Busy days? Try these no-stress family dinners

The best weeknight meals are ones that come together with minimal prep and a fairly short cooking time. Some can be largely prepared ahead or in batches — say in a slow cooker — and simply reheated.

Choosing recipes that don’t have you running all around town for an unusual ingredient also helps, as does picking one-pan dishes that guarantee easy cleanup.

Make a big pot of soup, for instance, and you can portion it out over several nights, freeze it for future meals, or portion it into a thermos for lunches.

These four dinners can be assembled in a half-hour or less (one cooks all day long in a slow cooker) and use everyday ingredients. They include a meaty skillet lasagna that doesn’t require boiling noodles in water; homemade fish sticks coated in a crunchy mix of panko and Parmesan;