What sides do you serve the most for dinner?

[RainbowSprinkles]

We usually either have rice or pasta. We do mashed potatoes every once in awhile, but dh says they don't really "go" with most meats?!?

 

So poll coming up! :)

 

Eta: I also include at least 1 vegetable and usually make a salad. So we do get those greens!

Edited January 15, 2012 by RainbowSprinkles

[cindergretta]

Hm, potatoes are popular with us - mashed, roasted, boiled... I thought they go with most meats, lol!

 

Dh is Asian so rice is available all day, every day! :lol:

 

We rarely ever have pasta unless it is a pasta meal, kwim? (Spaghetti, fettucine alfredo, etc.)

[In the Rain]

Green salad is the side we usually fall back on.

 

Of the choices you listed, we serve rice most often. It is easy to make and stores well in the fridge. After a couple of dinners, any leftovers can be turned into rice pudding.

[Laura in MI]

Hm, potatoes are popular with us - mashed, roasted, boiled... I thought they go with most meats, lol!)

 

:iagree: And don't forget about fried potatoes! My kids love them :tongue_smilie:

[pitterpatter]

No veggies? LOL!

 

Usually, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, green beans, corn, etc.

[Carpe]

We never have pasta as a side. LOL.

 

Your DH is mistaken. Potatoes go with everything.

[Daisy]

I picked other. I don't serve starches with our dinner very often.

 

It is usually 2-3 vegetables and a fruit.

[Jean in Newcastle]

Most our meals are "Asian inspired". We have rice at least 4 or 5x a week. Noodles or potatoes are for variety.

 

ETA - rice is 90% of the time brown rice.

Edited January 15, 2012 by Jean in Newcastle

[cjzimmer1]

Well we rotate though all the options pretty equally. Although I will change how they are presented. For instance pasta might be spaghetti, it might be pesto noodles, it might be alfredo on noodles, it might be garlic butter, or it might be in the noodles in the soup. Potatoes might be mashed, baked, piorogies (okay that's technically pasta and potatoes), Rice might be a side of plain baked rice, fried rice, the base for fish with sauce, or an herb rice. So it doesn't feel like we are eating the exact same thing every day. We also eat a lot of quesadillas, taco, burrito, wraps etc so those days we don't have sides at all.

 

We will also occasionally have couscous but I haven't found a recipe everyone loves yet.

 

We also have 1-2 veggies with every meal and homemade bread probably about once a week.

[rwjx2khsmj]

Veggies and fruit. Salad.

I try to stick to one starch per meal and we usually pick bread.

[Myeightkiddies]

Out of the choices, I probably serve potatoes most often. Usually I serve veggies, fruits, and greens. I do like sweet potatoes.

[Caitilin]

We are more of a one-pot-meal household, but if we have sides, they are fruit/veggies. I am still trying to train my dh out of his redundant expectation of having garlic bread with spaghetti. :tongue_smilie::lol:

[Lawana]

Dan Quayle must be rolling in his grave.

[Jean in Newcastle]

Dan Quayle must be rolling in his grave.

 

Since he's still alive, I think that would be kind of hard to do. . .

[Lawana]

Since he's still alive, I think that would be kind of hard to do. . .

Yeah, poor choice of words. Sorry.

Edited January 15, 2012 by Lawana
Adding

[KungFuPanda]

I serve salad the most, but if we're talking starchy sides, I'd have to say it's a pretty even split between the ones you've mentioned and bread.

 

Tonight was pasta bolognese and bread, so we did double starch and no salad. Yes, I'm a Bad Girl.

[MamaT]

I voted potatoes, but rice is a close second. it is unusual for us to have pasta more than once or twice a week.

[BarbecueMom]

Out of those options, rice, 3-4 times a week. As a pure side dish, we rarely have pasta, potatoes, or bread.

[GailV]

Dh doesn't eat potatoes, rice (occasionally brown rice), or pasta.

 

Sometimes I'll cook some white potatoes and some sweet potatoes, and everyone takes whichever they prefer.

 

Over summer we ate boatloads of zucchini -- grilled, sauteed, raw, spiral-cut with tomato sauce, or whatever else I could think of.

 

In fall we moved to collard greens and bok choy. Two or 3 avocados per day. I happen to like quinoa, so that's what I'd choose for a grain, but we don't eat much grain at family meals.

 

Also, lots of salads and raw vegetables.

[cin]

I'm suppose to serve them more than 1 course? :blink:

[Farrar]

Sometimes I feel like we're on a revolving course of salad, green beans and asparagus since they're the three verges my kids will always eat. We actually get more creative with the starches.

[Pamela H in Texas]

We rarely have any of those. If I had to choose one of those, it'd be potatoes.

 

Generally, sides at home are veggies such as green beans, broccoli, brussel sprouts, and spinach. The last three are our faves. GB are just cheap and easy. Sometimes we have beans of some sort (but usually those are a main dish themselves if we have them).

[Homemama2]

We do alot of vegetables/salads and a bread. Out of the other 3, we have them about equally.

[Rebecca VA]

We usually have rice, a vegetable (often carrots, but sometimes bok choy or broccoli), and a green salad with our meat of the day. Pomegranate lemonade to drink.

[black_midori]

I picked other. I don't serve starches with our dinner very often.

 

It is usually 2-3 vegetables and a fruit.

 

:iagree:

 

Especially now - we are moving towards a more low-carb lifestyle & will be trying much harder to avoid starches.

 

Up to this point, the most common side was probably rice and veggies.

[kitten18]

We have salad and vegetables.

 

DH and I don't eat starchy foods like that. I will sometimes give the kids a piece of bread to go with their meat and veggies.

[LucyStoner]

We aim for 1/2 veggies, 1/4 protein/meat/fish/legume and 1/4 starch. Popular starches (all of your side items fall into that category) for us are potatoes and rice. Pasta tends to be the base of the main dish (covered with a lot of veggies) when we have it and not a side to meat or fish.

 

Our fave veggies are:

 

Brussels sprouts

broccoli

carrots

greens (collards, kale)

Peppers

[FairyMom]

We rarely eat rice, pasta or potatoes. If we have a "side," it's a veggie or fruit.

[Ellie]

Mashed potatoes don't "go with most meats"?

 

:001_huh:

[kristinannie]

Mashed potatoes go great with pork and beef IMO. Our favorite side in this family is cous cous. It is quick, easy and the kids LOVE it. We also love egg noodles and jasmine rice.

[MHowell]

I'm part asian, so other than lots of veggies we have rice!

[OnTheBrink]

Steamed veggies, potatoes, stuffing, rice, couscous, salad.

[myfunnybunch]

I voted rice and other. We almost always serve a green salad and another vegetable. :)

 

Cat

[Ibbygirl]

Rice here. With beans, peas, plain, yellow, dirty, moros, veggies etc etc.

[Jenny in Florida]

We're vegetarian/vegan. So, the traditional meat-starch-two-vegetables thing isn't in our vocabulary.

 

Most of our meals are made up of lots of different components, none of which is necessarily identifiable as a "main dish" or "side."

 

The one exception is when I make Indian-inspired stuff. In that case, the main dish will be either dal or channa, and I serve a variety of sides including rice, samosas, a couple of chutneys and some kind of bread.

 

Otherwise, though, I serve things like burritos with seasoned black beans, rice, onion, peppers, corn, tomatoes all wrapped up together in a tortilla.

 

I guess I'm an "other."

[SweetMissMagnolia]

I do some version of those each week--dh is a big meat/potatoes guy so I make that the most I guess

[Running the race]

green salad and fruit

[luvnlattes]

I voted rice. We have it 3-4 times per week. I serve pasta as a side about once a week. I'm trying to move away from this though, and serve a salad and a vegetable with the main course.

[missmoe]

My dh is Asian--he grew up with rice everyday.

 

I grew up with potatoes two times a day.

 

We go through periods of rice most meals and periods of potatoes for most meals. And in summer we usually skip both for salads.

[Sputterduck]

Other. I don't feed carbs as side dishes. We have lean meat and vegetables.

[Deb in NZ]

Potatoes, kumera (sweet potatoes). & rice for dinner. Pasta we usually will only serve at lunch as dh isn't keen on pasta. Dh isn't really keen on rice as a side either (too many years in the islands), but the rest of us prefer rice & dh will eat rice as a dessert with custard & fruit on those nights. My kids aren't too keen on white potatoes & all prefer kumera if given a choice. I grew up with beef & potatoes at least 6 mights a week (steak & baked potato, hamburgers & fries, pot roast & mashed potatoes, etc.) I now much prefer rice if given a choice. I cook Jasmine rice most times, not the horrible minute rice that my mother cooked.

 

Rice = Asian, Indian, or Mexican meals

Potatoes & kumera = traditional NZ meals

Potatoes = traditional American meals

Rice, kumera, &/or cassava = Pacific Island meals

 

Pasta = occasional lunches

 

We are a bi-cultural family who lived overseas for a number of years, so our diet is quite varied with the flavours of where we have lived.

Edited January 15, 2012 by Deb in NZ

[RoughCollie]

I serve potatoes a lot. DH isn't fond of rice, and he likes pasta only as part of an Italian dish. He does like sweet potatoes, so I serve those pretty often instead. If we have corn or peas, that is the only starchy vegetable I serve, unless we are having pot roast.

[RainbowSprinkles]

Ok, I feel much better now. My dh seems to think if a meal isn't made up of a meat, starch, veggies ANA a roll, it's not a meal. It's because of his mother who is obsessed with food. Good for her, not good for me. I'm a keep it simple kind of girl and I don't like to sit around at lunch thinking " Now what's gonna be for dinner?!?"

 

Anyway, I'm feeling burnt out on coming up with different foods in different ways all the time.

[Ester Maria]

A salad of some kind.

[Lisa in the UP of MI]

Out of those choices, rice is our most common side dish. We rarely have noodles as a side dish. We don't have potatoes as a side dish very often either. We usually have a steamed veggie, salad, or other cooked veggie (like boiled corn or baked squash).

[Parrothead]

We rotate pretty equally among the options.

[J-rap]

My personal favorite is potatoes, although the quickest is rice or pasta, so those often win out. However, since three of my five children are presently on the paleo diet (meat, eggs, and veggies), we usually have an extra serving of veggies instead.

[Audrey]

We try to keep the carbs down at supper time since the pop up in breakfast and lunch enough. I usually do 2 vegetable dishes and a salad to accompany a protein. Seasonality tends to dictate what veggies those are. At the moment carrots, parsnips and squashes are frequent, as is broccoli.

[Krista in LA]

We mostly just have veggies as a side. My kids eat too many starches as it is, so I don't make it as a side.

[catz]

Veggies and fruit. Salad.

I try to stick to one starch per meal and we usually pick bread.

 

:iagree: Our most common sides are fruits and veggies and/or salad.