Week of August 17, 2026
5 Easy Back to School Dinner Ideas for Busy Families
By Maelonni Thompson
· updated August 18, 2026
A simple back to school meal plan with five family friendly dinners and one combined grocery list you can send straight to your Instacart cart.
Back to school always seems to make our afternoons and evenings feel a little more hectic. Between school pickup, activities and getting everyone back into a routine, I want dinner to be one less thing to think about. This back to school meal plan has five easy dinner ideas for family that work well for busy weeknights. We have a slow cooker dinner, taco night, breakfast for dinner, an easy Instant Pot pasta and simple Chicken Caesar Wraps for Friday. The best part is that you do not have to open every recipe and add the ingredients to your grocery cart one at a time. Add all five recipes to MyRecipeCart and it combines the ingredients into one grocery list that you can send straight to your Instacart cart.
This Week at a Glance
This Week's Dinners
A simple plan for the week ahead.
Slow Cooker Teriyaki Meatballs
by Annie
An easy slow cooker dinner for a busy Monday. We’ll serve the teriyaki meatballs over rice with broccoli on the side.
Easy Layered Taco Pie
by Jill Mills
A fun twist on taco night with seasoned beef, tortillas and cheese. We’ll add sour cream and guacamole on top.
French Toast
by Lauren Allen
We like to do breakfast for dinner on the first day of school. French toast with bacon and strawberries makes it easy and a little more fun.
Instant Pot Creamy Sausage Rigatoni
by Valerie Cooper
A creamy sausage pasta that comes together in the Instant Pot with less cleanup. We’ll add garlic bread on the side.
Chicken Caesar Wrap
by Lauren Allen
An easy Friday night dinner with chicken, Caesar salad and parmesan wrapped in a tortilla.
What You'll Need
50 ingredients combined from every recipe this week.
Skip the Grocery Run
We've combined the ingredients from all the recipes above into one Instacart list. You can review and remove anything you already have before checking out.
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A Few Helpful Notes
I like having a mix of really easy dinners during the first week of school. Monday’s meatballs can cook in the slow cooker, and Wednesday is our first day of school tradition of breakfast for dinner. We usually plan five dinners and leave the other two nights open for leftovers or takeout. If you do not need all five meals, you can also save your favorite recipes to your MyRecipeCart account and use them another week.
More Easy Family Dinner Ideas
Looking for more easy family dinner ideas? Check out our 5 Kid Friendly Summer Dinners on the Grill meal plan, Easy Family Dinners meal plan .
About Maelonni
Maelonni is a busy mom to two young kids who understands the mental load that comes with feeding a family every night.
She creates simple, family friendly meal plans without long or complicated ingredient lists. Each plan is designed to make grocery ordering easier and help families enjoy dinner together.
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