Over 45 dinner recipes to get on the table in 45 minutes or less

We’re all busy these days. Whether we’re working outside the home or a stay at home parent. We’ve had a hard day and the last thing we want to be bothered with is the evening meal, dinner. I’ve got 45 dinner recipes to get on the table in 45 minutes or less.

Plus, I want to share with you how, with just a little prep and some wise grocery choices, you can make that job even easier. Dinner time should be a pleasant experience for the whole family and you should be eating the food you and your family like to eat.

Time savers

There are a lot of people out there who like to spend a few hours on the weekend prepping their meals for the week, fortnight or month but not me. Weekends are family time for me. I love cooking so whether a meal takes me 30 minutes or 45 minutes to make each night, I don’t mind. If you want to spend all of your weekend doing that, then that’s up to you but I know what I’d rather be doing. Spending valuable time with my family and making quick and easy meals during the week.

But I get tired too. I’m a busy work at home mother with 2 teenage children and it doesn’t matter what age they are, afternoons are tiring. There’s homework, afternoon tea, running them to after school activities etc and the last thing you feel like doing, as you wind down for the day is to be prepping for dinner and cooking dinner.

Here are a few time saving tips that will help you get dinner on the table in 45 minutes or less:

• Cut up vegetables: If you’re not purchasing pre-cut vegetables, this is quite easy to do when you bring the groceries home. Broccolli, cauliflower, pumpkin (butternut squash) etc are all vegetables that won’t take but a couple of minutes to cut up and put in a bag or container and pop in the fridge. Come dinner time, you take out as much as you need.
• Buy pre-cut or frozen vegetables: The pre-cut vegetables might be a little higher in price but they’ll save you a lot of time if you’re time poor. Same with the frozen vegetables. They’ve already been cut and are no less in quality to fresh vegetables. In fact, the freshness has been sealed in and they are frozen as soon as being picked.
• Buy serving size meat: Instead of buying a whole chicken and cutting it up, buy chicken pieces, drumsticks or wings. Most supermarkets are making it easier for busy people by even making meatballs and crumbing meat to take away the hassle from you having to do it. Watch your prices though and check for any unwanted preservatives. Frozen fish fillets are also really great as they cook well from frozen and if defrosted, they cook even quicker.
• Keep your pantry stocked with canned or jars of already cooked vegetables. I always buy a big jar of roast capsicums for about $4 that come in handy for so many recipes.
• Tinned fish: Tinned tuna, salmon, sardines and your other favourites are such a handy thing to have in the cupboard, especially if you’ve forgotten to defrost your meat. A Salade Nicoise with a can of tuna, a couple boiled eggs and other ingredients can be ready on the table in the time it takes to open the can.
• Use appliances that speed up the cooking process: Besides a slow cooker, which will cook your meal for you, appliances such as a sandwich press or pressure cooker can really speed up the time it takes to cook dinner. I don’t mean to go out and buy all new appliances. But if something like a pressure cooker will cook all the types of meals your family likes to eat, it might be worth the price in the long run.
• Cook up double or triple sides: Things like cooked pasta, rice and mashed potato can all be frozen into family serving sizes and reheated in the microwave or with boiling water poured over (pasta or rice) while the main part of the meal is cooking.

Substitutes

Substitute where you can with the recipes below. If the recipe calls for chicken and you don’t have it, look at what you do have. If the ground meat in the recipe says beef but you only have pork or chicken, use that and adjust the flavours slightly to use what you have. Apple goes great with pork and chicken will suit any flavourings.

Use vegetables that are in season. No point cooking a dish that needs a winter vegetable when you’re cooking it in summer. It will only add to your costs. Always use what you have.

If the recipe calls for pasta and you don’t have any, use rice or noodles and visa versa. Same with lasagna sheets, for example. Sliced vegetables like zucchini, roasted capsicum, eggplant etc are great substitutes or even normal pasta like spirals or penne.

Some of these recipes might be for the slow cooker but they can be adapted to a pot on the stove or into an oven to be cooked in a shorter time.

Recipes

Creamy Pasta (without the cream)

Salt & Pepper Fish

Kid Friendly Baked Buffalo Wings

 

Spinach, Bacon & Feta Plait

Easy Lamb Korma Using Pantry Staples

Slow Cooker Savoury Chicken

Moroccan Lamb & Vegetable Tray Bake

Leftover Chicken & Spinach Lasagna

Asparagus & Bacon Risoni

Indian Chicken & Spinach Curry (from Pantry Staples)

Lamb & Potato Frittata

Bangers & Smash (Crushed Potatoes)

Braised Steak & Onions

Slow Cooker Moussaka (with Potato)

One Pot Spanish Chicken & Rice

In the Pan Asian Steamed Fish Parcels

Microwaved Mexican Stuffed Potatoes

3 Ingredient Fish Curry

Quick & Easy Chicken, Vegetable & Noodle Stir Fry

Baked Thai Chicken Wings

Pork Chops with Mango Salsa

Spaghetti Bolognese in 15 Minutes

Ham & Pineapple Skewers with Rice Salad

Homemade Gozleme

4 Ingredient Apricot Chicken

Check out hundreds of other recipes here

Chicken & Avocado Burritos

Rustic Chicken & Garlic Gravy

Garlic Butter Chicken with Parmesan Cauliflower Rice

Dukkah Roasted Chicken with Couscous & Tahini Yoghurt

Honey Mustard Chicken & Potato Bake

Lemon Pepper Baked Chicken Thighs

BLT Balsamic Chicken Avocado & Feta Salad

Garlic Butter Steak & Potatoes

Fried Halloumi & Lentil Salad

Easy Spinach Ricotta Pasta

10 Minute Lemon Garlic Butter Shrimp With Zucchini Noodles

Chickpea & Cauliflower Curry

Coconut Vegetarian Korma

Vegan Lentil Chili

Moroccan Summer Vegetable Tagine

Lemon Thyme Pork Chops

Pork Banh Mi Lettuce Cups

Tandoori Lamb Cutlets with Pea, Orange & Lemon Mint Salad

Herb & Garlic Meatloaf with Garlic Butter Sauce

Easy Swiss Steak

 

500 Meals for $50 in 50 minutes

Have I got your attention? Are you tired of hearing all the hype about all these fantastic people who spend 2 days creating their family’s entire meals for 1 or 2 months? Full credit goes to these people who do this and for keeping the prices of the meals down to around $1 per serve. For me, it’s too much effort. Instead of trying to make 500 meals for $50 in 50 minutes (and these figures are purely hypothetical), I’d rather keep a well stocked pantry and we can eat whatever we want, whenever we want for a minimal amount of money.

You do what works for your family. Some of these people who have managed to keep their grocery budgets low by cooking up 4 to 6 weeks of meals in one whole weekend are true heroes in my eyes. Personally, I’d rather be doing something else. I know most of my meals are made cheaply because the ingredients are cheap. There’s nothing cheap or nasty about the meals I produce. They are all made from fresh seasonal produce, meat (or protein) that has been purchased for $9.99 per kilo or less, fresh seasonal produce and homebrand pantry staples. The other reason I don’t meal prep or cook this way is because I don’t have the freezer space and to be honest, by the time you’ve defrosted the meals in the microwave, it’s sometimes just as quick to make the meal from scratch and you don’t have those ‘cold spots’ in your microwaved meal as it sometimes happens.

I don’t meal plan either. There are so many variables when it comes to families and their busy schedules. I’ve never been one for meal planning. My planning extends to something like Monday is Burger Night, Tuesday is Chicken Night, Wednesday Pasta night etc etc and that’s subject to change. I know I’ve got all those ingredients in the pantry throughout a fortnightly or even monthly cycle. I shop fortnightly so I can keep the fruit and vegetable supply as fresh as possible, relying on frozen or tinned to get me through times when the fresh has run out.

So, what’s the point of these huge cook ups, cooking in bulk and storing it all in the freezer? Let’s look at some of the reasons why people might consider this to be a good idea and what I do instead.

Saves You Money

For sure, cooking in bulk means buying the ingredients in bulk which will always save you money.  There won’t be any need to duck down to the supermarket for that one ingredient and then you end up spending $50 on stuff you didn’t need.

What I do is budget $150 per fortnight for everything, food, toiletries, cleaning products (if any), pet food etc. Some fortnights I’ll spend right up to the $150 and the next fortnight might only be a top of pantry staples. Any money leftover goes to the next fortnightly shop or I’ll spend it on meat to top up the freezer.

Saves You Time

And what a great time saver cooking like this is. If you’re willing to spend an entire weekend prepping a month or 6 week’s worth of meals, then go for it. I’d prefer not to. I do like to bake on a Sunday afternoon with the kids, for example, and as much as I love cooking, I couldn’t think of anything worse than meal prepping for a whole weekend no matter how much time it was going to save me over the course of 4 to 6 weeks.

What I prefer to do is think of family friendly, easy to cook, quick meals that are ready in no time. I do have a few time saving methods in my recipe regime such as cooking double the amount of rice or pasta and portioning those into family sized serves and popping in the freezer for a quick meal. Honestly, rice or pasta takes 10 minutes to cook. While it’s boiling, it takes no time to chop and fry a bit of onion, brown the meal, add the vegetables and serve.

Same goes for any kind of meal. Use time saving appliances like the slow cooker to prepare your entire meal. All you have to do come dinner time is serve it.  If you’re looking for some tasty, healthy slow cooker meals that can be prepped, frozen and then just popped into the slow cooker, this round up of Ultimate Whole30 Slow Cooker Freezer Meal Plan from New Leaf Wellness could be just the time saver you need. No need to worry about microwave reheating. Just take your partially prepped meal from the freezer and throw it into the slow cooker in the morning.

It’s Healthier

Yes, cooking your month’s worth of meals could be healthy for some. You’ve already decided on what you’re having for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks, in advance and you won’t have extra food in the pantry to tempt you. 

It’s neither here nor there but I try to limit the amount of cooking time on vegetables so as much nutrition is retained. I think by cooking it, freezing it then reheating it in the microwave you might lose nutritious value. I’m not really sure if this is the case but I can still maintain a healthy meal plan with the ingredients I buy. Everything I make is from scratch. I know exactly what ingredients are going into my meals. 

Quick meals on busy nights like homemade pizzas, burgers or Mexican meals like tacos or nachos can be packed full of nutrition like salad ingredients, lean meat, bulked out with extra vegetables or legumes or keep it entirely vegetarian for a meat free option. 

Find What Works for You

I tip my hat to these people who manage their family’s meals by spending a whole weekend cooking them up and freezing them but I’m here to tell you there are other ways. It’s the way I’ve been grocery shopping and cooking all my life. I run my kitchen like a restaurant, that is I have a fortnightly ‘menu’, I only buy those ingredients for that fortnight’s meals and I keep those ingredients topped up. The ‘menu’ is seasonal so it changes from winter to summer. I can have a meal on the table in 30 minutes or less and it’s cooked fresh. I have many time saving meal prep ideas that won’t fill up your freezer and best of all, you won’t be a slave to your kitchen and your weekends will be free to do what you want to do with your family.

If you’d like to know how I manage to run my kitchen like a restaurant and the steps you need to take to do this, you can find out more here.

Meals to make when its too hot to cook

Summer time is the time for barbecues, eating ‘al fresco’, salads and icy treats. But life with kids, family commitments and the hot weather don’t really create a good recipe for working in the kitchen and we’ve still got to get a meal on the table but what do you cook? You don’t want to use the oven and you don’t really feel like eating hot stodgy meals.

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When you’re thinking of salads, pile all the salad ingredients on a large platter, top with the protein, whether that’s sliced grilled chicken, fish, seafood, beef, lamb, pork, etc and a nice salad dressing. Noodles, rice, pasta or croutons and nuts make it go a little bit further.

Don’t forget about beans like chickpeas, lentils, cannellini and vegetarian grain options like quinoa, barley, couscous or tofu and other vegetarian products. Cheese makes a nice addition to a salad. Varieties like haloumi (grilled), goat’s cheese, ricotta, feta, parmesan etc. Creamy or vinaigrette dressings, take your pick. So many varieties of salad meals, you’ll never get bored.

Avocado, Cherry Tomato, Quinoa and Bean Salad

BLT (Bacon, Lettuce, Tomato Salad)

Chicken, Camembert, Grape & Cashew Salad

Chicken and Rice Salad with Creamy Basil Dressing

Mediterranean Salmon Salad

Salade Nicoise

Thai Beef Salad

 I used to have an electric wok too but it died. I haven’t replaced it but it was good for your usual stir fries, pasta sauces, etc. An old fashioned electric fry pan is good for all of these things plus stews, casseroles, even a roast. The good old crockpot can cook a myriad of things that won’t heat the kitchen but will still be light and refreshing. Fill with potatoes cooked whole in their jackets and top with bacon bits, salad, coleslaw etc for a fully loaded stuffed potato.

Fish Biryani with Cashews

Lemon, Spinach & Chicken Pasta

4 Ingredient Apricot Chicken

Easy Pad Thai

Easy Beef Chow Mein

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 I love my super-sized contact grill and sandwich press. I use it to grill meat, cook pancakes/fritters, grill vegetables, make kebabs, burritos or wraps, etc. Doesn’t create very much heat at all.

Spanish Breakfast Burrito

 

Beef Satay with Coconut Rice

Greek Lamb Wraps

Quesadillas

Copycat KFC Sweet Chilli Twister

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And don’t forget about the humble supermarket roast chicken. Besides just cutting it up and serving with a salad, here’s 5 things to do with it. Last night we had chicken and salad rolls. Contains all 5 food groups as far as I’m concerned. That’s all I felt like after another hot day here in the Sunshine State.