To ask your fastest ever dinners (15 mins and less)

[Littleonesgettingbigger]

I have started batch cooking but would like to alternate these with fast meals on other nights so I don't use up 7 batched cooked meals a week! So far I have jacket potato done in microwave with beans, stir fry.......

What else is super fast to cook (15 mins or less)?

The Jamie Oliver method - throw a load of food in the pan/oven/grill. Add olive oil and shit loads of chilli. Serve.

Pasta with prawns (I get the raw ones to keep in the freezer ready to go):

• pasta on to boil
• cook garlic and chilli (flakes will do) in a pan with a little oil
• add in prawns
• add a good squirt of tom. puree and some pasta water to make the sauce
• add a bit of lemon zest
• mix with pasta and serve

We also make a big batch of pizza dough which will do a couple of meals - so on the days the dough is ready you just need to roll it out and add toppings.

We often do a pitta / wrap / roll with a large side salad of mixed leaves, tomatoes, cucumber + whatever else we have kicking around. Favourites are:

• Grilled chicken breasts in Nandos marinade with peri peri mayo
• Grilled chicken with pesto mayo
• Minute steak sandwich
• Occasionally posh burgers (Aberdeen Angus from Costco, or other high meat content)

Fish can be very quick to cook. If you eat prawns, a prawn pasta can be done in 10-15 mins with veg and a tomato based sauce. Alternatively, you can cheat at creating a creamy sauce for pasta by frying off some bacon, mushrooms & leek, adding a dash of wine and some single cream. It works remarkably well.

Grilled salmon - really tasty so can be served fairly plain with baby potatoes & a steamed / microwaved veg.

As others have said, anything egg based. If an omelette doesn't sound enough like a meal, fry off some diced spuds and call it a frittata.

Pasta with a gorgonzolla sauce, ham and peas.

Cook pasta, whilst it is cooking heat some cream and mix in.gorgonzolla or other blue cheese so it melts to make sauce. Chop.or rip.up some naice ham, add peas to pasta so they cook (frozen peas) drain pasta and pour over cheesy sauce and add ham.

My kids,all love this, easy and quick.

pasta dinners are normally always quick!!

cook pasta, fry mushrooms, add tin of tuna and mushrooms to pasta, stir in pesto (from a jar) bit of cheese grated on top if you want. Delicious and done in 15 mins max.

at "the Jamie Oliver method!

Mine is: Cook pasta, while it's cooking chop some broccoli, throw it in with the pasta when it's got 3 mins left to cook. Drain it, put it back on a low heat and add half a pack cream cheese, a big dollop of creme fraiche and a handful of grated cheese, then drain a big tin of tuna and stir in. Warm gently for a couple of minutes.

If you soak dried pasta in water over night it the cooks in boiling water in one minute - meaning dinner can be fasta.....

15mins? could do the following 3 times over and my kids love it. boil peas while soaking cous cous for 5mins. empty tin of mackerel in sauce of your choice (their fave is tomato but princes do a good Moroccon or indian) and mix altogether, sit back and feel virtuous over the omega 3.

Dd suggests supernoodles and potato bread!!!

Chicken noodle soup.

Cold shredded chicken, thinly sliced spring onions & red pepper in a saucepan with chicken stock. Bring to boil & simmer for a couple of minutes. Chuck in rice noodles and a dollop of sweet chilli sauce, simmer for a further 2 minutes and serve.

DD (10) and I will have a large bowlful each as a main meal on it's own but you could add bread if you felt the need.

DP's signature dish (which he cooks when I'm home late) - cook & drain pasta, add tomato puree (or pesto for a change), garlic puree, black pepper, lemon juice, Worcester sauce, mixed herbs and a packet of smoked salmon trimmings. Stir thoroughly and serve. Absolutely delicious!

So we're more or less decided on 'pasta with stuff', then?

fry chicken breast whilst boiling pasta with broccoli. after 5 mins add asparagus to pasta water and frozen peas. Drain pasta/veg and add some cream/creme fraiche/philly and a spoon of pesto and a spoon of mustard

also v nice with cooked sausages.

similar with frozen prawns chucked in with the pasta and some peas and philly

MrsBert
Or Couscous
but pasta / noodles are so versatile

Frozen mash, frozen peas, veggie sausages. No effort at all! Fry the sausages to cook (defrost) them quickly.

I make pasta carbonara in 10 minutes.

I made chicken tikka masala tonight in 15 min.

Left over leg meat from Sunday roast, chopped last night and mixed with a couple of table spoons of tikka paste.

Sliced onions and started them frying whilst water boiled for rice. Put rice on to cook. When onions were soft, added the chicken, fry for a couple of mins to cook off spices, then add enough water to make sauce, keep it simmering until rice nearly cooked. Add a large dollop of fat free Greek yoghurt to chicken and stir in before serving with rice.

You can do spaghetti bolognese in ten minutes. Jamie Oliver had some old Italian nana do it on one of his telly shows. She was fucking terrifying. She did it with garlic, then in went the mince, which she sort of smooshed with a wooden spoon quite furiously, then into that went a couple of blobs of tomato purée, salt and pepper.... She was adamant it could be eaten there and then. I for one, am not arguing with four foot tall Italian nanas brandishing wooden spoons.

Chicken noodle soup.
Cut up spring onions with scissors, add to oan and heat gently to soften, add chicken stock, once boiling add cooked chicken and dried noodles, simmer for 5 minutes or until noodles are soft. I add black pepper and some dried chilli and a bit of soy suave once in the bowl. You can also make this into 'egg drop soup' once soup is ready drop an egg White in and whisk with a fork then serve. The heat cooks egg white .

Spanish eggs..

Choose any mix of veg you want or your looking to use up.. Say peppers, onions, mushrooms and garlic. Chop and chuck in frying pan with sprinkle of olive oil. Add bacon or chorizo if you want. Chuck in tin of chopped tomatoes, season. Crack eggs evenly spaced in to mix, leave for 5 and serve.

Can get 5 veg in easily and it's delicious with chips

I batch cook a tomato sauce at the weekend with 6 tins tomatoes, garlic, onions, celery, courgettes (& whatever else veg I have lurking), basil etc. Slow cook on low for 12-24h, blending it all together after 8 or so.

That gets frozen in litre tupperwares.

Then for dinner - bag of mince & box of sauce from freezer in the morning, in pantry to defrost. When I get in - boiling water on for pasta. Brown mince, pour off fat, add sauce and simmer until pasta cooked. Takes 10mins.

Bacon pasta - same idea but I use chopped bacon fried crispy with half a tub of sauce, pasta and grated cheese.

Steak and salad.

Pizza takes 10 mins in a hot oven if you have the dough premade. Roll out, top with passata and basil, splodges of mozzarella, oven until bubbly. I put the flour/yeast/water etc in the breadmaker when I go to work on the timer so it's ready an hour before I get in, it gets that hour to rise.

Any kind of meat (fish, steak, chops, chicken) and steamed veggies. Just vary the meat and veggies.

Meat takes less than 10 minutes to cook, and I do the vegetables in the microwave - asparagus, snow peas, broccoli, cauli, etc.

Turkey pizza - turkey escalopes, chopped tinned tomatoes spooned on top, cheese grated on top of that (plus anything else you want). Cook in the oven according to pack instructions.

Pasta - with pesto from a jar or spaghetti carbonara takes 10 mins from scratch.
Stir fry, I normally do chicken or turkey strips with broccoli, thinly sliced carrots and then tip in some rice noodles (the ones that you microwave for 60 secs)
Sweet potato hash, basically a few sweet potatoes grated and then fried until soft (i add a tiny bit of cinnamon) add some crispy bacon and a fried/poached egg on top.