It’s 5:43 p.m. in suburban Georgia. One parent is stuck in traffic after soccer drop-off, while the other stares into the fridge, trying to figure out how to turn half a rotisserie chicken, a bag of baby carrots and a nearly expired yogurt into dinner for five. The kids are hungry, there’s no time to shop and the clock is ticking.
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For many families, this is dinner. Not the meal itself, but the scramble that comes before it. What started as a routine part of the day has turned into a daily hurdle that wears everyone down.
The struggle is real
Families still try to make dinner work. A 2025 survey from Parents magazine finds that 82% of families make family dinner a priority. However, many of those meals are eaten in shifts, on the go or under stress. Some are homemade, but a growing number rely on takeout, fast food drive-thrus or whatever can be thrown together in under 20 minutes.
The reasons are familiar: work runs late and practices run long. Groceries are expensive, and energy is low by the time dinner rolls around. Even parents who care deeply about sitting down to a meal together often find it difficult to make that happen on a weeknight.
Planning makes the difference
Dinner doesn’t start when the stove turns on. It begins with a plan. Without one, grocery shopping turns into guesswork. The fridge fills with ingredients that don’t go together, and around 6 p.m., it’s back to takeout or cereal.
Even a loose plan can change the evening. Choosing just three meals for the week and writing them down somewhere visible can make a noticeable difference. It takes the decision-making out of the most tired part of the day and gives the whole household a sense of structure.
Online, meal prep looks like the answer to everything. Influencers lay out rows of containers, color-coded charts and Sunday routines that involve hours of chopping, sorting and batch cooking. For some families, that works well. But for many, it’s just not realistic. Between work, errands and weekend commitments, the time and headspace for meal prep often don’t exist.
If time is tight, the key isn’t prepping every ingredient in advance. It’s choosing recipes that don’t require much prep to begin with, like easy garlic chicken in a skillet. It comes together in under 30 minutes, uses pantry staples and doesn’t leave behind a pile of dishes. Having two or three meals like that in your rotation can dramatically reduce the nightly scramble.
Grocery prices don’t help
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the cost of food at home rose 2.4% between June 2024 and June 2025. Meat, poultry, fish and eggs saw some of the sharpest increases. Families spend more to make the same meals or cut corners where they can.
Cooking at home is still cheaper than dining out, but only when groceries are planned and used efficiently. Without a list or strategy, impulse buys or wasted ingredients can eat into the budget. Add in picky eaters or dietary restrictions, and the challenge gets even bigger.
This is where pantry-friendly recipes come in. Canned salmon patties are made with affordable, mostly pantry ingredients and take less than 30 minutes from start to finish. They’re also flexible enough to fit into whatever else is in the kitchen that night, which helps when groceries are running low.
It doesn’t have to be complicated
Experts agree that one of the best ways to ease dinner stress is to lower the bar. That doesn’t mean giving up on nutrition or family meals. It means letting go of the idea that dinner has to be cooked from scratch or that everyone needs to be at the table at the same time.
Meals that require minimal prep and cleanup are often the most sustainable. Sheet pan dinners work great on busy weeknights. Pop a pan of sausage, pepper and onions in the oven and help with homework while dinner cooks. Add some bread or rice, and dinner is done.
Prepping vegetables or grains ahead of time, cooking double batches for leftovers or even freezing sauce portions can all help ease the weeknight load. But none of it is necessary every night. The goal is to have tools that help, not systems that add stress.
What dinner looks like now
Dinner doesn’t always happen at the table. Sometimes it’s eaten in shifts, on the couch or while packing lunches for the next day. Some families eat on barstools while backpacks spill across the floor. Others serve food straight from the stove, cafeteria style. And in homes with older kids, everyone may eat at a different time entirely.
The structure looks different now, but the intention remains. Even if the setting isn’t ideal or the food is whatever was left in the fridge, the effort still matters.
Studies from Project EAT, a long-running research program at the University of Minnesota, show that sharing meals, even just a few times per week, is linked to lower stress, stronger relationships and better nutrition. The food doesn’t have to be perfect. It could be hot dogs, cut fruit and a bag of chips. It’s the time spent mostly together that counts.
Some nights are more organized than others. Some meals are better than others. But when there’s a loose plan and a few easy recipes to rely on, dinner becomes less of a scramble and more of a moment to regroup.
Lucy Brewer is a professional writer and fourth-generation Southern cook who founded Southern Food and Fun. She’s passionate about preserving classic Southern recipes while creating easy, crowd-pleasing dishes for the modern home cook. Lucy currently lives in Augusta, Ga.