Our Fall/Winter Family-Favorite Meals-2020

We are deep into Fall, here in New England, and something I’ve been working on doing each season is refining our family favorites list for each season.

I love my family favorites list- but it’s getting long (which isn’t a bad thing!) and so I’ve been simplifying it a bit by just taking a list of recipes from our master meals list that fit this season, often with similar ingredients for easier meal planning, definitely seasonal ones, because isn’t fall just the best season for vegetables? I know, I know, summer is often more abundant in farm-fresh veggies, but I can’t get enough dark leafy kale, butternut squash, acorn and delicata squash (all the squash), brussels sprouts, roasted broccoli… YUM.

Now that you’re hungry… here are the meals that are gracing our plates, this fall!

1) Sweet Potato, Kale and Beef Stew (slow cooker)

2) Spaghetti Squash Bolognese

3) Cuban Black Beans and Rice (recipe in my Healthy Mama Meal Prep Cookbook)

4) Sweet Potato Black Bean Cocoa Chili (slow cooker)

5) Puerto Rican Beef with sweet potatoes from Sarah Fragoso

6) Curried Sweet Potato Turkey Meatballs with Tahini

7) Millet Fried Rice from Supernatural Cooking by Heidi Swanson

8) 5-ingredient Curry by Pinch of Yum

9) Cauliflower Shepherd’s Pie

10) Beef and Butternut Squash Chili (pictured above)

11) Tex Mex Turkey Taco Pie

12) Slow Cooker Chicken with roasted veggies

13) Comfy Chicken Soup

14) Pumpkin Rigatoni by Pinch of Yum

15) Burrito Bowls

16) White Chicken Chili (Instant Pot)

17) Green Chile Enchiladas

18) Spiced Chickpea Stew from Pamela Salzan (originally a NYT recipe) with Naan

19) Butternut Squash, Kale and Chickpea Coconut Curry

20) Creamy Butternut Squash Pasta Bake from Party in Your Plants by Talia Pollock

21) Sweet Potato, Kale, White Bean and Sausage Soup

p.s. These aren’t the ONLY meals we’re eating, there’s still takeout night and we try a new recipe pretty much each week. But this is what we’re basing our meal plans on- and with 21 recipes, that’s more than 5 meals a week of recipes I don’t need to search for, I know we love, and I can pair the ones with similar ingredients together for simpler planning and meal prep.

Have you joined the Healthy Balanced Mamas Facebook Community, yet? What are you waiting for? We share our meal plans and favorite recipes each Monday for inspiration and we are starting an online BOOK CLUB next month, which, if you’re a nerd like me, is just the absolute best as we move into the colder months and all I want to do is curl up with a cozy blanket, a book and some tea (or this bourbon, let’s be real).