Five ingredients, ten minutes

[CountessOfRule]

Spinning off from the food tech thread...

How many balanced, nutritious, tempting meals can we collect which have no more than five ingredients and which take ten minutes or less? In other words, quicker than a ready meal or pizza delivery, but not requiring a complicated shop or extensive store cupboard.

I'll start with:

Macaroni and broccoli cheese (pasta, broccoli, milk, cornflour, cheese)

Toastie (bread, cheese, ham, onions, served with fresh tomatoes)

[Pootles2010]

Stir fry? Bag of stir fry veg, bag of ready made noodles, pack of chicken/prawns/beef, bottle of whatever sauce you like.

[Smilesandpiles]

A ready meal or delivery takes about 30-40 minutes. Most meals can be cooked in that time.

[Dwerf]

Tuna pasta (tinned tuna, pasta, sauce, tinned veg)
Cheesy beans on toast (cheese, beans, bread)
Baked potato done in the microwave, various toppings (potato, cheese/ tuna and mayo)

[KellyElly]

pasta, pesto, cheese

[Pootles2010]

What ready meal takes 40 mins?! Normally about 5 mins surely!

[mummymeister]

potato and swede mashed together with plenty of black pepper. mix in tin of cold baked beans, microwave for a few minutes to warm up. whilst in microwave grate cheese put it on top and put under the grill. or mix up 1 part each of balsamic vinegar, clear honey and soya sauce then add it to a stir fry of anything. add in garlic, chilli, herbs or anything else that you fancy. corned beef hash using left overs. tomatos onion garlic and basil, chop it up put it in a pan with water, cook for 5 mins whizz up and have homemade soup. anything with noodles or couscous. bags of ideas often have to make a meal in under 10 minutes for DC's before they go to clubs.

[ouryve]

Noodle soup (at its most basic, soba noodles, stock, pak choi, spring onion, handful of chicken or prawns)
Pasta can be very simple - last night's had 5 core ingredients (pasta, jar of good quality tomato sauce, tin of tuna, courgette and red pepper, but I also used olive oil, garlic, a bag of spinach that needed finishing and the end of a block of cheese that needed using, to make it altogether more interesting)
My own lunch, today, was a bit of whatever's in the fridge, but perfectly tasty (Bacon, mushrooms, garlic, leftover cooked cauliflower and a splash of lemon and garlic marinade)

The key is knowing how best to cook individual ingredients and what flavours work together best. And, also, having the time, space and resources to cook it.

[TheGinSoakedBoy]

I've just made stew. Took 10 mins tops. I'll have it bubbling away until tea time though.
Pack of stewing beef, fried off with onions.
Pack of stew veg plus the leftover veg from the fridge.
Gravy grans plus garlic salt, hendersons relish ( a bit like Lea and perrins). black pepper.
Served with Yorkshire puddings ( none for me, too many syns!)

Cost about £4.00 plus stock cupboard ingredients. Will be cooked as soon as but obviously will improve the longer it left.

[SaucyJack]

Spaghetti, butter, parmesan, black pepper and salad.

[TheGinSoakedBoy]

To add, mine will feed 2 adults, 3 hungry dc's with some left for the cats!

[ouryve]

Even something like a ready meal cottage pie or lasagne, which often does take 40 minutes in an oven, is 40 minutes when you can go off and tend to the kids, or finish some paperwork, or sort the laundry, or have a bath. It also doesn't generate a lot of washing up. There were two enormous, heavy pans to clean after making last night's simple pasta dish for 3 people.

[JuniperTisane]

Carbonara. Pancetta, eggs, cheese, spaghetti, black pepper. Easy.

[Nocomet]

DD1s last night probably breaks the cheap.

Pasta, Philadelphia, Parmesan and smoked salmon.
We could have had salad didn't we were in a total rush and she was staving (forgot her purse, so hadn't had lunch).

[WTFlike]

TheGinSoakedBoy gets 0/10

[BertieBotts]

eggs, bread, butter, tinned (whole) tomatoes, bacon.

Scrambled eggs on toast topped with crispy bacon and tinned tomatoes. Amazing.

Although for me it's not the time taken to cook that puts me off cooking, it's the cleaning up afterwards. Mine uses 2 pans, if you heat the tomatoes in the egg pan (or 3 if you do them in the microwave)

My favourite no-cleaning-up dinner is baked potatoes. Takes longer to get a decent one but it's so easy, low effort and cheap.

[BreconBeBuggered]

Mushroom pasta: Mushrooms, double cream, garlic butter, pasta, seasoning. Don't count the calories, whatever you do.

[mawbroon]

Omlette

[Longtalljosie]

If we're excluding oven time - sausage casserole - sausages, onion cut into chunks, green pepper in chunks, tomato puree, tinned chopped tomatoes. Throw it all in, mix, 190 for 1.5 hours.

[RiverTam]

cook some pasta (around 10 mins). meanwhile, toast some pine nuts, grate some parmesan, cokk a whole head of broccoli for 5 mins, mix all together with a dollop of creme fraiche.

I should add I got this out of a book which is, in fact, a book of recipes of 5 ingredients, taking 10 (or it might be 15) mins!

[ByTheSea]

Spinach and ricotta pasta. Cook pasta (I tend to use shells/conchiglie). Drain over fresh spinach (I like lots of spinach so use two bags) to wilt. Return to pan and stir in tub of ricotta cheese and a tiny pinch of nutmeg. Season to taste.

[CalamitouslyWrong]

You can whip up some really nice salady meals in less than 10 mins with five ingredients.

(Tinned) butter beans, rocket (or spinach if you don't like rocket) and shaved Parmesan (or similar) dressed with olive oil (can be flavoured with herbs or garlic if you prefer). Serve with bread.

Avocado, (tinned) sweetcorn, red onion, chopped coriander and lime juice.

[CalamitouslyWrong]

And omelettes.

You could make a kind of quick huevos rancheros type thing with flour tortilla, egg, chorizo, cheese and a pot of ready made salsa (or just chopped tomatoes, I guess).

[CountessOfRule]

Aha, River. Good stuff.

No, I really mean five, and I really mean ten minutes from "what shall I make for tea?" to scoffscoffscoff. Sort of "shit we went to the swing park after school and we need to be at Beavers at half past" kind of thing.

Some very tasty ideas here!

[CatherineHMumsnet]

In case you hadn't seen it - take a look at our feature on 21 recipes in 50 words or less.