Weekly Meal Plan Ideas: Mustard Panko Crusted Salmon #30daymom

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One of the biggest struggles for busy parents when it comes to meal planning, is time.

• There is limited time to spend over the stove babysitting dinner.
• Intense or lengthy prep work is daunting.
• We don’t want a huge mess to clean up afterwards either.

I have a solution! For each of the reasons stated above is exactly why I love cooking salmon.  Here are a few more reasons you should consider adding it to your meal plan.

• Thaws quickly.
• Marinate ideas are endless.
• Zero babysitting.
• Bakes and grills fast.
• Partners well with rice and a veggie.
• Clean up is a breeze.
• It is really good for you.

Yesterday, in the midst of homeschooling, I realized I had not thawed anything for dinner. I have not done any real grocery shopping since Christmas. The things I had on hand for dinner were limited. Shame on me, I know.

I did have salmon in the freezer, so I laid out fillets to thaw. I have a blue and white marinate container from years ago when I sold Tupperware, it makes the perfect thawing container.

The fillets thawed quickly and I created a Dijon mustard-based sauce for baking the salmon.

Ingredients:

• 1 T Dijon mustard
• 1 t olive oil
• 1 garlic clove mined, or a spoonful of the jarred minced type
• couple of cracks of pepper
• kosher salt for sprinkling the salmon (just a few pinches)
• 1/2 c panko breadcrumbs, reserved for topping the salmon

Mix the mustard, olive oil, garlic and pepper in a dish.

Lay your salmon fillets on a cookie sheet covered in parchment paper. The parchment paper will save you so much time when it comes to cleanup!

Sprinkle the tops of the salmon with kosher salt.

Evenly spread the mustard garlic sauce over the tops of the fillets.

Next, layer the tops of each fillet with the panko breadcrumbs.

Pop them in a 350 degree oven for 12-15 minutes, or until desired. I like my salmon well done, some like it medium well.

I served this over rice, because I always have rice on hand. It really was monochromatic. It would have also gone well with tri-colored pearled couscous- that would have added lovely color.

I had no fresh veggies on hand, not even salad. So we had clementine orange slices as a side. One of my boys wanted apple sauce, so he had that instead.

Cleanup

Cleanup was super easy because all I had to do was toss the parchment paper and rinse off the cookie sheet. One pot needed to be cleaned from cooking the rice. Apple sauce and clementine slices required no cleanup. The kids ate on paper plates, so those were tossed.

These are my honest struggles and trenches when it comes to dinner. If you are struggling with meal planning, I can teach you how to get dinner on the table in five easy steps.

#30DayMom

What are your challenges right now? I want to help you with your dinner challenges in 2014. Follow the hashtag #30daymom on Twitter and Instagram and check out the challenges 11 other moms are focusing on in the month of January. Some of my favorites are getting kids to do chores, spending one on one time, cooking from your pantry and getting fit!

What are your dinner struggles?