Are you busy? So, so busy you can barely stand it?

Me too. ’Tis the season, after all.

Spring always brings a certain scheduling chaos with it, one that I honestly flourish in. I’m a spring queen. I love finally getting into my garden again. I love the longer days. I love all of the festivals, concerts and party invitations. I love plans stacked on top of plans.

But I also love eating well – at home – for a good price. And by well I mean not only flavor-wise, but I always try to prioritize lots of fiber and protein. For adults, many experts recommend aiming for 1.2 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day, and 25 to 38 grams of fiber a day. I try to get 25 grams of protein at each meal and about 25 grams of fiber per day. It’s already pretty difficult to do that, and now that I’m on the move every weekend and most weeknights, it’s gotten harder.

What’s a person to do when they’ve barely got time to do the cooking, the cleaning, the traveling, the socializing and the work that pays the bills? On busy weeknights, when even boiling pasta can feel like too much, planning and executing a balanced meal can easily go out the window for me. I love a last-minute “dinner is not happening tonight” Chick-fil-A run.

But, in the spirit of finally accepting the truth that I feel my absolute best when I eat at home, I’m doing everything I can to make that as easy as possible for myself.

Enter the sheet-pan dinner.

The all-in-one sheet-pan dinner is hardly a new invention. We’ve discussed it here before. The column next door, Butter Together, has given you a few great recipes. In fact, I would happily bet a few sheet-pan recipes are already on your roster.

As my schedule would have it, I’ve been absolutely hooked on a sheet-pan meal lately, and I’m starting to get weird with it. I’ll peer into my fridge, consider the ingredients there – sparse due to my lack of grocery shopping lately – and think: salt, fat, acid, heat, fiber, protein, carb.

And that’s where the real fun begins.

White fish and a bag of sweet peppers, chopped and seasoned.

Carrots and chicken with a homemade yogurt sauce.

Salmon and white beans layered on top of sliced oranges that I forgot were in my fruit bowl.

Baked feta with broccolini, tomatoes and lemon.

There’s almost no limit on what you can use to create a sheet-pan meal, besides a cooking temperature that works for everything on your pan and your imagination.

To work in even more fiber, serve your dish alongside a pile of whole grains like quinoa or lentils, add vegetables like winter squash or broccoli, or sprinkle in beans, nuts or seeds. Then, keep adjusting the recipe to suit your needs and tastes: reduce the salt, dial down (or up) the heat and swap ingredients based on what’s in your refrigerator or pantry.

This past week, in my state of back-to-back plans, I knew I would need to be creative about dinner once more. I hadn’t grocery shopped recently, but I knew my sheet-pan formula, my freezer and pantry would save me.

And sure enough, in the freezer was some venison sausage my father-in-law brought us and a bag of frozen, diced sweet potatoes.

In my fridge was a cabbage that had been abandoned in the back corner – cabbage stays fairly fresh forever, thankfully.

The pantry held plenty of cans of beans.

I was in business.

On my pan, I dumped my sweet potatoes, still frozen, and lined up my sausage – also frozen.

I peeled the wilted leaves off my cabbage, chopped it up and arranged it on the edges of the pan.

I unceremoniously drained and shook out a can of black beans onto the pan on top of all the other things.

I was out of olive oil, of course, so I opted to use sesame oil. Oil is oil when you’re this busy, OK?

I seasoned everything with the no-fail basics: salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder and a few shakes of soy sauce.

After around seven minutes of prep, the pan was in the oven.

I roasted it at 350 degrees for 15 minutes so the cabbage wouldn’t burn as the frozen items began to cook. After I was confident everything was around the same temperature, I cranked it up to 425 and let it cook for another 10-15 minutes, letting the cabbage get those delicious charred edges and the beans turn crispy on the outside.

After I pulled out the pan and made our plates, I covered everything with feta leftover from Easter lunch, pecans and homemade honey mustard (Dijon and honey mixed together – easy).

Clean-up was easy, timing was a dream, and I hit all of my fiber and protein goals.

So, what sheet-pan meal can you make using what’s lying in your freezer and pantry? Email me your ideas – I’ll try them myself!

SHEET-PAN VENISON SAUSAGE, SWEET POTATO AND CABBAGE BOWL

Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 25-30 minutes

Ingredients:
12-16 ounces venison sausage (or any smoked sausage)
1 bag (about 12 ounces) frozen diced sweet potatoes
1/2 to 1 head cabbage, chopped
1 (15-ounce) can black beans, drained and rinsed
2-3 tablespoons sesame oil (or olive oil)
1-2 teaspoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon onion powder
Salt and pepper, to taste

For topping:
Crumbled feta cheese
Chopped pecans
2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
1-2 tablespoons honey

Instructions:
■ Preheat oven to 350 degrees
■ Spread frozen sweet potatoes on a large sheet pan. Add sausage (whole or sliced), cabbage and black beans.
■ Drizzle with oil and soy sauce, then season with garlic powder, onion powder, salt and pepper. Toss lightly to combine.
■ Roast for 15 minutes.
■ Increase oven temperature to 425 degrees and roast an additional 10-15 minutes, until sausage is heated through, cabbage is slightly charred and beans are crisp.
■ In a small bowl, mix Dijon mustard and honey to taste.
■ Serve warm, topped with feta, pecans and a drizzle of honey mustard.

Tip: Swap in whatever you have – broccoli instead of cabbage, chickpeas instead of black beans, or chicken sausage instead of venison. The formula stays the same.

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