Super fast meal ideas to avoid buying a takeaway

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We seem to be running out of time to cook at the moment with small hungry children and getting delayed with after school clubs/unexpected traffic etc and have ended up with both McDonald's and chip shop in one week! I need some ideas for nights when this happens to avoid takeaway. The only super fast meal I can think of is Greek salad which is no good as the kids hate it and a frozen pizza which is no good as the kids both have cows milk intolerance. Any ideas anyone?

Pork chops, steak, lamb chops and chicken breasts will all cook in a frying pan in 15m.

If any of them are a bit thickly cut, lay out some clingfilm, put the meat on it, wrap the clingfilm back over the meat, and bash with a rolling pin to make them thinner. Then they'll cook more quickly.

The clingfilm and bash method can be a bit fiddly the first couple of times you do it, but once you get the hang it only takes a couple of minutes at most.

You can add all sorts of ready made seasonings and spice mixes from packets or your own spice/herb rack.

A lot of meals in Jamie's 15m dinners are based on the above cuts of meat and bashing them out before you fry them!

And for quick sides to go with the above:

Baked beans
Sweetcorn
Frozen peas / green beans
Broccoli
Those packet things which have all sorts of different flavoured rice/quinoa/bulgar wheat/couscous in them
Salad
Little new potatoes

What age are they? Mine were screaming for early meals for a long time, no matter how substantial the after-school snack was! I used to offer humous and pitta bread or toast and nut butter but that was never enough to carry them through until even 6.30pm.

You need four quick meals a week? We have the same meals each week (autistic teen likes familiarity) but I guess that means you want a choice of six or eight to rotate through.

I agree it's about organisation and planning. Once you know what you are going to make each evening it is far less stressful. And you can declare Friday, for example, as chip day. I can imagine they will cope with waiting a bit longer if they are waiting for chips!

Two pasta meals a week:

1. Pesto - you can get jars of dairy free pesto in supermarkets (or you can make your own). You can add peas, sweetcorn, tiny bits of broccoli to liven it up.

2/3. Batch cook a tomato sauce and a meat sauce and freeze in small portions - get out of the freezer in the morning. Serve with different shaped pasta so it feels likes a different meal.

1. carbonara type sauce you make as you cook the pasta

Beans on toast

Sandwiches/humous/pitta bread every once in a while

The microwave bags of rice, flavoured rice, mixed pulses etc are great bases for fast meals. They take one or two minutes in the microwave and you can cook some veg quickly to go with them.

Also agree with stir fries and slow cookers. With the slow cooker you can always prep the veg at the weekend and freeze in bags which you take our of the freezer the night before.

You'll be fine once you get in the swing!

Lots of good ideas on here. I have a slo cooker, bought it years ago, when I was working an early shift nursing, going home for a couple of hours, then out working for Ex H cleaning business. I dont brown meat just chuck everything in, and bingo!

I bought a light timer for my slower cooker and I can now program it to go off midday. Which makes it easier when you are gone 10-12 hours

Sorry if it's been suggested before but have you ever tried any of the dairy free cheese type items?There's a list of them on here
www.peta.org.uk/blog/10-vegan-cheeses-you-need-to-try-uk/?gclid=CJXuz8HO8dECFcad7QodwcoDkQ I'm not vegeterian or vegan but I've had times where I've had to go dairy free because of my illness.

With stir frys and wraps you can buy sliced chicken that you can cook from frozen now or use fresh(or frozen that's been defrosted)chicken and just slice it thinly and it will cook through within the 20 minutes you have.
Thinly sliced steak cooks through within a few minutes as well and we've had that in stir frys and wraps and it was lovely.
Quorn if your children would prefer that to the chicken and you can use that to make currys,stir frys,fajitas,Quesadilla's.

Tacos and loaded nachos only take 20 minutes to make and they don't have to be spicy.

Soup and sandwiches,if you haven't got time to make the soup you can buy really decent chilled one's from the supermarkets now.

Bolognese is another quick meal or pasta in a tomato sauce(made wih passata,herbs and garlic)quick,tasty and good for you all.

Lamb koftas in pitta breads,make the koftas the night before and leave in the fridge and then cook the next day.

Sausage casserole,cook the sausages the night before and make up the sauce leave to cool and stick in the fridge then as soon as you get in pop them into a casserole dish with the sauce and into the microwave,done in less than 10 minutes.

Jacket potato with beans, tuna, previous nights leftovers on top. They could have fruit for pudding, so at least you've got two portions of fruit & veg in them.

I think make big pans of bolognese and cook pasta quickly, can do you a few days. have meals on the go like that. Or heat baked potatoes you did earlier.

I feel your pain! I also find the slow cooker very helpful. There's a great slow cooker cookbook by Audrey Deane, and some good recipes in the Mumsnet cook book (I like the virtuous chilli and the cowgirl stew).
At the weekend I do a batch cook each day; last weekend it was an enormous spag Bol on the Saturday and Hungarian goulash with pork on the Sunday. We will have the goulash tonight with frozen mixed veg and microwave rice.
Good luck. I found it very difficult at first but now I do my meal plan every week. There's a good template on The Organised Housewife which you can download.

Cheesy beano made with those tins of beans and sausages that always lurk in the back of cupboards. We were in raptures at it last night.

Rice and veg is my go to quick meal.

Cook rice with plenty of water
5mins before the end throw in mixed frozen veg
Then either egg fry or leave plain. Serve with chopped ham/ ready cooked sandwich chicken/ fish fingers/ sausages or whatever to hand!

Or even quicker - microwave rice and tinned/packet meatballs in sauce or tinned chicken curry. It's taken a few goes of trial and error to find ones we like, but there's a Tesco tinned curry and a sachet type thing of meatballs we think are OK. Not ideal everyday but handy just to have in cupboard as so quick to heat through - though we discovered that also really handy when camping as long life and doesn't need to be kept in fridge

DH loves tinned ravioli, which I think is rank. But I do like kids tinned pasta shapes with sausages as an alternative!

Or keep in frozen stir fry veg and do with noodles. Only takes a few minutes

Beans on toast with some cut cup salad veg would be quicker wouldn't it?

I've just cooked some pasta which I'll return to the boil for a min when we get back. Got a jar of pesto at the ready and cut up salad veg. This took me 8 mins approx.

Mine like beef burgers and chicken burgers, can be quick if fried. And frozen mash is good. frozen cooked chicken quick for a curry with frozen pre chopped onions! Or with a jar of sweet and sour sauce.
Potato waffles in the toaster with beans on top!

A big vat of bolognaise frozen in batches is very versatile. Apart from spag bol, add cinnamon and chilli plus kidney beans for chilli with rice. Add cinnamon and chilli, melt cream cheese into it and mix with pasta shapes. Put the chilli mix in tacos. I prefer my pressure cooker to the slow cooker. More expensive tender cuts of meat cook in 20 minutes, cheaper cuts 40 minutes. When you have time to cook, cook double and freeze for another day.

Bake potatoes and sweet potatoes in the microwave for quick mash.

The Joe Wicks Lean in 15 green book is good (there are some nice recipes in the red and blue books as well, but the green is my fave). They are genuinely quick as well.

Jamie Oliver 15 minute meals is good but unless you chop and prep like a professional, the real time is closer to 20-25 minutes - and he does have an unfortunate tendency of using every bastard pan in the place.

My DS fave meal is sausage casserole. It is literally carrots ,onions, sausage and stock add frozen peas for 5 mins when in. sometimes I put small potatoes sometimes chunk bread. thicken with gravy graules, bolognaise can be made in slow cooker in the morning just cook pasta when you get home, also Jackets can be done in slow cooker. Omlette is my rush tea, beans on toast is a great filling meal, Cheesy beans a treat. Burger and oven chips don't take longer than a detour to Mcdonalds unless you drive past and go through drive in.

You don't need to brown the meat first if time is that much of an issue. Five minutes generally is enough though.

Fallenempires - timer plug for slow cooker = genius! I have never thought of that, and will now be stealing that idea.

If you have a slow cooker, wrap potatoes in tin foil and put them in before you go to work
Can you do this? I always put liquidy things in, never thought about foil coverd pots...

Buy some bags of frozen microwave rice or microwave mashed potato (they sell this in Tesco) - I used to buy sainsburys vegetarian burgers which you can actually heat in microwave or frozen fish in sauce

I do chicken stir fry in 15 minutes. Chop up the chicken into small chunks and cook in the oven, takes 10min at most to cook so gives time to stir fry some noodles/veg in a wok. Add chicken and sauce to veg/noodles in the wok for a minute - done!

I batch cook a huge tomato sauce and freeze it in bags, you can just throw it frozen into a pan of cooked pasta with whatever veg you like. Bacon is good with pasta, or pre-made meatballs?

Slow cooker if they don't like casserole food I'd suggest mild curries (maybe?) or big joints of meat that you'd normally roast. Gammon in Coke, pork in cider/apple juice, beef in a beery gravy, anything like that would work fine. I did a spin on a SW recipe this week, chunks of chicken with onions/peppers/mushrooms and threw in chicken stock cube, a tin of chopped tomatoes and a can of Diet Coke, it was like a sweet BBQ-ey sauce, ds (4) hoovered it up.

You could cook jackets the night before or get the frozen ones and reheat. All veggies reheat well enough next day.

Sausages reheat ok as well. Iceland sell really nice salmon portions in garlic and herby dressing that you microwave in 3 mins, my son adores that with instant noodles or microwave pouch rice. They also do pre-cooked sliced chicken pieces that you can stir fry from frozen or just leave out to defrost. Obv no good if chicken is completely off the menu though!

The Jamie Oliver 15 min recipes are great. Frittata/omelette can be whipped up quickly with whatever randomness you've got in the fridge.

Wraps are good with whatever salady bits you've got, with chopped up breaded/battered chicken strips (again Iceland do some good ones in funky flavoured coating).

Lasagne, fish pie, cottage pie, bolognese, anything mincey really, reheats and most taste better next day!

Sorry if I've repeated anything from pp!

Anything in wraps. We love falafel, houmous and raw pepper or other crunchy veg. Chicken and sweetcorn good or tuna.

My emergency dinner is: put some of those Tilda packets of rice in the microwave; chop some sun-dried tomatoes (could do in advance), chop some feta or saute some halloumi in olive oil; mix those with the rice and tomatoes when done. Then stir in a packet of baby spinach and the heat from the cooked rice will wilt it, OR you can add some steamed broccoli. Serve it with a yummy roll, a piece of premade and reheated foccacia, or a few slices of baguette.

Obvs this only works if your kids like feta or halloumi and your family will eat vegetarian...but it has protein, greens, a rice base to make it filling, and cheesy goodness to make it cheesy. And it is Fast. If they insist on having meat, you could always throw in some shredded prosciutto or some chunks of dry-fried chorizo