'I'm a mum of 3. Here are 4 weeknight dinner hacks... that actually work.'

Thanks to our brand partner, Betta

If there are two words that strike exhaustion into the heart of any busy parent, "weeknight dinner" would have to be high on the list.

After a hectic day of school and work, tackling dinner can honestly seem almost as much effort as the recent 30km race I ran. It's messy, exhausting and more often than not, someone cries.

I'm always on the hunt for easy, practical ways to make mealtimes more efficient and thankfully, after 13 years and three children, I've come up with some ways to make the process a whole lot more enjoyable. Here are my four favourites.

1. Plan ahead and make one meal work for the masses.

It may seem so incredibly obvious, but planning ahead is honestly the absolute key to minimising stress and maximising efficiency at dinner time.

As a busy working mum with three kids all involved in after-school activities, I would have absolutely run away and joined the circus without prior planning. I have always been a big advocate for the whole family eating the same meal, even when my kids were younger.

The best way to do this was to plan our meals ahead of time then deconstruct each to make them suit even the fussiest family member.

For example, chicken caesar salad is an absolute fave in our house and is a winner as a big batch makes enough for five servings of dinner AND lunch for my husband and I the next day. The two youngest in my family aren't massive fans of the dressing, so for them, I serve up the different parts (chicken, lettuce, egg, bacon, croutons) separately then throw everything together in the bowl for the rest of us.

This way, I'm cooking once, eating twice (dinner and lunch) and everyone is enjoying the same meal. Same goes for when I was eating gluten-free. I modified recipes, like spaghetti bolognese, so that the bulk could be made to suit everyone and then I just changed things like the pasta to suit. It saves time, money and energy which is always a win.

2. Streamline the clean-up.

No matter how clean and tidy my dining room is before dinner, the aftermath makes it look like a pack of wild animals have torn through the space, leaving complete carnage in their wake. I continue to be puzzled by just how much mess three small people can make, but that's a conundrum for another day.

Streamlining clean-up time for us means restoring order quickly and efficiently, which is where the Westinghouse 60cm Freestanding Dishwasher really steps up to the plate. Each night we allocate two kids to be on "dishwasher duty" so us parents can get to others things before we wind down for the night.

With the nifty FlexTray feature, you can adjust the top cutlery tray to fit tall glasses in, meaning there's no need to aggressively try and angle them in (we've all been there).

To go one step further, the handy FlexZone upper basket can be lifted up allowing you to fit awkward items in like larger bowls, dishes and even small baking trays. This means you don't have to wash them separately and the dishwasher is easy for even our youngest child to stack effectively — a huge win for us as parents.

My favourite feature? The AutoDoor function, automatically opens the door at the end of a cycle allowing a burst of air to circulate through the appliance's interior to speed up drying. Which means we don't even need to get a tea towel out in the morning to wipe things down before putting them away — another tick for speed and efficiency during the morning rush (a topic for another time).

If you've ever washed dishes by hand, you know that it takes at least two sinks worth of water and a TV episode's worth of time. With the dishwasher, we feel like we're doing our bit for the planet with it's four star energy rating and five star water efficiency rating, while getting to plant ourselves on the couch sooner (for that sweet, sweet alone time after the kids have gone to bed).

3. Embrace easy recipes.

As a first time mum, I put a lot of pressure on myself to create new and TikTok-worthy meals every single night of the week. Which was wonderful when I was on maternity leave and had one child, but once I returned to work and the number of children increased, that level of creativity just wasn't possible.

I still love to cook but find that weeknights are not the time to dabble in making smokey, twice-cooked anything with a six step sauce.

I have a number of recipes on my meal plan that we eat almost every single week. Amongst them are recipes for the slow cooker (ideal for work days and/or nights when people are in and out at different times) and easy oven meals that take less than an hour from fridge to plate (think sheet pan recipes).

There are also recipes where I leave it to the supermarket to do the majority of the prep and I just add a few fresh ingredients; our favourite at the moment is chicken parmigiana using pre-made chicken breast schnitzel and homemade parmigiana sauce that I make in big batches and freeze ahead of time.

The kids love these. My husband also loves these and with the addition of fresh or frozen veggies and/or salad, I know that we are having a relatively nutritious meal that everyone will eat and that won't take hours in the kitchen.

4. Introduce grazing plates to your kids.

My children are constantly hungry in the evening. No matter what they ate at school and what they had for afternoon tea, come 4.30-5pm, a small beacon lights up inside them to say that they must eat more food, regardless of the fact that dinner is on the way.

When they were younger, I usually had dinner on the table by 5pm, but with my current work hours and their activities, those days are largely gone. I now aim for 6pm, but there are nights when this gets pushed out (pending how many tantrums I need to tend to).

Flexibility is something I have had to embrace and with that, the genius grazing platter. Now that the "I'm hungry" cries start early, I provide a grazing plate of cut up veggies, sometimes with a dip like hummus, to buy me some extra time.

I usually cut up a bunch of veggies for dinners and lunchboxes at the beginning of the week, so throwing it together takes minutes. Carrots, cucumber, cherry tomatoes, some strips of capsicum, cooked and cooled corn, sometimes even leftover roast veggies if we have them, they all get popped onto that plate and onto the dining table for the kids to pick at while I make the main meal.

This hack helps quieten the "I'm hungry" protests and also means that everyone gets a decent serving of veggies, so if dinner is a bit light going on the fresh front, we've still got our five-ish in for the day.

Shop the Westinghouse 60cm Freestanding Dishwasher to streamline your weeknight dinner clean-ups.

Activate AutoDoor when you select the Energy Saver Option on your dishwasher. Energy Saver option can be activated on all programs except PreWash and Steam programs.

Feature Image: Instagram/@naomifoxall.

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