20-ish minute summer meals (low on heat + high on flavor)

So let's dive in.

Kicking things off with a summer favorite that I think is seen more often as a side than anything else, but it can absolutely stand in as a full meal, especially with the addition of a little extra protein, is pasta salad.

One of my favorite things about pasta salad is that it works cold or oftentimes a little bit warm, and it keeps really well in the fridge for a few days, so it works great for leftovers, for lunches, and you can make it ahead during your meal prep.

A few of my favorite pasta salads include my BLT pasta salad with my homemade herb ranch dressing, or you can swap out your favorite ranch dressing, or my Greek yogurt ranch dressing, which is in the Healthy Mama Meals app.

The base BLT pasta salad recipe with the homemade herb ranch dressing is on my website, Healthy Mama Chris, so I will link that one down below.

It has tomatoes and bacon and romaine lettuce, and of course, it's got pasta as the base.

You can use your favorite pasta for this.

You can use a high protein pasta, a high fiber pasta, or a combination of the two, something like a Banza pasta or a Goodles pasta are great options here.

You can make it gluten-free.

Very, very simple to modify for your family's needs.

Another favorite that I came out with last year that has become one of my kids' favorites because it's based on a favorite salad from one of our favorite local grocery stores up in Rhode Island, the garlicky tortellini salad.

This is really, really delicious and has a little bit more staying power, in my opinion, than some other pasta salad recipes because the base is tortellini.

You have that cheese in the tortellini.

It also has cheese and salami in it as well.

It has a delicious, simple garlicky dressing.

You also have veggies in there, so it is super flavor packed, very easy to make, and again, keeps well in the fridge for a few days.A couple other favorites without going too deep into pasta salad are my chicken Caesar pasta salad with my homemade Caesar dressing.

You'll notice I love making homemade dressings because they are such an easy, simple way to both enhance the nutrient density of the dressing that you're using, because store-bought dressings are often filled with a lot of extra stuff we don't necessarily need.

Homemade dressings are easy, fairly inexpensive, and often so much more flavorful than what you can get in a jar or bottle.

So I do make lots of homemade dressings and sauces as flavor boosts, but I try to keep them as simple as possible.

So the chicken Caesar pasta salad with my homemade dressing or your favorite Caesar dressing, grilled or pan-seared chicken, romaine lettuce.

I add some tomatoes to it as well, but you can leave those out if you want to- for it to be a little bit more of a Caesar salad experience.

And of course, if you wanna keep this one vegetarian and use it as more of a side and serve it with your favorite protein, just leave out the chicken.

So that's an easy one to modify as well.

And last but not least, my Southwest pasta salad is another favorite.

You have some extra protein and fiber from black beans.