And just make sure to hit both sides of it with some seasoning. These are going to go into the Dutch oven with a tablespoon of olive oil. And then we’re just going to cook them for about 2 minutes on each side. They’re not going to be fully cooked at all, but we’re going to just give them a little bit of a sear. Then transfer them to a plate. And we’re going to add in our onions. And just cook these until they are nice and softened. I add a little bit of salt in there. Make sure to scrape up those brown bits cuz it’s going to give it a lot more flavor. And then we’re going to add in our garlic. Just cook this for 60 seconds or so. And we’re going to nestle our chicken breast back into our onions. And then we’re going to add in some apple cider vinegar with chicken stock and barbecue sauce. I’m using Stubs barbecue sauce. You can use whatever kind you want. I do recommend a thicker one versus like a vinegar base. This is a sticky sweet stubs and it’s really good. Then we’re going to cover this, cook it for 15 minutes. Then we’re going to uncover it, flip those chicken breast, and cook it for another 15 to 20 minutes until that internal temperature reaches 165°. And when this is cooking, I’m just going to get my Hawaiian rolls ready. I’m going to just slice these in half. And then I just pop them in the oven for like 4 to 5 minutes on 350 just to warm them up. Our chicken’s ready now. So, we’re going to give it a good shred with some forks. You can also like do this in the KitchenAid mixer. I’ve seen people do that before, too, but I think forks is just easier. add it back into our sauce mixture and just give it a really good mix up so everything gets really nice and coated in those onions and sauce. And this is ready to serve. You can cook it for another little bit if you want to, but it is ready to go. I’m serving them with some pickles, of course, Hawaiian rolls, and then I’m topping my sandwiches with kleslaw the way they should be. These are so yummy. You could also do some baked beans on the side, which would add some protein and super easy side dish. Next up, we’re making some shrimp and pineapple skewers. These are like kebabs that go on the grill and they are so good. We’re going to use a simple Hawaiian style marinade which just takes seconds to make. And then we’re just going to marinate them for about 10 minutes. The biggest thing with the pineapple marinade is you don’t want to leave it on for too long because just like acidity and like lime or vinegar or anything like that, it’s going to break down that shrimp and make it mushy. So, we’re only going to leave it on for about 10 minutes and then just go ahead and make our skewers. But it gives these the perfect flavor and it is paired with pineapple which is so good on the grill. So, let’s get to it. We’re starting things off with our shrimp. And I’m using a pink Argentine shrimp for this. If you can’t find that, I would go with like a gray golf shrimp. These are a medium size. It’s like 16 to 20 count per pound. And I got mine peeled and de vain from the butcher because I was being lazy, but it really does save like a ton of time and mess. So, I highly recommend it. And then just give it a good rinse to make sure there’s no shells or anything on there still. And then I just put them on a paper towel. And I’m just going to twist those tails off. If you like the look of it grilled with the tails on, go ahead and leave them on. It’s totally fine. Either way is fine. Next up, we’re going to make our marinade. We’re going to add a little bit of salt. And then we’ve got some brown sugar. We’re using pineapple juice, olive oil, and a little bit of soy sauce. And you’re just going to give this a really good mix up. Then just let it sit for about 10 minutes. We don’t want to do it longer cuz we don’t want the acidity to make that shrimp mushy. Next up, we’re going to get our rice started as we’re waiting for that shrimp to marinate. And I just I’m doing one cup of jasmine rice. You can do whatever kind of rice you want with two cups of water. Just make sure to rinse your rice first just to get all that debris off and those extra starches. This rice cooker, like I swear, it like has saved my life. I love it. And just pop that button on. And then this is going to start cooking. Next up, I’m just going to chop up a little bit of green onion for garnish at the end. You could also do like cilantro for this or just don’t worry about it at all. And for our pineapple, we are cutting off the top. And then we’re cutting off the bottom. This pineapple had a bunch of brown spots on it, so I really had to pick around it. But then just shave around it. And we’re just going to cut four pieces down around that core. And then just cut this into chunks. You need about 32 chunks because we’re going to do like four pieces per skewer, but I like to cut them pretty big like this size. And now it’s time to make our kebabs. I like using metal skewers for this just so I don’t have to worry about soaking them. If you’re using wood skewers, I would soak them for like 30 minutes before you start the recipe so that they don’t like get all dry and brittle. They kind of fall apart that way. But metal skewers are my favorite way to go. You don’t have to do anything. You can just use them, reuse them. It’s perfect. We’re going to start assembling our skewers now. We’re just going to go shrimp, pineapple, shrimp, pineapple. And I love these metal skewers because you don’t have to soak them like wood ones you’d have to. And I am just going to go ahead and assemble these and put them all onto a cookie sheet. My husband always does that for the grill. And I feel like it’s so easy. So once you get done, just put it on the cookie sheet and then start the next one. I have my Invisalign in right now. I forgot to take it out and I have like for some reason I can’t say sh words. good. Like it makes me have a lisp. It’s actually kind of funny because I was like super worried that I was going to have a lisp with braces and then it kind of happened. At least it’s not my bottom braces cuz I can definitely like if I go anywhere I’ll just take my Invisalign out on top. But it’s pretty annoying. And it’s okay to touch the shrimp and the pineapple because we’re going to cook it afterwards. Make sure you get it on here really good so it doesn’t fall off. All right, these are ready to go on the grill. You want to really have the grill up high for this recipe. I actually turned it up higher than I have it right now because we’re leaving the grill the grill open the whole time. So, you really need it nice and hot, like around 450° or so, so it gives it a really nice sear. And then I like to lay these perpendicular to the grates so they don’t fall through. I had to do a couple on the side just cuz I didn’t heat up the whole entire grill. But you’re going to cook these for about 3 to 4 minutes on the first side and then flip them over. Make sure that everything flips though. Sometimes it’s a little tricky cuz like one of the shrimp will stay and you have to make sure that everything flips over. So just make sure to keep an eye on that. And then you’re going to cook these until that shrimp reaches 145° internally. Then just go ahead and transfer it to a new cookie sheet. And then our rice is all ready. And these are ready to serve. I love serving it over a bed of rice. And then I’m doing my Kinder teriyak sauce which is like my absolute favorite. I’m just going to top my rice with that and then add my shrimp and pineapple on top. This is so yummy. It’s like an island five in a bowl. For our last recipe, we’re making air fryer. I didn’t even know that this existed until a while ago, and I was like, I have to try it. We’re tossing this in some olive oil, throwing it right in the air fryer, and it’s going to cook. It is so yummy. And then I’m making some Italian sausage on the side. You could also do some meatballs for this. I like red sauce or like marinara for this recipe so that I can dunk the neci. So, let’s get to it. For this recipe, we’re going to get started with our Italian sausage. These are going to cook in a large skillet with some olive oil for about 10 minutes on each side until that internal temperature reaches 165°. You can definitely air fry the when these are cooking, too. I just did it first because I had a lot of stuff going on. But once these are done, just make sure they reach 165° and then you can just keep them hot. Um, Penny was hanging out in the kitchen with me. She’s so stinking cute. She’s a little stinker though. And then we are going to chop up some garlic. And we have some Parmesan cheese for our neogi. And then for the seriously so easy, guys. We’re just taking a package. This is 16 oz. And we’re going to add it into a bowl. And then just add in some olive oil and some salt and just toss it up. Make sure that those are really broken apart and they’re all coated with the olive oil. And then we want to preheat our air fryer to 400°. Once that’s preheated, just go ahead and add those neo right into the bottom. And make sure that they’re kind of like in an even layer. You don’t want them all stacked on top of each other. And we’re going to cook these in the air fryer for 10 minutes. You want to make sure that you shake them halfway through so that they get like really nice and evenly cooked. And then while those are cooking, we’re going to get some garlic butter going. I just have 2 tablespoon of butter in the skillet with with the garlic that we minced up. And then just cook this for like 90 seconds or so. Transfer it right into a bowl. And then I’m also heating up some red sauce cuz I love to dip it in the marinara. It’s so yummy. And then we’re just going to take that and toss it right into our garlic butter. And just give this a nice mix up. Next up, we have just some spices. We have oregano and dried basil. We’re gonna add that in with our parmesan cheese. And just toss that up. And this is ready to serve. We’re going to serve it with our sausage. I like to just slice my sausage like on a bias just so it looks nice and pretty. And don’t forget the marinara sauce. It is so yummy. This is the perfect little dinner. Hot. Those are so good. It’s like a a dumpling mixed with a French fry. So good. That’s it, you guys. We’re all done with these three easy summer dinner ideas. Let me know in the comments which one you’re going to make first. Hopefully, you’ll add all three to your meal plan for the week. Thanks so much for watching. Make sure to give this video a like and make sure to subscribe to the channel for new recipes every single week. I love sharing them with you. Thanks so much and I’ll see you next time. Bye.