Family Summer Meal Prep with Italian Pasta Salad Recipe
This post has been sponsored by Newell. All opinions are my own
School is out and our little guy is home from preschool this summer. On top of finding things to keep our son busy during the weekdays, my 8-month pregnant wife has to also make sure he’s fed! To help her out I decided to put together some weekday meal prep for the family so we’re all fed quickly and without any fuss during the week!
Like any meal prep, the best route to go is in bulk. For this week, I wanted to keep it simple, light, and as appealing to a picky threenager as possible! Turkey slices and pita chips are a quick and easy thing for our son, and you can never go wrong with my pasta salad!
This week there was an amazing sale on strawberries, and I couldn’t pass them up. Unfortunately in our house fruits go bad really fast. Using the Food Saver Fresh Appliance FM5000, along with Food Saver Fresh Containers, I’m able to store my food longer in bulk throughout the week.
The crack and shatter resistant Food Saver Fresh Containers are awesome, because they work with the vacuum sealing appliance! All I have to do is adjust the vacuum head for a proper fit, hit the start button, and it’s sealing away! They also come in a bunch of different sizes, and are stackable and nestable, which is a huge help in my small kitchen. Less clutter in the cupboards the better! I’m a huge fan.
The different sizes come in handy this week because I’m making a big batch of pasta salad. One of our favorites to make during the summer. It’s so light and refreshing on a warm day, and I love using bell peppers in my pasta salad to give it a nice fresh crunch. One extra add that my wife absolutely loves? Green Olives.
It’s a really simple recipe that is full of flavor, using your favorite Italian dressing, bell peppers, tomatoes, olives, Parmesan, green onions and a little pepper. Pasta salad is something we can eat throughout the week without getting sick of it. And the tri-colored pasta makes our son super happy – almost as happy as I get when I see it! You know, because we dads are still about 3 years old at heart anyways!
If there isn’t plans to be away from home at lunch, I’ll keep the majority of the food in the Food Saver Fresh Containers, just too keep everything as fresh as possible. If there is anything that will get a texture sensitive eater turned off to meal preps, its soggy food at the end of the week! And I have two of those in the house. Like Mother, like Son… I think that’s how the saying goes, right?!
On the days that there will be a day long activity, I’ll have those meals packed up nicely in meal-prep friendly containers. My favorite for Brayden is the Rubbermaid Balance Meal Kit. It comes with portioned sized containers for your fruits, veggies, grains, and proteins so there’s no need for measuring. Which is good, because I think I have done enough thinking for today!
Food is good to go for the week, and that’s one less thing my wife has to worry about, between juggling her job, making sure our son is entertained during the summer, and all the other random things that come her way! Eating out throughout the week adds up fast, so having food easily ready to eat for lunch without having to fuss too much, is the least a dad could do to help out!
So now they can go about their day breaking in our new Baby Jogger City Select, which my son has no problem helping out with! He’ll be sharing the space with his little sister soon. We’ll be adding a car seat adapter and they’ll both be pushed around in style.
And when taking a stop at the Ferris wheel at our mall has got Brayden all excited and ready to go, that’s mom’s time to get him to eat. One day this kid will be a foody, but for now, everything is a bribe to get him to eat! You want to go on the Ferris wheel? You have to eat lunch first!
Italian Pasta Salad Recipe
Ingredients
- 12 oz box tri colored rotini
- 2 bunches green onion
- 1 whole green bell pepper
- 1 whole red bell pepper
- 1 cup grape tomatoes
- 1/2 cup sliced olives
- 1/4 cup fresh parmesan
- 1/2 cup italian dressing more to taste
Instructions
- Boil your rotini past per instructions on the box. Strain and let sit for about 5-10 minutes
- While the pasta is cooling, slice bell peppers, green onion, olives and cut tomatoes in half.
- In a large bowl, add pasta, all your vegetables, Italian dressing and Parmesan. Stir until evenly incorporated.
- refrigerate for about 30 minutes before serving. Enjoy!
