What are your go to quick, easy evening meals?

[ImaHogg]

I’m spending more and more time rushing about these days as I am caring for my mum. I am finding I am sticking frozen foods in the oven more often than not which isn’t ideal.
Any ideas for quick, easy, relatively healthy meals that I can rely on as go to’s for the family. We eat meat but ds is veggie so I usually have to do him something different then he has the same veggies as us.

Following as I'm in a similar position

One meal we had this week was lidl fresh ravioli it had some sort of cheese and nudja sausage, we had it with Morrison's 'best' mascarpone sauce from a jar and some garlic bread. Tea done in 12 mins or so!

Put penne pasta in pot to boil. Put oil in fry pan, a good glug, until warm. Add in sliced chillies and garlic leave for a while. Sometimes I just do this, mix in cooked pasta with a little of the pasta water and eat. Sometimes I mix in chorizo slices or cooked chicken slices from fridge, or a bit if pancetta. Mostly have salad stuff in fridge to eat with it.

Salmon and baby potatoes with frozen peas.
Pasta and some kind of sauce (stir in type)

But my main tip is to batch cook - curries and so on. You can buy rice pouches for the microwave but basmati only takes 1p mins anyway.

Today I am doing a traybake - pork chops. Chunky veg and baby potatoes. Then I sprinkle on some kind of seasoning (bbq or garlic and herb)
It just cooks away no fuss.

I bulk make and cook meatballs. Make them up, cook them in the oven then flat freeze them. When they're frozen I put them all in a ziplock bag so I can take out as many as I need at a given time.
Then I throw them into a pasta sauce frozen, they warm through as the pasta is cooking. It's saved me many a time

10 (typo)

Yes the fresh pasta is just fantastic from Lidl.

Baked tofu (or chicken) with halved mini potatoes and sliced veg e.g. carrots and parsnip- Bung in the oven and just add paprika/olive oil to the tofu and potatoes and honey and cinnamon to the veg. Bake for 20 mins.

Any bean (e.g. Black or kidney) with rice and vegan cheese and veg.

Pasta with olive oil and tinned tuna.

Penne with pesto !

Boil penne. Meanwhile:
Cut 2 or 3 big fresh tomatoes in little cubes.
Do the same with 1 or 2 pieces of mozzarella.
As soon as spaghetti is cooked al dente, remove the water and mix a jar of pesto with spaghetti. Add the tomatoes and the mozzarella. Done!
Also nice to add rucola and make it a pasta salad.

@Nuggetnugget

10 (typo)

Yes the fresh pasta is just fantastic from Lidl.

I was really surprised how good it was, If I'd been served it in a restaurant I'd have been happy

Smoked salmon trimmings

Double cream

Finely diced onion.

Fry onion, add cream, add salmon all done whilst waiting for the pasta to cook.

Pasta obviously with either homemade sauce out freezer (i batch cook) or the fresh sauces are nice from the refrigerated section of most supermarkets. You can buy a bag of frozen stirfry veg that you an throw in a handful as well; so quick and easy. A quick thai curry is fast as well using bought paste and cconut milk, stir fry veg, chicken, cashew nuts.

Pasta and pesto and cherry tomatoes. Can always dish veggie portion first and then add some cooked chicken, ham or other meat in for everyone else.
Oven baked family frittata.
Traybakes
Do you have a slow cooker?
Stirfry

Same as you, including the veggie.

These are cheats, but filling and easy

1. Cut peppers in half, while microwaving some flavoured rice from a packet. Fill the peppers with the rice and grate cheese over. Shove in the oven until the cheese is golden brown.

1. Defrost frozen salmon fillet in water. Put in a tin with tomatoes, pepper, asparagus. Season with anything tasty. Cover with foil and cook until the salmon is nearly cooked. Remove foil near the end to brown things. Serve with bread etc.

1. Sandwiches: get nice bread and loads of toppings, plus potato salad etc. Everyone makes their own.

Scrambled egg, baked beans/salad & toast (also mushrooms if we have any)

Egg noodles with carrot/pepper/sweetcorn/peas etc chopped in. 5 mins in wok

Pasta with passata & herbs

I agree as well traybakes are great and so is a multicooker etc and saves so much time. You can bung it all in and leave it to do it's thing.

Meaty, but:

Sausages (or chicken) in a cooking thing. Add tinned tomatoes, peppers, onions, etc etc. Add some water and seasoning. Shove in the oven until the meat is cooked.

Fab! Lovely ideas, thanks you.
I don’t have a slow cooker but have wondered if it may be a wise investment especially in the winter?

I invented this fairly easy cheat dinner.
Fresh meatballs, stick them in a large dish and bake while assembling sauce.
In a jug or saucepan mix a carton of passato with a jar of pesto or tomato and mascerpone pasta sauce, squeeze of tomato puree, herbs and garlic granules, dash of Worcestershire sauce.
Pour over the meatballs, rip some. Fresh mozzarella and put that on top, bake until bubbling. Serve with spaghetti.
Takes half an hour. Sometimes I get fancy and heat the sauce up while mixing, with some cream cheese added to the pesto and passata.

Not particularly healthy, but DH loves doing nugget wraps. Bake chicken nuggets/goujons. Serve with salad, grated cheese and wraps - everyone does their own with various sauces.

Buy frozen onions, garlic, chilli and herbs (Tesco’s are really good) this saves a lot of time. Waitrose and M&S do frozen spice mixes too they are really good. I also use frozen mince

This cuts down time and washing up and makes cooking easier

I also use ready made cheese sauce ds loves it with chicken friend in lots of garlic and mash (that’s frozen too)

Fried ...

Not chicken friend 😬

My time saving things are to:

Batch cook at the weekend - bolognese, curries, chilli - and freeze. Then you just need to heat rice or pasta.

Slow cooker - put it on in the morning and then you just cook the veg at night.

Stir fries with noodles take less than 10 mins
Pasta with either tomato sauce, carbonara, cheese sauce, alfredo - all take about 12 minutes.

My husband is veggie and everything on the list above can be made with meat, quorn, lentils, cheese or veggies like sweet potato, pumpkin etc.

Ima Hogg A slow cooker is a godsend! Obv Stews and casseroles .I use mine to do a ragu sauce .put on low 8/9 am back at 5/6pm so around 8 hours .Bring home fresh pasta .boil and use sauce! Also can do lasagne the same and around 40 mins to oven bake .Serve with garlic bread/salad . Ditto cottage pie .

Yes traybakes are so easy, I used to do mainly veggie ones but now I'm back at the gym I need more animal protein.

I use chicken thighs (with skin) or pork steaks, sliced onions, peppers, potatoes, courgettes, cherry tomatoes and a whole garlic bulb. Toss it in olive oil, paprika, oregano, seasoning and harissa paste and roast for an hour at 200c 👌

RagzReturnsRebooted They sound fantastic! Thank you .Will be trying out the wraps too!

Lay chicken breasts or thighs in an oven dish. Add chopped onion, peppers, peas (frozen is fine) tinned tomatoes, whatever herbs you have, some chilli flakes if you like it and a glug of olive oil. Stir it all around a bit then bake in the oven on 180-200 for about 30 minutes. Check chicken is cooked through. We have this with rice, wedges, baked potatoes etc. This recipe is perfect for the slow cooker but chicken thighs are better than breasts.

• Med Roast Veg with halloumi - OK, it's not quick as such but needs minimum effort and you can do other things whilst the veg are roasting

• Salmon with sesame noodle stirfry - put the salmon with sweet chilli sauce on into foil parcels in the oven for 20-25 mins. Whilst thats cooking do a stirfry veg and noodles in sesame oil. You could do some tofu as a veggie alternative

• Pasta asparagus - whilst pasta is cooking, chop some fresh tomatoes and add to a frying pan of oil and lots of garlic, steam the chopped asparagus in a microwave add to the sauce and stir through the cooked pasta. Serve and add diced mozzarella and grated parmesan.