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)?

How do you turn quesadillas over?

The quasedillas become harder as they toast slightly and the filling helps cement the structure!
Just flip using a fish slice.

Anthing on toast, ie beans cheese eggs.

Stroganoff

Fry onions, fry beef, fry mushrooms, add paprika, brandy, flambe, add sour cream.

Serve with microwave rice

You CANNOT do a bolognaise in 10 minutes. That's a 2 hour meal minimum

More pasta. With chunky smoked salmon, asparagus,cream and squeeze of lemon. My dc's favourite.

The jamie oliver fried pizza is very quick.

My go to lazy somewhat healthy meals are:

Chicken kiev (bought) with steamed seasonal veg. Yes takes 25 mins to cook but only 5 mins prep, turn on oven and steamer, wait and then serve.

Green rice with tuna (with capers) or smoked makeral, with salad or yogurt w cucumber. Again longer than 15 but very little prep, just a little stirring and salad choping.

White fish with steamed veg. Steak with steamed veg or salad.

Jacket potato (oven) with salad and a topping of choice.

Stir fry noodles. Pre chopped veg bags make it even quicker.

Pasta with any variation of boiled veg and pesto or tomato sauce.

Spanish omlette and salad.

Pasta with lemon, olive oil, garlic fried sauce, with parmesan.

Pan fried spaghetti with garlic, olive oil, fresh chilli, cracked black pepper and parmesan.

Shish kebab, lemon and saffron chicken or pomegranate chicken, with salad, yogurt, pitta bread.

Lamb mince kebab w fresh mint, grilled with pitta, yogurt, salad.

Any big mixed salad

Couscous salads
Quinoa salads

....basically I really love salads

Smoked haddock poached in milk with brown bread or your favourite veg and new potatoes.

I do batches of roasted veggies (peppers, courgette, onions, pepper, mushrooms and garlic, seasoned and olive oiled) when I have the oven on and freeze them in portions. One of those added to a jar of tomato sauce with a slosh of added red wine/bag of frozen HM tomato sauce and some freshly cooked sausages/bacon/chicken/prawns (works well with all so can mix it up) and freshly cooked pasta is a pretty fast dinner. And doesn't feel so much like a batch one.

Chorizo potatoes - mix together salad potatoes, half a chorizo sliced, a packet of bacon lardons (this is deviating from original recipe but we love it!), a jar of tomato and chilli sauce. Pop in oven for an hour. Serve with wilted spinach if desired (super fast veg - open bag of baby spinach into colander, wash in cold water if needed, slowly pour over 1 kettle of freshly boiled water, press with metal spoon/potato masher to get rid of excess water if desired but spinach is now cooked).

One question though - is it that you need food on the table in 15 minutes (but can you have some bits prepped in advance?), or that you only have 15 minutes to get it going but could leave things to simmer/bake for a while once they're started, just not needing extra attention?

I often make HM potato wedges and roast a chop or chicken joints, maybe with the veggies mentioned above (which can be chopped, seasoned/oiled and left in fridge overnight before cooking) - 15 minutes prep and ignore oven for 25 mins, dinner done. Chorizo pots can be prepped the night before and set up with the oven on a timer. Shop bought garlic potatoes with fish in a foil packet all thrown into oven - about 5 mins prep and maybe 25-30 mins in oven. I tend to set timers for things like this so I don't lose track when doing other things.

Or I will have veggies chopped in fridge from the night before to make a stir fry, which only takes 15 mins to cook but prep may add another 10-15. Or do a fast chicken tikka masala by having the onion chopped in fridge, marinating the chicken in tikka paste in a freezer bag in fridge during the day, turn on pan with oil and kettle for rice water as soon as I get in and it cooks in just about 15-18 mins.

I got a couple of Red Mullet fillets (reduced in Tesco), squeezed Lime juice on them and left them for 20 mins, they cooked themselves. Had salad and bread and butter with it. Delish.. I know, sounds a bit poncey, but almost no washing up. Consider!

I often put something to marinade in the morning so I can then cook it quickly when I get back. Takes a few minutes (particularly if you have tubes of ginger, garlic etc), but makes life a lot easier.

A couple of favourites:

Sticky pork - cut pork into strips, mix soy sauce, rice wine, garlic and brown sugar. Chuck the whole lot in the pan and stir-fry with veg and serve with noodles. When you take the meat and veg out, boil the sauce down for a few minutes so it goes very sticky and pour over the top

Curry chicken - mix Greek yoghurt with curry paste of your choice (about 1 tsp of paste to 200ml of yoghurt) and cover with chicken. Grill and serve in pitta breads or with rice with salad / cooked veg

Nice one for lamb - mix lemon juice, garlic, chilli and mint with oil as a marinade for lamb steaks. As you fry the lamb, cook rice / couscous, stir in froze peas / broad beans

Quick and easy marinade (can just leave it for 15 minutes before cooking) - mix the juice of one lemon with a crushed garlic clove and a tsp of cumin and pour over chunks of chicken. Grill off and serve with couscous / rice / pitta breads with yoghurt and veg / salad

hestialou
Anthing on toast, ie beans cheese eggs.

Garlic mushrooms on toast is good too, and takes about 5 mins. Nice served with a few salad leaves or parsley.

Beef and broccoli stir fry. It's nothing like the take away version but we like.

Put noodles on to boil and broccoli to steam.
Cut beef into thin strips (works best with left overs but just as nice with fresh thin steak cut up) and fry along with onions.
Once broccoli is cooked to your liking add to the same pan as beef and onion.
Add soy sauce, garlic (fresh or dried makes no difference), chilli, ground coriander, and any other spices of choice really, plus a little bit of water
Cook out for five minutes, drain noodles and serve.

Literally 15 minutes and my go to quick meal.

I like to roast a chicken, or joint of pork, ham, etc. and slice and freeze in portions. This removes the time-consuming meat cooking from the equation.

Then serve/mix it with pasta/couscous/rice/quinoa/noodles and whatever vegetables I prefer/have in the fridge.

Spaghetti and Pesto

Cook spaghetti to pack instructions, then pour into a colander to drain. Place pan back on low heat and add jar of pesto to pan - choose whichever pesto you fancy. Add pine nuts if you fancy them.

Add drained spaghetti back to pan and stir to warm through and coat with pesto.

Serve with grated Parmesan cheese. Delicous, quick, easy, fresh!

Cook pasta, stir through ham, avocado, cream cheese or sour cream, sliced cherry tomatoes and season. Fresh pasta even faster!

If you want easy to cook / little washing up, and who doesn't? Get a slow cooker OP, chuck in meat, veg', spud or two, salt and pepper, herbs, whatever you like. Come home to lovely comforting dinner. Not really a summer thing though I s'pose?

Put some frozen peas in the microwave. Zap. Ditto a tin of sweet corn, and a packet of mircowavable rice. Chop up some ham, some leftover cooked meat or fish or tofu or any mixture. Mix everything together. Another 30 secs in the microwave to make sure everything's hot. Serve. 7 minutes from entering the kitchen.

Seared tuna steak with cous cous and salad. Pour boiling water over cous cous with a veg or chick stock cube and tbsp olive oil and a squeeze of lemon-stand for 2 mins. Sear tuna both sides and serve with bagged salad plus a few slices of cucumber, peppers etc.

Haven't read the rest but my top quick dinner is pesto spaghetti (spaghetti cooks quicker than pasta shapes) with sweetcorn and peas chucked in to cook with the spaghetti, stir in pesto, cheese grated on top. Carb/veg/protein, job done.

Also I always keep frozen pizzas in (if you haven't tried them yet, Icelan pizzas are great and cost 89p) as they cook in 10 mins, with cucumber and tomatoes, 1 pizza will feed my 3 kids.

Mintyy yes you can make meals nutritious quickly. Just always have cucumber/tomatoes/frozen sweetcorn and peas to hand, then you can always add one of the 5 a day in 2 minutes.

Oh yes noodles are another good one. My kids favourite is noodles cooked (3 mins boiling) with peas/sweetcorn/broccoli (chopped small to cook quick), then stir in peanut butter and soy sauce, chopped up ham if you want it or handful of peanuts or cashew nuts.

Basically cuts of meat that you can flash-fry in a pan: chicken breasts, steaks, pork chops. Throw in some sliced onions, garlic and mushrooms and other veg if you want. You could make a sauce by throwing in some stock/winewine/cream. While that is cooking, do some rice/pasta/couscous.

A lot of Jamie's 15m meals are variations on the above!

Gazpacho. Put your tin of tomatoes/passata and stock in the fridge the night before so that it's all nicely chilled. Whizz all ingredients in a food processor, serve.

Gnocchi or pasta with pesto from a jar or stir-in sauce