25
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What are your I-don't-want-to-cook-but-I-have-to-eat- recipes?
As the title says, I am looking for your go-to recipes for when you are not in the mood to cook. They should be fast and simple to make and be preferably not too expensive.
Let me start this: Tortelloni with tarragon-cream-sauce (3-6€/2servings, depending on the tortelloni)
*500g Tortelloni, 250ml (sweet) cream, 2 tomatos, tarragon/salt/pepper;
- Water with salt in one pot, cream with tarragon and 4 short splashes of water in another;
- Cut the tomatos into pieces and add the to the cream when it boils slightly
- When the tomatos are added, stir the cream (it should get slightly red from the tomato juice
- add salt and pepper
- at this point the water should be boiling, add the Tortelloni
5.1 I usually buy the Tortelloni from the fridge, they only need to be boiled for 2 min, adjust the timing when you heat up the cream according to needed time to boil the pasta - When everything is finished put everything together and enjoy
One of my lazy favourites:
Apart from boiling the water, it takes approximately 6-7 minutes to create a dish for two for (I think) about 7-8 euro.
Soy sauce makes everything better.
And I'm an Italian guy that knows how to cook, saying that ;)
Aglio e olio at 2AM is the classic of lots of Italian teenagers (and also not teenagers anymore *ahem*) and rightfully so.
Delicious and quick/cheap to make :)
Sounds good!
Chickpea salad sandwiches
1 can chickpeas, drained
Half a bell pepper
1 green onion
Mayo (vegan in my case)
Mustard
Half a lemon
Pinch of dill
Pinch of cayenne
Salt and pepper
Mash up the chickpeas with a fork/potato masher and finely chop the veggies. Mix them together with a squirt of mustard, juice of half a lemon, a few tablespoons of mayo, and the seasoning. Makes 3 good sized sandwiches. I've been enjoying this during the current heatwave since it doesn't need cooking!
Are you dipping the bread into the milk?
Take a can of condensed chicken soup, a bag of mixed veggies and 1lb of cubed chicken breast.
Mix in a oven safe pot.
Cover with cooked stuffing, bake for an hour (350ish) - whenever the fuck it finishes. It's pretty good.
A personal favorite of mine is Lazy Chicken. It's not exactly fast because you make it in a slow cooker but it's certainly simple.
When you're done you have enough food for a few people, or several days of food for one, especially if you add some sides each day.
If you have an instant pot, you can do this exact same thing but just cook all of the ingredients in the pot on high pressure for 20 minutes. It'll take more like 45 minutes (takes a good 20 minutes for the pressure to build) but it's still way faster and comes out perfectly every time. I love making chicken tortilla soup this way.
Breakfast Sandwich
Put it all together and you have a tasty sandwich!
Our kids are expected to cook a few times a week and they are masters of the easy meal. The most common thing they do is just boil something and add a sauce: frozen ravioli or somen noodles. When they are feeling ambitious they will generally cook some sort of chicken-in-sauce dish to serve with rice; that involves cubing and cooking chicken breast while the rice cooker is going, then adding a jarred Indian sauce or making a simple curry (i.e. coconut milk plus canned curry paste). All fine, esp from teen chefs.
My own go-to "don't want to cook" recipes are mostly soups. If you have an instant pot or a slow cooker they are almost no work. like this:
-three cups dried split peas or lentils
-six cups liquid (broth or water)
-aromatics as you desire (garlic, ginger, tarragon, onion, etc.)
-meat if you wish (ham or bone, cold leftover chicken, etc.)
-additional veggies if you like (carrots, celery, any root vegetable really) cubed small
-salt and pepper to taste
Just dump it all in the cooker; it will take about 15 minutes on high pressure in an instant pot or 6-8 hours on low heat in a slow cooker. Adjust liquid and seasoning to taste before serving.
Here's one I've been doing recently.
10oz pre-packaged gnocci
Bunch of asparagus
Package of prosciutto (3oz or so)
Garlic
1x cup chicken broth
1tbsp olive oil
Parmesan cheese
Boil the gnocci in a big potuntil it floats and set aside in a bowl. Fill the same pot with oil and return to medium heat. Smash up some garlic and throw that in there. Remove the woody part of the asparagus and chop it into inch-long pieces, then throw that in the pot. Cut the prosciutto into thin strips and throw that into the pot. Add some salt and pepper and stired occasionally until garlic is cooked and asparagus is almost tender. Then throw in the gnocci and broth and continue to cook until the
Broth is mostly reduced. Mix in parm cheese and serve! Should make 4 servings.
I make "garbage" soup and grill cheese.
Soup is basically anything and everything I have laying around. The usual ingredients are tomato, potato, carrots, whatever left over protein. The secret ingredient is ketchup. I always forget salt, but totally necessary.
Grill cheese with whatever cheese I have, usually cheddar or brie, and sliced tomatoes if I have any.
PS there are some pretty good suggestions here I can wait to try out.
Definetly,
is there a safe feature implemented to save posts/comments for later use?
Not yet, but it's on the list!
First, I definitely recommend an Instant Pot. They can cut down on a lot of time.
I'm rarely not in the mood to cook (I love cooking, and that's probably why I'm kind of fat, or maybe it's vice versa), but if I want something simple, I'll often throw things in the Instant Pot and let it do its thing. Chili is great. I use these things, usually picking one or two things from the parenthesis:
Those are what I normally throw in. If you want to make really good chili, then brown the meat first. If you want to make almost-as-good-as-that-but-way-less-effort, just throw everything in the pot at the same time. It's pretty low effort, and turns out pretty well. You can switch it up and have chili variations. You can make a big batch, and have it several times a week, or you can freeze it for easy meals later. It's full of proteins and beans are great for you.
Chicken breast. I can make a perfect one in 10 minutes and then eat it plain or add a bajillion things to it - parmesan cheese, marinara sauce, pesto, cube it and toss it in a salad, slice it and put it in a sandwich... options are endless. I really love to get those pre-mixed salads that come with toppings and dressing and then throw a chicken breast on top and sometimes I'll add avocado or bacon or a hard boiled egg. Recipe Here
Broccoli on the side. I like broccoli in every form but for a quick cook you can toss a slice of cheddar on top and nuke it in the microwave for 1 minute and voila - cheesey broccoli. Buy a pre-made dip of spinach and artichoke and you can just dip broccoli into it. Always a yummy snack.
Non cooking things - a packet of prosciutto always works in a pinch. You can wrap it around a stick of mozzarella.
Of all the various recipes I've seen here the one i can vouch for is definitely the aglio e olio (which more commonly also contains chili peppers if you wanna make the aglio olio e peperoncino) mentioned by @earlgreytea.
What I'd suggest you to do is always have some tomato sauce ready, you can make it quite easily in modest quantity and keep it in the fridge for 3-4 days so whenever you want you can just boil pasta or rice and make yourself a quick meal.
Once you've done it you can also add to it some tuna from a can and then add it to a pasta.
What you'll need:
-thinly cut onion
-about 5 to 8 cherry tomatoes cut in slices or halves, depending on whether or not the peel bothers you
-a can of tomatoes, any mid to high quality one will do
-extra virgin olive oil
-sugar, salt and pepper
-some basil
*put some extra virgin olive oil (not too much - you're not frying) on a pan and heat it up at LOW temp it is extremely important to prevent the oil from reaching smoke temperature
*put an entire clove of garlic in the pan, don't cut it just remove the dry peels
*after 3 mins put the tomatoes you sliced in the pan and cook for 5 minutes
*add the thinly cut onion in and cook for 2 more minutes
*put in a teaspoon of sugar (2 if you like sweeter flavors but not more) and enough salt - i won't specify the quantity because it varies widely by what you're used to, i usually put an equal part of sugar and salt. Afterwards mix for a minute.
*now add the whole can of tomatoes (if they're not already cut do so yourself) and a couple of leaves of basil
*let it cook for 20 minutes always at low temperature, just mix every once in a while and keep an eye on it; if you see that it gets too dense just add 2/5 tablespoons of water
*once you're done remember to remove the garlic (and the basil if you don't like it) and just store in a tapperware box. When i was in England at uni my flatmates used to eat the garlic that i removed saying that it was delicious, i found that a bit gross frankly but hey - de gustibus non disputandum est - try it out yourself, it sure is healthy
The laziest healthy thing i came up with so far is the avocado-tuna-Philadelphia mix (linking it because i'm not sure if you can find it in the US). It is exactly what it sounds like, a cut avocado mixed with tuna directly from the can and some normal cream cheese (it can serve as a sauce for rice or be eaten by itself. It is super filling so it can be stored and eaten also the day afterwards.
I'm gonna make a last addition to this whole post, when boiling pasta for the love of al that's holy do it the proper way and not how my flatmates used to:
Edits: grammar, formatting and stuff plus last addendum
When I'm really lazy?
2 packs of indomie instant noodles with egg.
Boiled potatoes. You can peel them before boiling, but lately I haven't been. You just cut them in half or thirds if they are oddly big. If you leave the skin on it will slide right off after boiling. Super easy, super feeling. Some times I put on a little salt. A lot of the time plain.
The Cheese Omelette.
Right now, this recipe is getting me through a six-week trip to the UK and Ireland.
Scrambled eggs
spoonful of peanut butter
black coffee
Beef jerky
Mixed nuts
Microwave popcorn
Not ingredients just individual recipes.