by Gina Homolka 

Skinnytaste One and Done by Gina Homolka is a cookbook filled with healthy and delicious recipes that are big on flavor, low on calories and made start-to-finish in one pot.  Each recipe also includes all the nutritional information for those counting calories, sugars, carbs etc. This is Gina’s third book in the Skinnytaste series – each one hitting numerous best seller’s lists. I own them all, have many go-to recipes from her books, and follow her on Instagram.  

This cookbook contains 140 “NO FUSS” dinners which can be made in a skillet, sheet pan, slow cooker, Instant Pot (with a slow cooker version added in case you don’t have one…YET!), Dutch oven, grill pan or air fryer.  The “One and Done” concept means cooking multiple ingredients at the same time, together, results in getting meals to the table faster with less dirty dishes – a win, win for everyone, especially the cook and the cleaning crew.  

The star of this book is the Chicken Tortilla Soup. (YES, I am sharing it here because it is sooo good!) This is the first thing I have ever made in the Instant Pot and it turned out great, but no worries, she has a Dutch oven version as well.  The chipotle chilies in the adobo sauce add a little kick but it’s NOT TOO SPICY (my kids liked it) but brings incredible flavor to this dish. 

chicken Tortilla Soup

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Another easy weeknight meal which a HUGE HIT was the Bacon-Wrapped BBQ Ranch Chicken Salad.  With bacon wrapped chicken, how can you go wrong?  And to top it off, I tried the Chive Ranch Dressing and OH MY! –  my kids said we were done with Hidden Valley. They actually asked me to make more because we ate the whole batch! And, it was SO GOOD we scraped the remnants off our plates with our spoons to get that one last bite. This dinner, including the ranch dressing, was easy and I would say if you make the dressing while the chicken is cooking, you can have this on the table in under 40 minutes. 

Bacon Wrapped BBQ Ranch Chicken Salad

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My daughter and I loved the Creamy Butternut Pasta with Spicy Sausage and Spinach which is a dairy-free rich pasta dish which is perfect for the lactose intolerant girls in our family.  Just saying, if you don’t like butternut squash, it may not be your favorite*. 

The Loaded Buffalo Chicken Sweet Potatoes are also cooked together in the slow cooker. This is a great make-ahead combination of flavors that kids will like and is much healthier than heading to Buffalo Wild Wings (or BW3, at least that’s we call it in our house!!!)

The Spicy Peanut Chicken and Vegetables, with a bit of chopping prep the night before, can come together easily for a weeknight dinner.  The peanut sauce is amazing and could easily be served as a side with chicken skewers or strips as an appetizer.  (Again, if you are not a fan of peanut butter – then this one may not be for you*.)

If you are tired of the same old burger, Gina gives you some new options to mix it up a bit with her Open-Faced French Onion Burger and/or the Chicken-Avocado Burger.  Both were good.

So here’s to enjoying some healthy versions of fresh, good food options with Skinnytaste for the family to brighten the last days of winter as we head toward springtime. Can it come soon enough?

*I have to laugh whenever I say something is “not my favorite” because, throughout all my years of trying new cookbooks and recipes on my family, my husband had one rule: Never say you “hate” something someone has worked so hard to make, it’s better just to say “it’s not my favorite.” Nice, right?

MUST MAKE LIST:

Chicken Tortilla Soup

Bacon-Wrapped BBQ Ranch Chicken Salad with Chive Ranch Dressing

Butternut Pasta with Spicy Sausage

Loaded Buffalo Chicken Sweet Potatoes