I usually save time on my meals by buying pre-made parts like jars of sauces, ready to roll pastry, chopped vegetables, pre-cooked potatoes and meats, etc. It's only marginally more expensive but I cherish variety and I cannot get through like a value bag of spinach or whatever on my own. Plus in a house share where I have very limited fridge space to myself.
Some of my go-to low effort meals:
- Fillet of salmon, potato salad (or make your own cooked potatoes with mayo, mustard and vinegar), diced carrot and celery, 1/4 lemon squeezed over the top, and some extra ground black pepper. Wrap it all up tight in some tin foil and stick it in the oven or a steamer for about 20 mins.
- Get some pork chops, mix in a bowl some olive/sunflower oil, honey, soy sauce, chinese 5 spice mix, chop up baby corn, mangetout and red pepper into strips, fry them all together, grate or finely chop a load of ginger in there, cook up some basic noodles and add some chicken or vegetable stock if you want to make it soupy as well.
- chop up and fry some cheap sausages and any leftover bacon, salami, etc, chop up some courgette and red chillis, get a carbonara or cheese sauce, cook any sort of pasta they are all the fucken same, dont tell the italians I told you this, enjoy
- diced chicken breast, onion, little jar of soy cream, finely chopped mushrooms, salt and pepper, soy sauce or beef stock, maybe some paprika and/or nutmeg, probably some peas or whatever, great with brown rice
- king prawns, sticky or thai jasmine rice, diced carrot and cucumber, garlic and sweet chilli sauce.
- chicken, red pepper, and red onion, cut into long strips. Fry with smoked paprika, garlic, ginger, salt, pepper, chopped jalapenos, bit of lemon or lime juice, tomato concentrate (also good way to use up any burger relish or salsa you got lying around) and some tinned/frozen sweetcorn. Serve in a lightly toasted wheat wrap with chopped lettuce and grated cheddar.
