Best 15 Minute Dinner Recipes

[CherryBlossom27]

Hi everyone,

Looking for some quick (and easy!) dinner recipes, I desperately need some inspiration and hoping you can share your best recipes!

DS is 7 months old and gets seriously grumpy around about the same time I start cooking, so if I can cut down on cooking time that would be great!

TIA

Do you have a slow cooker? I usually throw dinner on at around 1 or 2pm when the baby is napping. Then I either just have to boil pasta or throw a potato in the oven around tea time.

I make an easy spag bol sauce in the slow cooker, I just need to brown meat and throw it in with a tin of ready chopped and fried onions, passata, stock, tinned tomatoes and garlic plus any other chopped carrots or what ever. I have a slow cooked that has a glass lid so I can leave it partly off so that the sauce can reduce.

Thai green curry, although that can be nearer 20 mins for the rice to cook.

Stir fries - 5 mins max

I bought a chilled roll of pizza dough and made a fab homemade pizza last night. It was really easy and very quick. Garlic bread and salad

Stir fry in wok - chicken chopped up, veg such as mushrooms, spring onions, cherry tomatoes, garlic, ginger.
Add soy sauce and a few drops of sesame seed oil near the end.
Boil water for noodles at same time.
Takes 10 mins max and is v tasty.

www.goodtoknow.co.uk/recipes/quick-main

quick recipes, fab site for other recipes too

Pesto chicken pasta always goes down well with my 9 month old. Put the pasta on to boil, fry some chunks of chicken (one breast is enough for an adult and a baby), when cooked, drain pasta and add chicken and a couple of tablespoons of pesto. Really easy, takes 10 minutes and surprisingly tasty.

Quesadillas

2 tortillas, cheese bit of passata n whatever veg/sandwich meats u fancy. Get the kids to make their own.

Easy

Smoked mackeral pasta - 10 mins
Boil pasta, add some green beans towards the end. Drain. Mix in a pack of smoked mackeral, black petter and some parmesan. Presto!

Pizza - use a pre made base, add tomato puree, chorizo and some veggies and whack in oven for 10 mins

Grilled fish and stirfry (particularly if you're super lazy and get the pre-cut packs ) is quick. Put the grill/oven on, put water on to boil, season fish (e.g. salmon) and place under grill, put rice on to cook, then stirfry the vegetables - should take 15 minutes max.

Or - ready made puff pastry with various toppings, either as a quiche or a tart. For e.g. roll out the puff pastry, spread a bit of tomato paste, then cover with sliced tomatoes, cheese, olives etc., bake in oven for 10-15 minutes and serve. For a quiche, put the pastry in a pastry dish, and then for the egg stuff, use the ratio of 125 ml (1/2 cup) or milk/cream to each egg. Fillings could be cheese, grilled vegetables etc

Omelletes are also very quick, tasty and filling and you can throw whatever's around into them.

Goat's cheese ciabatta salad:

Stick ciabatta in oven to warm up (10 mins)
Meanwhile prepare salad - lettuce, toms, peppers, artichokes, anything you like
Slice ciabatta into bruschetta sized slices and top with goats cheese and caremalised onion chutney. Stick back in oven for a few mins so cheese goes melty.
Serve with salad and salad dressing :)

Ooh yummy! Thank you everyone I will check out these recipes :)

Dinner time is my worst time of day with grumpy baby and trying to cook something nice at the same time. I think once I've got dinners sorted life will be much easier!

frozen pre chopped vegetables! No more chopping onions. (Except brocolli and beans uck).
Try to make two meals in one go, like a spag bowl sauce could tun into a baked potato the following night.
Colcannon - use mash for a fish pie topping or shephard pie the following night.
Home made pizza - buy pre made bases and use frozen vege for topping.

Oh we do smoked mackerel pasta too ! but ours is with frozen petits pois not beans (and with cream too). v quick.

Pitta burgers: fry patty of mince in burger shape, toast pitta bread, stuff burger into pitta with lettuce and ketchup

Couscous: fry tomatoes & chopped red pepper & garlic in oil, steam couscous (v easy just add boiling water and cover for a few mins), mix tomatoes into cous cous, add chopped feta or fried halloumi slices

Lentils (takes a bit longer to cook but just sits on stove): Fry chopped onion, carrot, celery, bacon bits and mushrooms, add blue-green lentils, add stock cube and water and simmer till lentils are done. Add parsley

Omelette: with creme fraiche and whatever filling you want

Spaghetti carbonara: fry bacon bits, stir 1 egg and bit of cream, mix with pasta and lots of parsley

Grilled chops, boiled new potatoes & veg

Abs I had forgotten about puff pastry tarts... yum.

Which pre-made pizza bases do you use? The napolina ones are vile, but I love the idea.

Pasta, pesto, peas and Parmesan is a popular quick meal here.

Pasta on,

fry, mushrooms courgettes garlic (from a tube), any other manky bit of veg that need using up

Add pesto and some Philadelphia.

Mix,

Serve with a salad (can be out of bag)

12 minutes tops.

I can make zucchini (courgette) spaghetti with pesto in under 6 minutes yes I play time trials in the kitchen

Stuffed Peppers or mushrooms

You can use other sauces and its obviously quite good for you.

Why don't you do things like marinade meat on skewers then when you want to start cooking chuck under the grill/oven/bbq in under 15 minutes with salad or frozen veg.

Pizza dough - I just used the ASDA one I found in the chiller this one

for DD (15months) I can whip up scrambled eggs/omelette & toast in a time that would give the winners on Saturday Kitchen's omelette challenge a run for their money - with toddler on hip.

Leek & Cheese Super easy pasta
Chop 3 large leeks & sautee them in olive oil on med heat. When they are sweaty, add chicken or vege stock to cover by about 1cm and cook on medium heat until stock has reduced. leeks will be very soft and unctuous.

Cook your pasta (I like rigatione with this) while stock reduces.

Stir soft leeks into drained pasta.

Add large handful of grated mature/very mature cheddar, and lots of black pepper.
Scrummy & 4 ingredients (not counting olive oil & pepper)

Pea Soup 5 minutes
Cook peas, add some stock to the water. Blend.
Serve with grated parmesan & toast.

Slow cooker is ace or spanish tortilla - cube some left over boiled potatoes, fry some onions, diced peppers, whisk up about 6 eggs and put the whole lot in a deep frying pan. Cook on a low heat for a few minutes, then stick under the grill. Serve with salad and bread.
Or a really cheating one M&S tinned chicken breast in white sauce. Add to cooked pasta with veg and cheese - cook under the grill.

Put some pasta on to boil.
Fry some chopped bacon.
Add peas to pasta if you like.
Drain pasta when ready, then stir in a packet of Boursin.
Add the cooked bacon.

Ready very quickly and is very tasty!

Use fresh pasta - cuts down cooking time massively.

Reading with interest as in similar situ (only baby is a toddler!). I do alot of stirfries. I also do big batches of bolognese/soup at week ends and freeze and reheat during the week.

Buy prerolled puff pastry, unroll. Do a score around the edge, maybe 2cm in all around. Inside the score put some tomato puree or ketchup or fresh sliced tomatoes and cheese and herbs and bake at about 190 for 15 - 20 minutes and there's a lovely pastry pizzaish tea - it's so easy but DHs fave

Also if you have a bread maker with a pizza dough setting that's great and once it's done in the breadmaker you can make up the pizza when the LO is napping, put it on the baking tray, cling over the top and leave in fridge until you cook it for dinner. DH says it tastes better when it's been left for the dough to mature in the fridge

I make pizza dough in the bread maker the night before. Store it in the fridge in a plastic bag. When I come in from work it only takes minutes to rustle up pizzas with tomato purée and cheese whilst two teenagers and a 6 year old froth at the mouth.

Or

When dd is napping, chop up 2 mixed peppers, 1 courgette, 1 Aubergine, put in a baking tray with a handful of button mushrooms and halved baby new potatoes. Sprinkle with balsamic vinegar and a little sweet chilli sauce and cover with foil. when you are ready to cook dinner put in oven, still covered for 30 mins. Remove foil and place pork steaks on top of veg and cook for a further 20-30 mins depending on thickness. Takes a bit longer but very little work and the whole meal on one tray.

My fav mid-week dish is Nigella's mac and cheese with added spinach/broccoli/any other veg
250g macaroni
250g mature Cheddar or red Leicester or a mixture of both
250ml evaporated milk
2 eggs
Bag of fresh washed spinach
Salt and pepper

Boil pasta and in last minute add the fresh spinach to the water.

Drain and dump in a casserole dish.

Add the mixture of eggs, evaporated milk, cheese and S & P. Give a good mix.

Bang in the oven for 10-15 mins and you're done. Tasty, easy, protein from eggs and iron from spinach. Plus it heats up well for lunches or dinner the next night.

Ooh sounds good Brenau