Tag Archives: quick and easy dinner recipes

Easy Weeknight Dinners in 20 Minutes or Less

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On average, American women with children under age 18 spend about an hour on food preparation and clean up every day, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That’s an hour less time spent chatting with the kids or catching up with their spouse or even just relaxing and re-energizing. Instead of spending an hour on dinner and cleanup, why not cut it to 20 minutes, or less?  Replace the cleaning, mixing, and chopping, with time at the dinner table, savoring your food and catching up with the family.

Here are some great easy weeknight dinners ideas:

  • Slow cooker soups and stews: Really, the slow cooker is a godsend for any busy mom. You can get creative with your slow cooker by coupling a meaty dish with your favorite jam, making an apricot pork dish (hyperlink: http://www.foodonthetable.com/recipes/355007-slow-cooker-apricot-pork), for example. You can also cook a rotisserie chicken or lime and cilantro chicken in your crock pot for a tender, succulent and juicy chicken dinner dish. Load up your slow cooker in the morning, and come home to a fully prepared meal, just waiting to be devoured.
  • Grilled panini: Grill your sandwich with turkey, spinach, basil, and sun-dried tomato, and drizzle the sandwich with garlic olive oil for a Mediterranean dish that’s both filling and fast. All it takes is about 10 minutes for the contents of the panini to warm up and for the bread to brown. Cleanup is made easy, too: all you have to do is clean the panini residue of your panini grill or pan!
  • Quick and painless pizzas: All you need is single-serving pizza dough (which you can defrost ahead), tomatoes, pesto or olive paste, cheese (unless you want delicious white pizza), and salami to make mini-pizzas that each family member will love. You can even use pocketless pita bread to make these single-serving treats.  You can even make extra pizzas and freeze for another easy weeknight dinner.
  • Beef salsa: Cook beef ahead of time or defrost leftover beef from another day to make a filling southwest salsa. Mix beef with quartered cherry tomatoes, black beans, shredded carrots, green chile salsa, red onion, and cilantro to a dinner that will take you 10 minutes to assemble. Just throw your beef salsa into taco shells and garnish with lettuce. You can also try this salsa with salmon, if you prefer fish.
  • Burgers: Use your George Foreman grill or panini press to quickly grill up burgers for a dinner that should take you under 15 minutes. Broil hamburger buns with a bit of butter and garnish with ketchup and lettuce for the quintessential, American dinner.
  • Hearty salads: Get some more greens on the table by quickly tossing up a hearty, dinner salad. You can prepare a taco salad with beef or make a summer salad with grilled chicken breast. If you like to make your dressing from scratch, make the dressing ahead of time to cut down on cook time. Chicken, spinach, and raspberry salads are especially delicious in the warm, summer months.
  • Fruit salads for dessert: You don’t have to serve a decadent dessert. For weeknights, prepare a delicious, sweet fruit salad, which can last for a few days if you make it in bulk. Make your fruit salad using fruits that are in season and at their peak ripeness to get maximum flavor. You can even add 3/4 cup of marshmallow cream, coconut shavings, and whipped cream to really take a plain fruit salad into dessert territory. Make a fruit dip using marshmallow cream and orange juice. If you’re not a fan of marshmallow, simply serve your fruit salad with a couple of scoops of vanilla bean ice cream. Sometimes less really is more.

Now that you have some quick and painless recipe ideas at your disposal, time yourself to see how fast you can get dinner on the table. The less time cooking and cleaning, the more time you have to spend your way.

Tools for Meal Planning on a Budget

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When we’re meal planning on a budget, we usually just try to find ways to buy sales items or resist going out to eat. However, there are plenty of other ways to save! All you need is a few tools around the kitchen to help you save big time on your grocery store bill:

  • Coupon box: store all of your coupons based on their category (food, beverages, toiletries, etc.) in a coupon box. Keep all of your coupons neat and tidy to optimize savings. We recommend keeping your coupons in a plastic filing box, which should cost you only about $5.00.
  • Cheap recipes: Tear budget-worthy recipes out of your favorite food magazines and copy inexpensive recipes out of budgeter’s cook book. Then, compile your recipes together in a binder. Next time you want to try something new, all you have to do is open up your custom-made budgeter’s cookbook and flip the pages to see what piques your interest. Use plastic protectors to file your recipes and add plastic dividers to organize your recipes according to category.
  • Meal planner with calendar: Always have a written calendar where you can plan an organize your meals. This will help you plan in advance and never skip a beat when it comes to meal planning. You can often find meal planner templates online or, if you prefer, you can make a meal planner out of a kitchen calendar.
  • Grocery store checklist: Never leave the house without a printable grocery list. You will be shocked at how much you can save when you actually stick to your list. Make sure to include a grocery shopping list on your fridge, somewhere where your kids or spouse can add things that the family needs. You can find printable grocery lists online, make one your own, or buy one at the store.
  • Vacuum sealer: Vacuum sealers or a “Seal-a-Meal,” is the best tool to package your food for the freezer. Freeze your food and use them for leftovers instead of throwing them out or letting them go to waste. Vacuum sealers could cost as little as $28.00, if you do some bargain shopping.  Make sure to date all of your food packages, too. Just don’t date your packages with a marker on the actual freezer back. The ink could run through and stain the food. Instead, write the date on the top of the freezer bag, where the ink won’t touch the food, or on a label.
  • Separate, outdoor freezer: You can always get an extra freezer for your garage if you can’t fit all of your leftovers and ice creams in your current freezer. A compact fridge could cost you as little as $100.00, while larger models will be a bit pricier.

Having tools around the house that help you save is a critical part of the budgeting process. At the very least, make sure you have meal planning tools and a coupon box to help you stay organized. Your investments will pay off!

Quick Easy Dinner Recipes That You, Your Family and Friends Will Love

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Some foods are just crowd pleasers, in spite of their simplicity. You could spend almost a hundred dollars on the perfect cut of smoked salmon for canapes, garnished divinely with crème fraiche, and your guests may not subsequently remark upon the dish. Often, people prefer a quick and easy dinner of simple, favorite elements and this can be far more memorable and much less expensive. The National Restaurant Association reported that, although the “culinary compass points mainly toward ethnic cuisines,” 66% of people just want a plain ol’ American dish, like a burger and fries. If you want to throw a dinner party that will keep people eating with delight all night long, your best bet is to stick to the classics and avoid “controversial” ingredients.

Easy Dinner Foods That Everyone Will Love

So what should we present at a dinner party that everyone will love? As the National Restaurant Association told us, the best way to go is with the classics. Try grilling up some juicy burgers and dressing them up with a homemade sauce, like horseradish or chili. You can never go wrong with a BBQ if you’re trying to impress your family and friends’ taste buds. Marinate your rack of baby back ribs in brown sugar, black pepper, onion powder, garlic, salt, and something spicy, like jalapenos and cayenne pepper. Chili, pizza, mac n’ cheese, and fried chicken are other classics that are bound to be a smash hit among family and friends. Keep in mind that certain ingredients also tend to be people-pleasers. Bread, garlic, butter, and cheese are all ingredients that people generally gravitate towards. The most successful ingredient of all? You guessed it: bacon. This food’s already incredible popularity has even increased by 26.5% since 2005, according to Mintel’s Menu Insights database. You can add bacon to basically anything and people will generally jump up and down with delight.

Foods to Avoid

If you want to make a recipe that everyone will love, try to avoid these ingredients in your cooking:

  • Cilantro: Famous cilantrophobe Julia Child once said that she would never order something with cilantro and that she would “pick it out if [she] saw it and throw it on the floor.” Turns out, these rather strong opinions about the green herb have scientific grounds. According to the New York Times, “Flavor chemists have found that cilantro aroma is created by a half-dozen or so substances, and most of these are modified fragments of fat molecules called aldehydes. The same or similar aldehydes are also found in soaps and lotions and the bug family of insects.” As a result, many people find that cilantro tastes like soap.
  • Beets: Whether it’s their moderate-to-loud flavor, unusual slipperiness or surprising sweetness, some people don’t quite know what to make of beets. We recommend leaving this food out of your dinner party.
  • Oysters: Some people are disgusted by the slimy texture of oysters, which is a shame considering that they’re an excellent source of iron and B12.
  • Blue cheese: Some folks just can’t get past blue cheese’s distinct odor, which some accuse of smelling like “stinky feet.”
  • Tofu: Colleen Patrick-Goudreau, cooking teacher and author of The 30-Day Vegan Challenge, says people can be turned off by tofu’s occasionally slimy texture.
  • Cauliflower: Cauliflower acquires a sulfury taste when cooked too long, which has prompted many people to develop a fierce loathing for the vegetable.

So, blue cheese is out of the question, cilantro tastes like soap, tofu is too slimy and cauliflower is sulfurous! Knowing that the masses are disgusted by some foods, be careful when planning a menu for your dinner party. Whatever quick, easy recipe you decide on, avoid these ingredients (even if you love them).  To be sure to please – stick to the classics, like burgers, bacon, and pizza.

Quick and Easy Dinner Recipes: Fancy Grilled Cheese

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The grilled cheese: an undeniably simple yet scrumptious meal. The history of the grilled cheese is mysterious, however food historians generally agree that the modern grilled cheese was popularized in the 1920s, when sliced bread and American cheese became more affordable. Of course, the usual accompaniment was tomato soup, a healthy dose of vitamin C to temper the cheesy goodness. Now, the grilled cheese has been enjoyed by generations and, with some tomato soup, it makes for the easiest dinner out there. Here are some ways that you can jazz up the great American classic and create easy, yet delicious dinner recipes that your kids will look back on as a childhood favorite:

  • Instead of using your typical ingredients, like cheddar cheese and white bread, change it up with fresh mozzarella and sourdough bread. Make sure to include fresh cracked pepper. Yum!
  • Take that leftover ground beef and make a patty melt on rye bread. Include some yellow onions, caramelized on a hot skillet. Famous sommelier Ania Zawieja recommends pairing your patty melt with a fruity Belgian-style beer as a refreshment, for those that are of age. The children can enjoy their patty melts with some apple juice, instead.
  • Why close your grilled cheese? Opt for an open-faced grilled cheese with sharp, aged cheddar, red onion, and bacon. Just pop your open-faced sandwich in the oven at a high temperature and broil until the bacon starts to sizzle.
  • The Croque Madame is a French-style grilled cheese sandwich with a fried egg on top (because, let’s be honest, every dish is better with a fried egg to top it off). A runny yoke can add some much needed moisture to a grilled cheese. Include a thin slice of smoked ham.
  • The grilled cheese doesn’t have to be all savory. Put gruyere surchoix cheese on cinnamon bread with toasted almonds for a sweet twist on this classic dish. Those with a sweet tooth won’t even need dessert after eating a grilled cheese on a delicious cinnamon-raisin loaf.
  • For those who love Italian, try making a Caprese grilled cheese. Mozzarella cheese, fresh basil, tomatoes, olive oil, and a bit of balsamic vinegar are all it takes to make this fancy grilled cheese.

With all these grilled cheese ideas, you’ll have quick and easy dinner recipes that the kids and the rest of your family will enjoy. Just cook ‘em up in minutes and enjoy with a side of tomato soup for a wonderfully easy dinner.

Freezable Easy Dinner Recipes for Families That Won’t Disappoint

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Freezing as a means of preserving food has been around for thousands of years, dating back to Greek and Roman times, where people stored food with compressed snow in insulated cellars. Now, we can thank the ancient peoples who innovated and developed this tactic of food preservation for making dinnertime a little less hectic. Not only is freezing foods easy, but its the best way to preserve nutrients found in fruits and vegetables. “While canned vegetables tend to lose a lot of nutrients during the preservation process (notable exceptions include tomatoes and pumpkin), frozen vegetables may be even more healthful than some of the fresh produce sold in supermarkets,” says Gene Lester, Ph.D., a plant physiologist at the USDA Agricultural Research Center in Weslaco, Texas. Why? Lester explains, “Fruits and vegetables chosen for freezing tend to be processed at their peak ripeness, a time when—as a general rule—they are most nutrient-packed.” Food that’s quick to prepare, easy, and nutritious? That’s impressive.

Great Freezable Foods

Yes, you can buy frozen veggies in the store, throw them in a crock pot with a cut of meat and make magic happen for a quick and completely fail-proof dinner, but there are some foods that freeze better than others. Not all frozen foods are created equal! Here are some foods that can help you make easy dinner recipes that will delight the whole family.

Meats:

  • Steak: Steak freezes surprisingly well and can be chopped up and paired with a piece of ciabatta bread, cheese, and mushrooms for your family’s own take on the Philly cheesesteak. Mmm, that’s good.
  • Ground meat: If you’re making a taco salad or burgers, store your seasoned meat so you can enjoy a quick dinner weeks later. You can also brown your ground meat with celery, onions, and peppers to have the perfect base for any casserole or spaghetti sauce, ready to go.

Veggies and Herbs:

  • Broccoli Casserole: Preserve the nutrients in your broccoli by freezing up a make-ahead broccoli casserole. Just grill some chicken breast, defrost your broccoli casserole, and serve for a great meal.
  • Fresh garden pesto: All it takes is basil, parsley, parmesan cheese, pine nuts, garlic, salt and olive oil to make your own pesto, which goes perfectly on anything from pesto garlic bread to spaghetti. Freeze your pesto and thaw it for use when you need to prepare a last-minute dinner recipe. Combined with some pasta, this pesto will delight the whole family.

Prepared Meals:

  • Chicken pot pie: Invest in some individual-sized ramekins, line each with dough, then fill with a carrot, onion, fennel, chicken, and chicken filling, cooked in milk and broth. Simply bake crusts until golden brown, let cool, cover with plastic wrap and aluminum foil, then store them in your freezer for up to 3 months. These individual and ready-to-serve pot pies will taste and look great even after being frozen.
  • Beef Casserole: Casseroles are notoriously easy to freeze and serve, preserving their taste and depth even after a month in the fridge. You can even freeze separate dishes together to make a freezer casserole. For example, try freezing beans with rice, braised veggies, and braised meat. This could make for a quick and complete meal later on down the road.
  • Mushroom Bolognese: Porcini mushrooms, onions, garlic, tomatoes and whole-wheat spaghetti, topped off with some parmesan cheese makes a great make-ahead meal that only takes about an hour to prepare in full. Just defrost your bolognese and top with some parsley and additional parmesan for a great, make-ahead meal.

Easy dinner recipes don’t have to be snore-worthy or unsatisfying. Simply put your leftover casseroles, steak, and ground meat in the freezer to make the base for meals that are practically ready to go.

5 Delicious Easy Dinner Recipes for Family with 5 Ingredients

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We always see cookbooks with names like “Easy Recipes” or “Simple Cooking.” What makes a recipe easy, exactly? Is there a recipe for making an easy recipe? The truth is, it’s not only time but the amount of ingredients that go into a meal that makes the meal “easy” or “simple” to prepare and serve. Not only can you make a meal with a small amount of items in the pantry, but you don’t have to juggle scores of ingredients, either. At least that’s what Claire Robinson of the show “5 Ingredient Fix” says, explaining, “People get angry when they see 27 ingredients in a recipe and they’re trying to learn to cook,” the TV chef says. “I don’t have 27 ingredients in my kitchen right now and I’m a chef!” Instead of juggling huge numbers of ingredients, minimize the amount of ingredients you use in each meal to maximize your cooking time.

Scrumptious, Simple Dinners

You can easily make a delicious dinner for you and your family with five ingredients or less. Just take a glimpse at these six recipes:

  • Crock pot recipes: If you don’t have a crock pot, get one! This inexpensive cooking tool can save you tons of time and the energy it takes to hover over a stove, boil water, cut and trim, etc. Then, you can create simple crock pot dishes with less than 5 ingredients, like this 4 ingredient crockpot chicken recipe
  • Baked Herbed Salmon with Summer Squash: All it takes is a two pound salmon, sage leaves, cayenne pepper, and summer squash with a squeeze of lemon to make a refreshingly good easy baked herbed salmon dinner.
  •  Burgers: Burgers are satisfying and easy, especially if you like spending time out by the grill. All you need is lean ground beef, chipotle chile pepper, monterey jack cheese, hamburger buns, and salsa for an irresistible southern burger.
  •  Brisket sliders: Get a BBQ spice blend, ground coffee, brown sugar, black pepper, and dinner rolls and have a BBQ on a hot summer day. The bitterness of coffee mixed with the sweet brown sugar combines to make the perfect BBQ rub.
  •  Mac n’ Cheese: Everyone loves mac n’ cheese and all you need to make this dish is just five ingredients: macaroni, dijon mustard, onion, sour cream, cheese.  That’s one gourmet serving of easy mac n cheese.
  •  Sausage and Cheese Casserole: With a little bit of creativity, you can cook a great casserole with only five ingredients. Try a sausage and cheese casserole with ground pork sausage, cheddar cheese, white bread, eggs, and milk for an easy dinner recipe that the whole family will enjoy.

See? Whipping up delicious, easy dinner recipes for your family is a piece of cake and only takes about 5 ingredients. Next time you’re feeling overwhelmed, try and prepare dinner with 5 ingredients to minimize your stress in the kitchen.

Easy Family Recipes with an Exotic Twist

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You make mac ‘n’ cheese. You make easy chicken recipes. You make spaghetti and meatballs. Yawn, isn’t anyone getting bored? It’s time to bring excitement back into the kitchen by cooking up some exotic meals. Meals from other cultures and countries don’t have to be complicated or hard to make to be delicious and fun. Here, we’ve cited some extremely easy family recipes that incorporate exotic cuisine.

Asian Cuisine:

Asian dishes are usually spicy and typically use rice as a base or side. If you’re wanting to whip up some Asian cuisine we recommend having soy sauce, rice, and Asian chili sauce on hand to add to nearly every Asian dish.

  • Stir fry: Stir fry meals allow you to put all of your leftover veggies to work. While a wok is ideal for stir-fry cooking, you can also use a skillet. Mushrooms, spinach, broccoli, carrots, zucchini, and bean sprouts all taste great in stir fries. Just add a protein, like tofu, shrimp, or chicken, and some rice and you’ll have an easy meal that everyone will love.
  • Thai Chicken and Coconut Soup: For anyone who loves coconut, coconut soup is a great way to replenish your nutrients after a long, hard day. You can deviate from the traditional version of Thai soup by adding more sustenance, like chicken and rice. Typical ingredients include Asian fish sauce, lime juice, low sodium chicken broth, lemongrass, ginger, coconut milk, chiles, and cilantro.

Indian Cuisine:

Indian meals often perplex the palate by combining often contradicting tastes, like sweet and salty or creamy and spicy, together flawlessly. Cumin, turmeric, milk, and rice are typical ingredients in Indian cooking.

  • Slow Cooker Indian Stew: If you’re a fan of your slow cooker, try arranging an Indian stew that will be ready for action by dinnertime. Adding curry powder, ground ginger and cayenne pepper to a stew with chicken, onion, garlic, chicken broth, diced tomatoes, lime juice, and spinach make a fantastic dish.
  • Tikka Marsala: Is an Indian favorite.  You can make it with chicken, beef or lamb, in a single pot with various spices including cumin, cayenne and paprika, some tomato puree, a little yoghurt and heavy cream.  Delicious in about an hour.

Greek Cuisine:

Greek cuisine is great for those who have many of the staples already at home. For example, Greek food often uses olive oil, sugar, butter, and salt.

  • Falafel: Chickpea fritters, or falafel, is one of the best things you can make with chickpeas. Put oil in a large saucepan then scoop tablespoons of chickpea batter, made with ground chickpeas, into pan until nicely brown for about 5 minutes. You can serve falafel with lettuce, tzatziki sauce, and pita bread.
  • Chopped Greek Salad with Shallot Vinaigrette: You can easily make a delicious, Greek salad out of Greek staples like feta cheese and black olives. The ingredients combine well with tomatoes, baby greens, endives, cucumber, and shallot vinaigrette to make a refreshing salad that anyone can appreciate.

You don’t have to go out to eat to get some ethnic cuisine. Stay in and have some Indian, Chinese, Thai, or Greek food for a change!

Easy Fast Dinner Recipes: 15 Minute Meals

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A recent survey revealed that the average family dinner time has shifted from 5:30 PM, about 10 years ago, to the very late 8:00 PM. A poll linked with the survey showed that 58% of adults blame today’s increasingly busy lifestyles for the later eating times. More work and later eating times may mean that moms and dads need to get a hearty dinner on the table in a flash. While we would all love to feast on squash gnocchi with garden-fresh tomatoes or beef tenderloin with brandied mushroom sauce, some of us just don’t have time. If you’re in a time crunch, try an easy fast dinner recipe. Dinners don’t have to take a lot of time — in fact, they can take under 15 minutes! Cook up a 15 minute meal and get the whole family at the dinner before the late time of 8:00 PM.

Easy 15 Minute Meals

  • Macaroni Tuna Casserole: This macaroni tuna casserole only takes about 15 minutes to bake. Simply throw in some mac n’ cheese dinner mix a can of tuna, cream of chicken soup, milk and cheddar cheese for a dinner that will please the whole family.

  •  Chicken and Vegetable Kabobs: Chopping the chicken and veggies and throwing them on a skewer shouldn’t take more than five minutes. Marinate your chicken in honey for a sweet kick, or serve your grilled kabobs with a spicy or tangy sauce on the side. Kabobs are a great way to get the family eating their veggies.
  • Baked Mashed Potatoes: Baked potatoes are inexpensive, easy-to-make, and delicious. You can pop a potato in the microwave and have it out in about five minutes. Garnish with salt, cheese, sour cream, chives, and bacon bits and serve with a side salad or a soup.
  • Bean and Cheese Tacos: Bean and cheese tacos can be made for the whole family for about $5 and they’re a no-brainer to prepare. Grab some cheese, refried beans, and tortillas at the store for a complete and fibrous meal. You can serve a Mexican-style salad with your tacos, like some iceberg lettuce with salsa and corn chips, or make a healthier version of bean and cheese tacos by using black beans and whole grain tortillas.
  • Creamy Chicken and Mushrooms: Grab a can of cream of mushroom soup, saute diced onion, brown chicken breast, and pour everything over noodles for an undeniably delicious dish that will be done in a flash.

Dinner doesn’t have to be a pain, it can be ready in an instant! Next time you’re thinking of making an easy fast dinner recipe, consider trying to make 15 minute meals. You’ll be surprised at how fast you can get dinner on the table when you’re working with easy fast dinner recipes.