What’s for dinner?
After taking care of everyone else all day, is your drive home enough time to figure out what you’ll actually eat? Are you snacking on saltines and calling a bowl of Raisin Bran “dinner”?
As exhausting as teaching is, realizing you’ll be home soon, you’re starving, and you have no idea what to eat is one of the most draining feelings I know. It was especially hard in the years when I didn’t enjoy cooking and honestly didn’t know enough about food prep to have a plan. And early in my career, figuring out what I was doing in my classroom was about all I could handle.
If you’re the one in your household responsible for cooking, or you’re a single teacher taking care of yourself, I’m guessing “what am I going to eat?!” has crossed your mind a few thousand times too. But I’m here to help. I made one change that took my “what’s for dinner” stress from constant to genuinely manageable, and it doesn’t rely on 100 crockpot recipes or cooking all day to freeze a month of meals.
Before I jump in, two things to know:
- If you’re vegan or vegetarian, this still works for you, skip to the recipes and think #meatless. Several are already vegetarian, and I’ve added meat in my version.
- I am NOT suggesting you leave a crockpot on all day while you’re at work. I tried it once and spent the whole day convinced I’d get a call that my house was burning down. Not worth the anxiety. I’ll show you how to do this without depending on the crockpot on a workday. Save the all-day crock for weekends.
THE STRATEGY: BATCH-COOK SHREDDED CHICKEN
Here’s the whole system.
STEP 1: BUY 3-4 POUNDS OF CHICKEN BREASTS
I buy organic boneless chicken breasts from Costco, one package is usually about three pounds. (You can use a whole chicken if you’re a more advanced cook, but I don’t love the dark meat, and no busy teacher has time to pick chicken off the bone on a weeknight. This tip is all about saving you time and sanity.)
STEP 2: GRAB YOUR CROCKPOT
If you don’t have one yet, this is the one piece of equipment the strategy depends on. A few options depending on your budget:
- Good: a 6-quart manual slow cooker with a simple low/high/warm dial, ceramic pot, and glass lid. Does everything this strategy needs at the lowest price.
- Better: a 6-quart programmable model that counts down and switches to “warm” on its own, plus a temperature probe and lid lock. The auto-warm is the feature that matters most for a workday, so this is the one I’d point most teachers to.
- Best: an 8.5-quart multi-cooker that slow cooks, sears, and doubles as a Dutch oven, oven-safe and built for bigger batches if you want one appliance to do it all.
STEP 3: COOK THE CHICKEN
Use the “Best Whole Chicken in a Crockpot” recipe from Lisa Leake at 100 Days of Real Food. The recipe says whole chicken, but it works perfectly for breasts too. Cook on high for 4-5 hours, closer to 5 makes it much easier to shred. (I skip chopping onions and toss in a tablespoon of dried onion instead. No tears, less time.)
STEP 4: SHRED AND DIVIDE
When it’s done, shred the chicken right in the crockpot and split it into three bowls, about 2 cups each. I include the broth (nothing goes to waste). Now you’ve got at least three nights of chicken ready to match with a recipe. If a meal needs more chicken, balance the week with one that needs less, like a soup where you just toss in a handful.
That’s it. Three dinners’ worth of cooked chicken waiting in the fridge, and far fewer drives home in a panic.
12+ FAVORITE RECIPES THAT WORK WITH SHREDDED CHICKEN
- Broccoli Quinoa Casserole (Damn Delicious) — organic broccoli is another Costco bulk buy for us; works with rice or quinoa.
- Broccoli and Penne Pasta (the kitchn) — simple ingredients, perfect to throw together after work. The butter and cream cheese make it.
- White Chicken Chili (Skinnytaste) — an easy throw-in-the-pot meal; I double it now since it didn’t leave leftovers.
- Chicken Cordon Bleu Casserole (Written Reality) — a great example of subbing shredded chicken for something that usually calls for breasts.
- Cheesy Enchilada Casserole (Just Get Off Your Butt and Bake) — I made this every other week for a while. Freeze half so you don’t eat leftovers for days. Not the healthiest, but a favorite.
- Curry Chicken Casserole (Lisa Leake) — takes a little more time but worth it; doubles and freezes well, and yes, more broccoli.
- Vegetable Soup (Cooking Classy) — toss in shredded chicken for the perfect worn-out-from-teaching comfort food.
- Taco Shepherd’s Pie (Noshtastic) — boil and mash the potatoes on Sunday to speed up the weeknight build.
- Tomato Bisque (Lisa Leake) — we make it heartier with penne and shredded chicken, plus french bread and (of course) broccoli.
- Chicken Quesadillas — no recipe needed: butter a pan, tortilla, cheese on top and bottom to hold it together, chicken, second tortilla. Almost too easy.
- Buffalo Chicken Chili (Slow Cooker Gourmet) — who doesn’t love buffalo chicken? Works in the slow cooker or on the stovetop.
- 5-Ingredient Broccoli Cheese Soup (Budget Savvy Diva) — a meatless recipe we “beef up” with shredded chicken. More broccoli. Still not tired of it.
MORE WAYS TO USE SHREDDED CHICKEN
Once you start, you’ll find a hundred uses. Any chili recipe works. Any recipe calling for ground beef works (like that enchilada casserole). Any recipe calling for chicken chunks or breasts works. And any meatless recipe you want to add protein to works too.
COOKBOOKS WORTH OWNING
A few cookbooks that make the “what’s for dinner” problem smaller:
- 100 Days of Real Food by Lisa Leake — the source of several recipes above; great for whole-food, less-processed cooking.
- Don’t Think About Dinner by Jenn Lueke (Jenn Eats Goood) — since I first wrote this post, this one came out and it’s built around exactly this problem: meal planning, grocery lists, prep, and 125+ recipes designed to beat dinner decision fatigue. If the strategy in this post speaks to you, this book is the full system.
- The Feel Good Foodie Cookbook by Yumna Jawad — approachable, mostly-wholesome recipes for everyday cooking.
A REAL TALK ENDING
I won’t pretend I’ve got this perfectly handled. I’ve had plenty of meltdowns over meal planning, weeks where I told my husband I was just so tired of feeding everyone, nights I caved to a grocery-store rotisserie chicken or takeout. But when I calm down, I come back to this: feeding my family food that actually nourishes us is one of my real priorities. I’d rather save eating out for the weekend, when we can enjoy it. So cooking, real cooking, stays a priority, which means I need strategies that make it doable on a teacher’s schedule. This is mine.
What’s your go-to for surviving the “what’s for dinner?” overwhelm? Share it in the comments, we could all use more ideas.
