Life gets busy. By the time you get home from a long day at work, the last thing you can feel like doing is trying complicated food recipes to feed your family. Instead, you probably want to relax with a nice glass of wine.

However, there is a way to feed your family nutritious, delicious food without all that prep time. And that’s by preparing meals in advance so you can microwave them when you’re short on time. Here are a few microwave-friendly meals for those days when time just isn’t on your side.

Pasta Dishes

The Italians were onto something when they experimented with pasta dishes. Pasta is a versatile, delicious, and often nutritious meal that the whole family can enjoy. It’s also affordable and something you can prepare in advance in bulk, then freeze and microwave at a moment’s notice.

Thumb through the pages of your recipe book and highlight pasta recipes your family will love. Mac ‘n’ cheese, pesto pasta, carbonara, and similar, are standouts that can taste as delicious reheated as they do fresh.

Baked Dishes

Ground beef dishes with cheese, vegetables, and pasta are ideal recipe options for the time-poor parents who want to make sure their family always has something tasty to eat for dinner.

You may not be able to make this food fresh every night, but you can prepare it in bulk and heat portions in the oven or microwave as you need them. These dishes also tend to freeze quite well, so you can store as much of it as you desire for as long as you need.

Pies

Homemade family pies are delicious, nutritious, and affordable. They may not be something you have the time to make every night, but they are certainly something you can reheat. You can make individual pies or family-sized pies that you cut into pieces.

Given the technology now available, many microwaves have crisping functions that mean your pie crust doesn’t have to be soggy.

Tacos

Tacos are a firm favourite with many families because of how easy they are. You can cook a pot of flavoured mince then freeze portions of it for use in various dishes.

When you’re short on time or get-up-and-go, you can reheat the mince then use it to create tacos or even nachos. Mince is one of the most adaptable proteins, so having it cooked and on-hand is bound to offer much-needed convenience.

Curry

You won’t find too many people who don’t love the richness and depth of flavour of homemade curry. You can spend a day when you’re not busy creating curry in mass amounts. You can also make the paste from scratch or buy it in a jar or packet. When you freeze curry and then reheat it in the microwave, you only need to worry about cooking rice.

Rather than order pizza or another takeaway food when you don’t have time to cook or don’t feel like it, why not look at recipes you can prepare in advance and microwave? When you get home from work, you can then relax with a glass of wine, rather than worrying about if everyone is getting enough nutrients in their diet.