Meal Plan with Me: Top 5 Tasty Recipes

Be honest. How many times and for how long have you watched those Tasty videos on Facebook? I can probably vouch for about 90% of my Facebook browsing. Even worse, I have the app and torture myself watching it when I'm hungry. What can I say? I love food.

The 'Tasty video era' has been so great for my cooking journey because I'm a very visual person, and physically seeing what they are doing has helped me learn a lot about technique and order in the kitchen. It's also efficient because they're no-nonsense videos with zero talking, peppy music and colourful dishes. What more could you want?

I cook and get inspired by a lot of these kinds of videos, especially as a new wife trying to improve my cooking skills, as well as build a personal repertoire of go-to recipes for my family. My husband and I are casual meal-planners, in the sense that we plan out what we'd like to eat for the week, but have the freedom to switch around the days in which we eat them. This has worked out best for us because some days you just don't feel like soup.

I'd love to share more sample meal plans with you guys, because I find it's a great way to have a bit of order in your life while saving a ton of money on groceries. Meal planning is especially great if you are trying to eat healthy or have specific dietary needs.

Enough chit-chat, let's get into my Top 5 Tasty Recipes!

Monday: Hidden Veggie Chicken & Rice

This recipe from Tasty Junior is AMAZING. It's flavourful, comforting and healthy all in one. The rice is infused with shredded zucchini but definitely doesn't taste like it, hence the name 'Hidden Veggie Chicken & Rice'. It's intended to help get more vegetables into your kids, but it's great for grown men too. My husband was very skeptical at first but this is now one of his favourite dishes, he always gets seconds! 

Tuesday: Cheesy Cornbread-topped Chili

I made this dish on a cold day in the beginning of September (before it became summer again) when I was craving something warm, comforting and hearty. We like to rotate a variety of cultural flavours throughout the week (primarily 'Canadian', Asian, Mexican, Italian). That way we don't get bored of the same spices over and over. This dish is great because it uses so many different beans, and can we talk about that gorgeous golden crust from the cornbread? I actually couldn't find cornbread at my local grocery store so I bought the Red Lobster Cheddar Biscuit Mix and it was ah-ma-zing. I probably won't even try to find cornbread for this recipe next time, it was that good. Big hit with the husband as well. 

Things we changed: This recipe doesn't have meat, so we added about a pound of ground beef and it really did the trick!

Wednesday: One-Tray Pesto Pasta

Now, this one is a recipe within a recipe, but we really love the Pesto Pasta dish in this video. I haven't tried the other ones so pick whichever one looks delightful to you. Pasta is my favourite type of food, so I can't get enough. I could probably eat it 4 days a week (thankfully I refrain). Dishes like these are so easy and quick to make, and they taste even better as leftovers when the pesto is able to soak into the noodles. 

What we changed: I used linguine with this recipe, but that's just a personal preference. I highly recommend using fresh cheese for this recipe, it makes a huge difference. 

Thursday: One Pan Chicken and Veggie

This is a great autumn recipe! The sweet potato is a delicious, different flavour than what we usually eat and the roasted broccoli is just as great. I would highly recommend using fresh rosemary for this dish, as it really elevates the flavour of the dish. Dried herbs are a lot more convenient and usually work just as well for most recipes, but some dishes really need the unique flavour of fresh herbs.

Friday: Slow Cooker Chicken Teriyaki 

This is a good one if you're feeling lazy and aren't up to cooking, or you have a long day at work up ahead (God forbid, it's Friday!). Now, Friday meals can go a few different ways in our house 1) it's date night, so we decide to go out, 2) we're feeling carby so we pick up/cook a pizza 3) we have leftovers from all the great meals we had 4) we make food.

Anyways, this dish has a nice Asian-inspired flavour that we enjoy and it requires little to no effort because we just throw it in the slow cooker and forget about it. This also makes great, flavourful leftovers!


So there you have it, we tested and rounded up our favourite Tasty recipes so you don't have to (why on earth wouldn't you want to?). Hopefully these recipes inspired you to try out some new dishes or try out meal-planning. We vouch for it and so should you!