What's your usual GET A HOT MEAL ON THE TABLE ASAP meal?

Almost vegan quick dish:

In a bowl, make the basis sushi sauce. A bit of wasabi, a dash of salty soy sauce.

Then put in a diced tomato, a diced cucumber, and a diced slice of tofu. Stir. Eat.

20 mins? Steak & chips.

Chips go in the oven for 20 mins. Heat a ring on the stove. Steak in a hot frying pan. Once the steak is done and put to rest, there’s just enough time to make a nice sauce. Serve.

10 mins? Carbonara.

Put some pasta into boiling water.
Chop some bacon. Fry bacon.
Add extras (e.g. chopped mushrooms). Cook extras.
Mix egg yolk and grated cheese. Add a teaspoon of creme fraiche or cream.
When pasta is cooked, drain and combine with all the above. Season and serve.

5 mins? Avocado salad. (Summer only - otherwise I want something hot.)

Roughly dice avocado flesh, tomato, and cucumber.
Optionally add diced bell peppers.
Toss in vinaigrette and serve.

5 mins? Bacon & egg banjo.

Fry or poach egg. Fry bacon. Place contents between slices of bread. Eat.

Chop up a couple of hot dogs, open up a can of beans, and microwave the lot. Serve along with some buttered bread and a chunk of cheese, and you have a complete meal. Stir in some chopped onion and a little ketchup or BBQ sauce to make things more interesting.

Preferred beverage: cold whole milk.

While that sounds nice I suspect it fails the “hot” criterion.

Carroll Shelby (or other mix) chili. Brown ground beef, dump in the mix plus a small can of tomato sauce, simmer a few minutes. Add can of beans of your choice.

Beans and hamhocks with rice. Maybe this is cheating, because most of the work is done in the morning, but it’s dead easy. Put hamhocks, dry beans and water in a big covered casserole, put it in the oven, and set the automatic oven timer to start cooking it at about 1:30 p.m. Come home to a big pot of beans and hocks to serve with rice.

Fish and grits. The cooking’s really pretty minimal - boil some water, toss in the grits, and stir occasionally; pull a package of frozen breaded tilapia from Trader Joe’s out of the freezer, put it on a baking sheet, and cook it in the oven - but it’s quick, easy, and enough cooking is involved to satisfy the OP’s condition. :slight_smile:

Stir fry. I always keep cubed chicken or shrimp around and have a variety of fresh veggies on hand. Using a wok for the cooking and a food processor for slicing, it is all ready in minutes.

Another quick meal is quesadillas, salad, and fresh fruit.

I have a couple of freezers filled with frozen goodness waiting to be deployed at a moments notice, all home made. Chilli, spaghetti sauce, curry gravy (Thai, red and green!), burgers, meatloaf, even full turkey dinner for two, just add frozen veg. So I’m good to go for a homemade, hot meal ready to eat inside of twenty minutes, no worries! But that’s probably not what you meant, I’m guessing.

If I couldn’t use those I’d probably defrost some shrimp (10 mins in warm water!), boil some penne, add some frozen veg, (usually gr beans and carrots!), to the water for the last few minutes, then the shrimp in the very last minute. Drain, slather with garlic butter (homemade, ready in the fridge!) and Parmesan. Serve with garlic bread and/or salad to make a full meal, if required! (This dish comes together quickly, in a single pot and can be easily stretched to feed many mouths with not a lot of veg and meat! )

Since you cooked and packaged the goodness in your freezers then all is well. I commend you on your planning. To one degree or another, I think most of us do something similar. I know that I always have chili, beef or pork pot roast, Italian gravy and some kind of seasoned meat/bean enchilada filling all on frozen standby. Combine any of these with basic pantry ingredients and you can have a meal quickly.

If you had freezers full of store bought, pre-packaged meals then THAT wouldn’t count.

My “I’m just going to have breakfast” meal is cereal with milk. Which I do somewhat often. And my “I don’t want to work” lunch is often a can of sardines on wasa crisp bread. So also no cooking. Hmm

If I want an easy supper I’ll often swing by the grocery store on the way home and pick up a steak. Easy and quick to cook. For an easy lunch sometimes I’ll soft boil some eggs and serve them on toast. My husband makes Indian chick peas for a hot supper with stuff we keep around the house.

It’s not planning so much as an efficiency driven by sheer laziness. I bought a couple of large saucepans at the secondhand store, so I’d have three. Whatever I’m making, I’m making lots of it! (When it’s burgers I make 2 dozen, it just makes sense to me.) With three pots, I can make lots of curry, chilli, spaghetti sauce, etc, then freeze all of the leftover, after a yummy dinner, as meal sized portions.

It’s basically cook once, just reheat and go 6 times. So I can spend all day distracted and absorbed by some project, or off some where and, BAM !, yummy homemade dinner in 20 minutes or so! I have a side by side, in my kitchen, and a small chest freezer in my basement.

It’s hard not to get hooked on, if you try this, as it really frees up a lot of time, I find.

Always an omelette. Plain cheese is fine if there’s nothing else available.
mmm

  1. Stir Fry: any meats & veggies in my frig get tossed together, maybe add an egg & some water chestnuts from the pantry. Serve over rice.

  2. Caprese Paninis: Put bread in the panini pan, top with mozzarella, tomatoes, & basil. Cook til cheese is melty & bread is browned.

  3. Chili: big can of tomatos, kidney beans, black beans, corn, ground beef if I have it handy. Serve with cornbread.

  4. loaded nachos: tortilla chips, topped with beans, cheese, onions, meat if I have it in the frig. Put under broiler for a few minutes, serve with sour cream, guacamole, salsa.

  5. Breakfast!

A hamburger meat based meal is my quickest meal.

I can make cheeseburger helper from scratch in 15 mins. Super easy and only one dirty dish. I always keep the pasta and spices on hand.

Or creamed beef on toast. Another fast skillet dinner.

Once in awhile I make sloppy joes.

We always keep Green Giant frozen steamer vegetables on hand. Broccoli & cheese or red potatoes & green beans are great side dishes for skillet dinners.