The Recipe Redux is a group of like-minded food bloggers whose mission is to inspire the food lover in every healthy eater and inspire the healthy eater in every food lover. Each month members post recipes to their blogs following a theme set by the group moderators. This month’s theme is healthy sheet pan meals. Click the Recipe Redux link at the bottom of this page to see links to all the posts for this month’s challenge

Sheet pan meals are all the rage these days, and for good reasons. A well-balanced family meal consisting of a protein, vegetable, and starch, usually involves using not only multiple pots and pans for cooking, but more than one appliance. The idea that you can cook your entire dinner on one pan, using only the oven, is so appealing. Not only is clean-up easier, but there are no issues with timing because all the food is prepped and cooked simultaneously. This makes sheet pan meals ideal for busy families. However, the obvious challenge with sheet pan meals is that you must choose foods that have similar cooking times. This makes your choice of protein, veggie, and starch tricky and it can take a little bit of experimenting to get the right combination of foods for a successful sheet pan meal. My Basil Cheddar Quinoa Meatballs Sheet Pan Meal with Peppers and Potatoes contains foods that work really well together for a sheet pan meal. The meatballs take about 20 minutes to fully cook and the baby potatoes about the same. If the potatoes are on the larger side, they might take a few minutes longer, but that’s ok because the meatballs and peppers are a bit forgiving with their cooking times – meaning that if they cook a few minutes longer than needed, they will still taste great. (more…)