Quick easy meal suggestions

[Kungfupanda67]

I’ve recently gone back to work following maternity leave with my 3rd and I’ve realised (while eating the bowl of cereal that was my dinner tonight) that my whole family are eating complete crap because we’re too busy/tired to ever cook anything.

Batch cooking at weekends isn’t an option as we’ve got 2 football sessions, rugby training and 2 sets of swimming lessons, plus the inevitable birthday parties and occasionally we do like to spend some time together.

What are your go to meals, preferably reasonably healthy, for mid week? Bonus points if it heats up well as we often have to eat at different times.

Do you have a slow cooker
do you all eat meat

www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/collection/quick

Tray bakes? Veg, protein,. Prep at breakfast and pop in oven when you get home.

Squash from freezer, toms, sausages in oven. Rice takes 12 minutes.

If you have time to make a spaghetti Bol, make a big one and freeze half. Freeze any portion size leftovers for late comers or yo have pot luck freezer dinners.

Omlettes.
Filled pasta. I always shred pre washed spinach and add that before I stir through pesto and avocado.
Jacket potatoes, get in from work and stick then straight in.
Wraps. I cook a couple of blocks of halloumi and put a plate of chopped salad veggies out and it's build your own wrap night.
Daal. Rinse the Lentil, boil with a bay leaf and tumeric. Once it's cooked heat oil in a pan, add the spices, let it sizzle, then add to the lentils. Salt to taste. Serve with chapatis.

I usually chop fruit up for the table too. I find that if I do that, way more gets eaten than leaving the fruit bowl out!

The freezer is your friend! Get ready chopped onions, peppers etc. Tomato sauce is quick, fry onions, a spoon of lazy garlic, tin of tomatoes, dried oregano, then cook. Shove in some tuna if needs be and put with pasta.

Same sauce but put on ready made pizza bases (we often use pitta breads) and top with what you fancy.

Shove a gammon in slow cooker, shred and have with rolls, salad etc.

Sea bass is quick to cook. Grill skin side up for 8 minutes or so. Serve with frozen veg and new potatoes.

Hairy bikers chicken chorizo tray bake. Takes an hour to cook but you can go off and do things as it cooks.

Stir fry- buy ready chopped veg, add Chinese five spice, soy sauce and cashew nuts

Pasta with fennel (sliced and cooked with garlic, onion, then break in a tin of sardines) top with toasted pine nuts. Oh shove some dry fennel seeds in whilst cooking

I've started using chopped frozen veg, mega time saver (also instant mash) for turkey mince cottage pie. Fry the mince, once it's done, add gravy and diced frozen veg and simmer for 10 mins whilst making the instant mash.

Have "soup and a pudding" days.

Veg curry - frozen chopped butternut squash, tinned chickpeas, frozen or fresh spinach, jar of curry sauce, with naan bread rather than rice as they only take a few minutes to warm through in the oven.

The dreaded 14 minute or so aldi pizzas (dreaded because my dc get all excited about having pizza, eat one measly slice, leave the rest and say they don't like it reheated).

Really think planning helps. So if you’ve got the oven on put in a load of veg to roast so the next night it’s east to mix with couscous and have with salmon. Or cook a chicken while you are cooking something else and have cold the next day.

I googled Waitrose recipes yesterday and loads of fab looking ones came up on the waitrose site ! It's now bookmarked !

Have a look on the hello fresh website, you don't have to be signed up to view their recipes. There's a large selection of "rapid" meals and lots of choice of types of cuisine. Most recipes Don't involve a huge amount of ingredients and all the ones I've tried have been really tasty.

My quick go to meals
Stir fry, within lots of extra veg
Chicken fried rice, add as little/as much veg as you like
Tortilla wrap pizzas (not great for rehearing but quick to make at individual time's)
Fajitas usually just make the filling to have with rice to save faffing with wraps etc
Tacos

Oh and soup. Make a huge pot and crusty bread or add pulses/pasta/rice to make it more filling. Any extra can be frozen for another quick tea or eaten within a few days

A Mary Berry recipe:

Sausages
New potatoes, halved
Onions, quartered
Peppers, quartered
Garlic, halved
Dried thyme
Olive Oil

Put everything into a large bag and shake. Tip into roasting tin and cook for 50 mins at 180. Give them a stir up after half an hour or so.

You could prep this before work maybe, leaving it in the fridge until you get home. I appreciate it will take an hour, but there's minimal work involved.

We got into the same habit as you and became bored with our usual go to meals. We've started having a Gousto box delivered and it's totally changed things. We enjoy cooking again because the food tastes so good. Some meals are quick 10 mins to prep too. It's so easy having all ingredients there for you in the right quantities.

We do quite a lot of one pot meals
Stir fries
Paella
Slow cooker is great for stews. A lot of supermarkets do 'stew packs' of ready-chopped veg which makes the prep even faster.
Traybakes. We tend to do chicken or pork with either mediterranean veg and baby potatos, or root veg
Fajitas

A bit of meal planning helps. It often doesn't take any longer to cook double the quantity of something so it can be used the next day. So if you do a chicken traybake one day you can stick twice as much chicken in as you need and then shred the leftovers the next day for something like fajitas or stir fry or a baked potato or pizza topping.
Takes no longer to make a huge pot of chilli than a smaller one so you can have it with rice one night, then burritos the next. If you don't like repeating foods then stick leftovers in the freezer instead for next week. If you make something like a shepherds pie make double the quantity and freeze one.

Thanks everyone, great ideas - I’ll do a bit of meal planning and use some of them.

Great tip about frozen veg - the only veg I ever think to buy frozen is peas, never really thought how much more variety things like spinach and butternut squash could bring and saving time and washing up with frozen chopped onion

Thanks!