Since my husband and I both live many miles from both of our families, the holidays often brings visitors from far away as well as special celebrations with friends that live close. We love that the holiday season brings time for togetherness, often gathered around our big dining room table. During the holiday season, we always have the traditional turkey at Thanksgiving and a traditional ham on Christmas day, but we often have other times that we celebrate with friends, family, and sometimes just our own little special “holiday” family dinners. This past weekend, our family enjoyed a special “thankful” dinner as we pulled out our small assortment of Thanksgiving decorations and transitioned into this season of giving thanks. We gathered around a table full of lasagna, garlic knots, and a favorite seasonal salad. This dinner is always a hit for the holiday season because it’s easy to prepare, feeds a lot of people at once, and everyone seems to love it!
To create this meal, all you need are three simple dishes. First, you need a lasagna. You can make your own, but we also love the Stouffer’s Family Size Lasagna with Meat & Sauce. This entree is made with fresh pasta layered between a meat sauce and topped with real mozzarella cheese. It’s a hit with our family because it’s delicious, nutritious, and there are no preservatives. If there’s one thing that my kids will eat, it’s a dish that is made up of noodles, sauce, and cheese!
To compliment the Stouffer’s Lasagna with Meat & Sauce, I love to serve some variety of green salad. The salad that I served was super easy to make and is perfect for this time of year. All you need is: arugula, mandarin oranges, apples, cranberries, candied pecans, and balsamic vinaigrette. To make the salad, just toss all the ingredients together and serve.
Of course, you can’t serve this meal without some infamous garlic knots. These homemade garlic knots are actually made from refrigerator biscuits. To make these, you slice each biscuit into quarters. Mix 3 tablespoons of melted butter with 3 teaspoons of parmesan cheese, 1/2 tsp. of garlic powder, 1/2 tsp of parsley, and 1/12 tsp. of oregano in a bowl. Add the sliced biscuit pieces and coat. Spray a muffin tin with cooking spray and then place 4-5 pieces of coated biscuit dough into each muffin hole. Bake for 12-15 minutes until golden brown.
This meal is great to serve during the holiday season because it’s not only easy to prepare, but is also a fresh and healthy dinner option when gathering with a large group of people. Stouffer’s is encouraging consumers to eat better as part of Nestle’s educational campaign called Balance Your Plate. Research shows that Americans are only meeting MyPlate recommendations for vegetables, fruit, proteins, dairy and grains seven days out of the year. Balance Your Plate is an educational program that is designed to help consumers put together delicious and nutritious meals that incorporate both fresh and frozen foods. This initiative is focused on simple solutions, offering a range of recipes and tips that all you to to choose the “perfect pairing” at meal time, even during the holiday season.
Stouffer’s Lasagna with Meat & Sauce is one of the brand’s classic offerings, but their simpler recipe now contains fewer ingredients but still continues to offer the same delicious taste. Stouffer’s Lasagna with Meat & Sauce comes in a family size, as well as party size for even larger gatherings. By pairing with a fresh salad and these garlic knots, you can offer your guests a balanced and delicious plate at the same time!
Disclosure: This post is in collaboration with Balance Your Plate and Stouffer’s. As part of the collaboration, I received product and incentives in exchange for participating in the program.
Yes I was looking for some holiday dinner inspiration, how did you know? haha thanks for sharing, this looks awesome and I can’t wait to try it!