ThePrep: Easy One-Pot & Sheet-Pan Dinners for Summer

Our column, ThePrep, has everything you'll need to make meal planning and meal prep as easy as can be. Sign up here to get a meal plan delivered to your inbox every Saturday!

My favorite way to end my day is either in the backyard on the hammock when the temperature finally drops a few degrees, or on the couch with a good book. And lately, after-dinner dishes have really been cramping my style. This week I'm intentionally sticking to one-pot and one-pan recipes that strategically cook everything together in a single vessel to help keep my evenings easy, from prep to cleanup.

Your Meal Plan

Sunday's One-Pot Garlicky Shrimp & Spinach is the first recipe I think of when I need a one-pot dinner. It has a ton of flavor from garlic, lemon, crushed red pepper and parsley, plus a whole pound of spinach, so you get plenty of veggies. The shrimp cook quickly and when I use a microwavable packet of pre-cooked brown rice, I can create a balanced meal that's ready in just 25 minutes.

The One-Pot Tomato-Basil Pasta is another recipe I often include in my dinner lineup. For one, it's delicious, and I don't need to bother with boiling water in a separate pot to cook the pasta. This recipe uses a precise amount of water to cook the pasta in the pot with the other ingredients, so no draining needs to happen either. We wrap up the week with the colorful Sheet-Pan Sausage & Peppers, which is always a crowd pleaser in my house, and the Sheet-Pan Caprese Pizza, which combines two of my favorite things—pizza and caprese salad!

Sunday: One-Pot Garlicky Shrimp & Spinach with cooked brown rice

Monday: Greek Roasted Fish with Vegetables

Tuesday: Lemony Chicken & Green Beans with cooked brown rice

Wednesday: One-Pot Tomato-Basil Pasta

Thursday: Sheet-Pan Sausage & Peppers

Friday: Sheet-Pan Caprese Pizza

Get the shopping list.

Meal-Prep Breakfast

The baked feta and cherry tomato pasta became famous on TikTok and Instagram for good reason—the combination is delicious! We riffed on this tasty trend and created a super-simple 3-ingredient breakfast you can enjoy all week long. I love that all you need to do is fill muffin cups with halved cherry tomatoes and cubed feta, then fill with beaten eggs and optional fresh basil and bake until set. These tasty egg cups will help me start my mornings right.

Get the Recipe: 3-Ingredient Baked Feta & Cherry Tomato Egg Muffins

Side note: If you haven't yet tried baked feta pasta, you must! Here are two delicious recipes for Baked Tomato & Feta Pasta and Baked Spinach & Feta Pasta.

Treat Yourself

I'm very particular when it comes to my cocktails. My biggest thing is that I don't want them to be too sweet, and I really prefer when they use fresh ingredients versus bottled mixes. So, naturally, this Pineapple Margarita with No Added Sugar is a clear winner. This cocktail gets the perfect amount of sweetness from orange and pineapple juices and a tart kick from lime juice—no need for sugary Triple Sec. it's just the best thing to sip on a warm summer night.

Get the Recipe: Pineapple Margaritas with No Added Sugar

Watch me make this margarita here!

I hope you all have a great week, and if you have any questions or requests for future newsletters, please let me know by emailing ThePrep@eatingwell.com!