A Kid-Friendly Monday-to-Friday Meal Plan

Welcome to Week 3 of The Weekday Vegetarian Challenge

Sometimes it’s easy for me to forget, high up here in my empty nest, that when you’re feeding kids — particularly ravenous, growing teenagers — that even the most protein-boosted kale salad is not going to cut it in the dinner department. Or at least it won’t every night. As my friend Joanna, mom of two boys, 12 and 15, told me, she leans towards recipes that have a little heft, “that are filling enough that my kids won’t need to follow dinner with two bowls of cereal and a bagel.” This week’s Vegetarian Meal Plan, the third in this month’s Challenge, is dedicated to those parents, and leads off with a real banger: Nicki Sizemore’s Black Bean Cornbread Bake (above). It’s from her new beautiful book Mind, Body, Spirit, Food, which anyone (not just parents) will love for its choose-your-own-adventure style recipes. For instance, with the Cornbread Bake, you can opt for the Chicken White Bean version or the Black Bean one. For our purposes today, obviously, we’re going with the latter.

For those of you who are not participating in the Vegetarian Challenge and feeling a little left out this month, I’m sorry! Here are two meal plans from the archives that might make you feel better: A Flexitarian line-up featuring Chicken-Tofu Meatballs, Broccoli Reubens and one featuring Sheet Pan Sausage Meatballs, Vegetable Fried Rice, and more.

With no further ado, your Kid-Friendly, Monday-to-Friday Meal Plan.