It is possible to prepare tasty and nutritious meals in 30 minutes or less without spending a fortune eating out! Grandma knew the secret and you can, too!
10 Meals in 30 Minutes or Less
I was having dinner at my son’s house the other night and my daughter-in-law had made “old fashioned” baked potatoes. You know– in the oven and not the microwave. Boy, they were good. It seems so many things taste better slow cooked in the oven.
The funny thing is that it is still possible to prepare these meals in 30 minutes.
We started talking about how much longer it took to cook them in the oven compared to the microwave. That started me thinking. Yes, it does take longer in actual cooking time but it is often easier to cook in the oven and it is usually possible to prepare meals with 20 minutes or less prep time.
How Cooking In The Oven Can Actually Be Easier
When I bake potatoes in the oven, I work for just 5 minutes to get them ready and in the oven an hour before dinner. Then I just forget about them until dinner is ready. When they are finished, all I have to do is set them on the table and dinner is served.
When I microwave baked potatoes, I tend to start cleaning them and preparing them at the same time that I’m trying to make a salad and heat up the veggies. While I’m doing all of that, I have to remember to keep checking on the potatoes and turning them. If I am cooking several potatoes, I have to put a few in the microwave at a time. When each batch is done, I have to pull them out and add more, all of this at the same time that I am trying to prepare the rest of the meal.
Even though we have faster methods of cooking our meals, meal preparation has become more frenzied and hurried than years ago. With the introduction of the microwave and the idea that you can prepare meals in 30 minutes, most people do nothing to prepare or plan their meals at all until 30 minutes before they are planning to actually eat, which makes the cooking take. long longer.
So 30 minutes before dinner you find yourself trying to thaw something, cook it, and slap it on the table and at the same time talk and deal with tired, hungry, cranky kids. Let’s not forget how exhausted you are at this time of day, too.
We need to warm up our ovens and start using them again the way our grandmothers used to do. Here are some tips and ideas that prove that cooking meals in a conventional oven instead of a microwave can be just as quick and easy, not to mention how much more delicious they taste and smell. You might be surprised to find out how easy it is to make meals in 30 minutes or less.
I think we underestimate the power of coming home and smelling something yummy cooking. We automatically seem to relax, feeling that “all is well with the world”. I really think it can change the whole atmosphere of your home for the evening.
I am not living in a dream world. You can prepare meals in 30 minutes the way our grandmothers did. I hear some readers saying, “Our grandmothers weren’t ever as busy as we are so they had time to cook large meals.” I can hear our grandmothers chuckling at that statement. My husband’s grandmother had to help on the farm from early in the morning until evening. She took care of a large home garden, canned, cleaned house every day, did laundry without a washer or dryer and still provided meals not only for her family, but up to 20 farm hands as well. She had to do it all without a refrigerator, microwave, or a grocery store and the nearest water was a mile away from her house.
My mother-in-law would go to work as early as 7 am and work until 9 pm 6 days a week, but she still managed to make three large meals each day. If you’re thinking, “That’s great if you want to spend all your spare time in the kitchen,” consider that they spent less time in the kitchen than we do with less of the conveniences and still managed to have well balanced delicious meals each day.
What was their secret? They had never heard of 30 minute meals. Even if they had they would probably have laughed and wondered who would spend so much time preparing a meal? They knew that the key to preparing a meal in 30 minutes or less wasn’t how fast you could cook, but how organized you were. You can easily have a meal on the table in 15 minutes if you are organized and plan ahead.
Making quick and easy meals the old fashioned doesn’t mean microwaving and frying everything to have a quick meal either. Slow cooking something in the oven not only makes things taste better but is quicker with less prep time.
Our grandmothers’ secret to meals in 30 minutes:
- Keep your meals simple.
- Be organized.
- Decide what you are preparing the night or the morning before.
- Thaw anything you need the night or the morning before.
- Prepare as much of the meal as you can during the slow time of your day and when you are most refreshed. (This is very important.)
- Slow cook meats in the oven or in a crockpot.
- Keep your kitchen clean so you have an uncluttered work area.
Easy Dinner Ideas And Recipes
Here are some ideas about what to prepare. These aren’t elaborate gourmet meals. If you are too busy to cook dinner, then you are to busy to make gourmet dinners. Stick with the basics and keep it simple like our grandmothers did and you will be able to make meals in 30 minutes.
Slow cooked roast: Place a roast in a crockpot or pan. Peel five potatoes and carrots and drop them in with it and turn on the oven. This takes five minutes. Clean and cut broccoli, celery and cucumbers for a salad — five minutes. At dinner time, chop lettuce and tomato for the salad, adding the already prepared veggies. Then put the meat and the fixings on a platter — five more minutes. Voila! Dinner in 15 minutes.
Stew: It takes me seven minutes to cube meat*, peel five potatoes, carrots and onions, toss it into a pot and to season it. At dinner time, I put bread or dinner rolls on the table — one to two minutes and I have dinner in nine minutes.
*Ask your butcher to cube or slice all your meat for you. They usually charge nothing or just a few cents per pound. It saves not only time in cutting but in clean up too.
Chicken: Toss a chicken in a pan or crockpot — two minutes. Clean potatoes to put in with chicken or to bake in the oven — three minutes. At dinner time, warm a veggie — two minutes. Slice some fruit — three minutes. Dinner in 10 minutes.
Lasagna: Put noodles in a pot to boil — one minute. Brown the hamburger. Get out the cheese, tomato sauce, and the rest of the fixings; Mix the sauce while the noodles boil, 7-8 minutes. Layer everything — two minutes. Cover and put it in the fridge for dinner the next day or that evening.
Put the lasagna in the oven to heat while you get out of your work clothes, check the mail, etc. Set the table and cut a salad — five minutes. Dinner is served; 15 minutes.
Beef stroganoff: Make your beef stroganoff in your crockpot. (If you don’t want to use a crockpot, this recipe usually takes very little time, even when you’re just stirring it up in a pan.) Dump everything but sour cream and noodles into the crockpot. This takes three minutes’ work and then you can simmer all day on low.
Clean carrots, celery sticks, and broccoli for a relish dish (five minutes) and put it in the fridge. At dinner time, boil egg noodles (5-7 minutes). While they are boiling, add sour cream to the sauce and set the table. Total time: 15 minutes.
Chili: Mix everything in a pot the night before. Depending on what you put in, it should take 5-10 minutes. Simmer throughout the next day.
Soup: Do the same as with the chili.
Mexican Food- Almost all Mexican foods take less than 30 minutes to prepare. Enchiladas and tacos are super easy.
Casseroles– You can make so many varieties of casseroles. You can always find several that your family will love.
Breakfast– Throw some pancakes or waffles on and add some sausage or scrambled eggs and breakfast is ready for dinner in minutes.
These are just general examples of ways to prepare quick and easy meals in 30 minutes or less. It isn’t really a matter of time as much as it is a matter of being organized and getting things done before you are too exhausted to think.
If you have meats thawed and the ingredients on hand, most things can be tossed together in about the same amount of time it takes to order and wait to get your food at a fast food place.
Also, remember when you have your oven going, try to cook more than one thing in it. For example, if you are going to be baking a casserole, bake a pan of brownies, muffins or baked apples at the same time.
-Jill
For lots of quick and easy meals that you can make ahead of time, check out Quick and Easy Menus On A Dime, which is full of pre-made menus and recipes for meals in 30 minutes or less. Make it easier to put dinner on the table and get out of the kitchen faster!
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