I need ideas for quick weekday meals!

[snorlax99]

I need inspiration for some quick, preferably quite cheap weekday dinners (evening meals). I do a chorizo and gnocci bake which is fast, and jacket potatoes (which actually take a while, admittedly, but are low maintenance as can be left in the oven to do their thing with no input). I'm not averse to sticking a pizza in the oven as well but I can only really do that once a week. I prefer cooking from scratch and aside from stir frys I am struggling to come up with much else. None of us have any food allergies and no one is a picky/fussy eater (apart from the toddler) so I feel like I should be able to come up with more than the few things I have in rotation! Thanks in advance.

https://www.tamingtwins.com

Have a look at this website. She's bloody brilliant! Her recipes work really well and are tasty and simple to cook.

She's on Instagram too.

I use Mealime app. Lots of choice and most take 30 mins or less.

In the summer get a posh quiche, new potatoes and salad.

Once a week I do soup and sandwiches.

Friday is breaded fish and wedges and peas.

Curry?
Spag Bol?
Chilli?
Prawn stir fry with fat udon noodles?

Sausage casserole/stewed sausages and mash (can use frozen if in a hurry)
Cottage pie/shepherd's pie
Fish pie
Lentil, carrot and ham soup with a crusty loaf or toasties/sandwiches - I buy some ready shredded ham hock to chuck in.
Chicken in a creamy mushroom sauce, can add ready made pastry on the top and have pie
Meatballs in a tomato sauce with pasta
Omelette/fritatta
Stir fry spicy rice made with whatever is left in the fridge/freezer
Curry
Chili

A lot of these can be made in a slow cooker - ready when you get home.

We have hot dogs or burgers and wedges
Meatballs and pasta
jacet potatoes and tuna or cheese and beans
chicken curry
chicken and bacon and cream nice pasta dish
wraps - salad and chicken tomato chutney
Pizza
Spaghetti bolognese - makes lots and freeze for the following week
sausage casserole or sausage pasta bake

Following

Steak and cheese ciabattas - cheap frying steak, red pepper, red onion, garlic, fry it all together with some balsamic vinegar, toast the ciabatta with cheese and you're done. The next night, I use the rest of the steak, pepper and onion, cook it with some red chilli pesto and mix through pasta, takes as long as the pasta takes to make.

Not necessarily quick but a throw it in the oven and done dinner - chicken thighs, cherry tomatoes, chopped red chilli, garlic and basil, cover it with some olive oil, salt and pepper. I just serve it with crusty bread to mop up the gorgeous juices. Takes about 45 mins in the oven but the actual prep time is less than 5 mins so you're not in the kitchen for ages.

Always make soup of some description on a Sunday so we've got soup and cheese toasties on a Monday night when it's hectic, and I've usually got enough leftover for lunch on a Tuesday.

Also a warm chicken and bacon/pancetta salad, fry chicken and bacon with garlic, chop up romaine or little gem lettuce while it's cooking, add tomatoes, parmesan and cesar dressing, mix it all together and top with the chicken and bacon

Cajun halloumi pasta. Takes 15 minutes max as you boil rigatoni then while that's cooking fry halloumi, onions and peppers with cajun seasoning. Add tomato puree, cream cheese and a ladleful of pasta water to make a sauce then toss through the pasta. Add basil and a squeeze of lemon at the end.

Prawn thai green curry is really quick too. Particularly if you buy the spice paste then just fry it off and add a tin of coconut milk.

What is this please

Look for the app on Apple Store/google play/wherever you get apps.
it’s a lime segment in white on a lime green background. You can tell it your dietary requirements and any foodstuffs you don’t want to eat, plus portions needed, and it suggests recipes or will do a meal plan to suit. Once you choose the meals, it writes you a shopping list organised into types of product (dairy, fruit and veg etc). You can add other things to the list manually. I used the free version for ages, but it’s less than £3 a month for the paid version. I save money because I don’t waste much.
It’s really handy.

Thanks so much everyone for all your suggestions! I really appreciate the replies. Lots to work through here, can't wait to try some new recipes. The cajun/halloumi combo sounds amazing x

I second the taming twins site. Made the slow cooker chicken.casserole- delicious. You could prep Sun night and put on before work on Mon

My current fave quick dinner is the egg yolk/mayo ramen thing that seems to have gone viral (sorry, hate that phrase...) last year...hence I only saw it on Insta a couple of weeks ago 😂

You mix the seasoning packet from cheapo ramen noodles with a bit of mayo and an egg yolk, then add the cooking water from your noodles and whisk to make a soup. Add your noodles and anything else (we've been doing watercress, mangetout, thinly-sliced courgette, spring onion, soft-boiled egg etc) plus airfried veg gyoza from the freezer. So delicious and 10 mins max!

My tried and tested quick dinners are scrambled eggs on toasted bagels, tomato tart on shop-bought pastry, with rocket/any salad (just a thin layer of wholegrain mustard on the pastry, then grated Emmenthal/any cheese, and sliced tomatoes on top - oven for 20ish minutes et voilà), chorizo and tinned butter bean stew/bake (essentially softened onions with chorizo, then add tinned toms and tinned butter beans and simmer, eat with crusty bread).

Also pasta with grated courgette and lemon (use either cream/cream cheese/egg yolks to make the sauce) or carbonara, egg fried rice with whatever veg I have plus micro packet rice, Welsh rarebit with salad, fish in parcels with baby tomatoes and lemon in the airfryer...I'm all out of inspo 😱

I'd recommend a slowcooker. I use mine all the time for quick weekday meals:

Spinach and chickpea curry
Bolognese
Lentil daal
Baked potatoes (crisp up in oven or airfryer)

Other quick ideas without the slowcooker:
Egg fried rice
Quiche with new potatoes
Pasta with roasted tomatoes and feta
Omelette and chips
Tuna pasta bake

And another one...salmon fillet roasted on top of broccoli with an amazing peanut, lime and ginger sauce, I think it was Rukhmini Iyer!

Also baked macaroni cheese (look it up on smittenkitchen.com) - not super fast but v hands-off and very very good.

I also do a smoked salmon tart with shop bought pastry - I cover it with a bit of creme fraiche or similar and then add smoked salmon (you can add it straight from the freezer), maybe grated courgette, and bake. Actually in the summer I do a lot of tarts like that - basic formula is cheese/veg/protein, so maybe goats cheese, tomato and some lardons or salami etc. it's a bit of a what-do-i-have-that-ive-forgotten-about dinner.

Oh also, ham, egg and chips! V quick if you do the chips in an air fryer and even quicker if you use tinned pineapple instead of the egg, mmmmmm. With peas for greenery...

Roast chicken yesterday (v large), only used half of it.

Curried chicken tonight.
Sliced pepper, whole green, half res
Sliced onion
Finely chopped chilli
Black pepper
Add the chicken
Sprinkle with two tsps curry powder
Add the chicken
Give it a good stir
Pour in yesterday's gravy
Add a mug of chicken stock (pot)
Stir and allow to summer for 15 mins
Meanwhile boil some rice
Add Creme fraiche to the curried chicken.

It's about 7 minutes' prep.

Rotisserie chicken, crusty bread and various salady things is also big at our house in summer. Also goats' cheese salad - slices on goats cheese on baguette, under the grill and served with a big salad with honey & mustard dressing.

Another good one - sausages cooked with loads of cherry tomatoes and red wine until reduced down, served on polenta/mash/pasta etc - 5 O'Clock Apron (Clare Thomson) has a good recipe for this.

Another TamingTwins fan here, the website and Instagram are great. I buy ready chopped and frozen onions, spinach, butternut squash plus lazy garlic and chilli, to make everything as easy as possible!

Peanut chicken is default in our house: chop chicken breast and peppers, put in a foil covered tin and roast for 20 minutes. While it cooks, boil up noodles with some frozen peas and sweetcorn, and stir up a biggg spoon of peanut butter, a splash of soy, a teaspoon of honey, a tablespoon of sesame oil and a shake of ginger and garlic powder with enough water to make a spoonable sauce. Combine and serve, with chilli sauce for those who partake.

Simple, tastes great and has enough veg to count as healthy! The original recipe I adapted from added spring onions, sesame seeds and ribbons of raw carrot and cucumber, but my family are rather more fussy than yours so I don't bother...

Lots of pasta sauces can be made in the time it takes to cook the pasta so that's often my go-to quick and easy meal.

Funds permitting, grilled/fried meat/fish with steamed veg and new potatoes is fairly quick and very easy. Does tend to be more expensive as you need good quality proteins. I reduce the cost by turning it into a sort of baguette/sandwich style meal - eg steak, with fried mushrooms and a pickled slaw on a pita bread because that way I can do 400g steak for 4 of us, whereas if we're having something like steak and chips, we'd want at least 600g for 4 of us.

Longer to cook but v simple is any kind of chicken tray bake. Minutes to prep then in the oven and can easily be served with rice or bread.

Thai-style curries using a paste are my other quick option. - can have on the table in about 20 minutes.

Slow cooker meals
Baked potatoes
Soups (batch cooked and frozen for the week)
Toasties and soup
Salmon, cous cous and veg

Anything with cous cous really! It's so ridiculously quick and easy

Thanks so much everyone, I really appreciate all the replies! I love cooking, as does DH, and as we all love eating, lol, we're excited to try some of your suggestions out. I'll be going through this thread making a list tomorrow when the baby is napping, and I'm looking forward to some new recipes starting from tomorrow night!