5 Easy Dinners You Can Cook in 30 Minutes | Allrecipes

Short on time and tired of cooking, I'm taking care of you today. I've got five dinners you can have on the table in half an hour. When you're talking about 30 minute meals, you can expect that there's gonna be minimal ingredients, therefore also being budget friendly. Also, a couple shortcuts like pre-cooked chicken are gonna come in clutch. I'm starting with my favorite type of meal, a one pan dinner, and I'm making chicken pot pasta because it just sounds cute. I'm starting off by melting a little butter in my skillet. One pan dinners, we're gonna build those layers of flavor and for this one in particular, we don't have to dirty another pot to cook our pasta. It's all gonna cook together. To the melted butter, I'm going in with that onion. Cook that till it's softened and then I'm gonna make the cream sauce. So this is a chicken pot pie where we don't have to use the cream of can. Now I'm gonna go in with a little bit of garlic and just cook it for about a minute until it's fragrant. Now to make the cream of, a couple tablespoons of flour. Let that cook for about a minute and then we'll go with our stock. I'm doing a combination of chicken stock and heavy cream because you get that chicken flavor but you get that good creaminess. This mixture's also gonna be a little loose because we're gonna cook our pasta directly in the liquid. Make sure you stir it to get all of those clumps out. Make sure there are no little clumps of flour in there. Add in some seasonings, a little salt, a little pep. And I'm gonna go in with some fresh thyme. You could also use dried. If you wanna use the dried instead of the fresh, just use a lot less. All right, and I'm just gonna bring this up to a simmer and add in our pasta. You're gonna think this is not enough pasta but trust me, it absorbs all this liquid. Bring this back to a simmer and then you're gonna reduce the heat slightly. You don't want it to be at a rolling boil. Then you're just gonna cook it, stirring occasionally until the pasta is tender and it's gotten thick and creamy. Everybody's stoves work a little differently so yours might evaporate out before it has absorbed so you might need to add a little more liquid. If you just keep your eye on it and don't let it get too hot, we'll be good to go. So far this whole process has only taken about five to seven minutes. Now it only takes about 10 to 12 more minutes and then we just finish it off. Who would have thought you could have a chicken pot pie experience in less than an hour? Not me. All right, as you can see, it has absorbed a lot of the liquid but we're about to go in with some more ingredients and the pasta is just about there because it's gonna cook a little bit longer so I like to go on with this next step just before it's done so that you don't get mushy pasta. Now I'm going in with a couple cups of cooked chicken. I'm just using rotisserie but if you have meal prepped and you've cooked some chicken ahead of time, it's a good time to use it. In a 10 ounce bag of frozen mixed veggies, adding this in and then I want it to come back up to temperature so it just cooks for another five minutes and then it's just about done. Those veggies are gonna give off a little moisture so before you go, add more liquid to kind of see how this does and if you want to add a touch more cream, this would be the time to do it. Okay, once those veggies are heated through, we're done, almost. Finish it off because it's pasta, some Parmesan cheese. I know this typically isn't in chicken pot pie but it's always in pasta. Always check your seasonings, make sure you don't need any more salt and pepper. Mm, delightful. Go with a little more salt and a little more pep. That was fast, we'll serve it up. This is the epitome of comfort food and I love that you get all your meat, your veggies, your carbs in one bowl and in one pot. I'm gonna finish it with a little more cheese and some chopped parsley and more pep. A new take on a classic, chicken pot pasta. Yes, please. This is one that's family friendly and you only have one dish to clean up. It's kind of like a combo of chicken Alfredo meets chicken pot pie. Crowd pleaser, easy, 30 minutes, dinner served. A plus, plus plus. I got one for your taco Tuesday, a chicken chip bake. It's only gonna take about five or so minutes to prep, 20 minutes in the oven, under 30 minutes on the table. This is kind of a cross between like chilaquiles meets enchiladas meets nachos. It's so good. In order to keep this at a 30 minute or less meal, you gotta go for your shortcuts here. I've got prepped, pre-cooked chicken from a rotisserie that I've shredded. Costco, baby, 4.99. I've gone ahead and shredded some cheese also and then shortcut with pre-made enchilada sauces. Take your chicken, dump it in. Along with some green onions. I'm gonna keep some out for the topping and I'm going in with a little bit of the cheese. These canned enchilada sauces to me have like the perfect amount of seasoning. You never really have to add salt and pepper here. I'm gonna add in a can of the green enchilada sauce here and mix that up. Now you wanna lightly grease a nine by 13 dish. If you've got one that's a little deeper, perfect. But I'm also gonna add in just a little bit of oil. Get you some tortilla chips. I really like the ones that are like a thick cut kind of home style chip. Tastes more authentic, but really you can use any chip you like. Then I'm going in with a can of pinto beans that I've drained and rinsed. Leave the beans out if y'all are not bean people, but I think it adds that fiber that we all need. And then a cup of cheese here. That kind of gets in the nooks and crannies. Then you're gonna pour in about a cup of the red enchilada sauce. Not quite the whole can. Now in goes our chicken mixture. And this is a really hearty meal too. I would easily serve this to company. All right, then you're gonna go in with the rest of the chips or just whatever fits in your casserole dish. All right, then you pour over the rest of the enchilada sauce, which is the rest of this can and another can. Make sure it kind of fills in those little nooks and crannies there too. Then more cheese. We don't want it to dry out, so we're gonna cover it with some foil. Now this goes into the oven 425 degrees for about 20 minutes, then uncover it and go another five minutes or so. Look at that. A little bubbly around the edges. I like doing this kind of meal kind of like you would a taco bar where you just put all your toppings on the side and let people kind of make it what they want. Because nobody's not gonna love chicken chips and cheese at this point. The inside's gonna be nice and creamy while the top has that little crunch to it. So cheesy. I like to go on with some pico. If you've got all the rich indulgence, now you want some pops of freshness in there. A little hot and cold. A little of the green onions we saved from before. You can add some avocado here. You could do some guacamole, jalapenos, whatever you want, but look at that. The chicken chip bake for the win. The chips are just kind of magical in there. You get a little kick from that enchilada sauce, plus it has tang, so it kind of cuts through the richness. Perfectly cooked, perfectly tender. This right here should take the place of any of your favorite enchilada casseroles. And thank you later. Next up is not a one pan situation, but rather an entree and two sides in less than 30 minutes. Air fryer bang bang salmon with rice and green beans. This is one of my greater creations over the years. Get your salmon already cut in portions. Makes things a little easier. And then you make your bang bang sauce. Go in with mayonnaise and then sweet chili sauce. This is very affordable on the international aisle at your grocery store. So you've got your sweet, your creamy, and now kick it up with some sriracha. And you have bang bang. Our main meal prep is done in what, less than two minutes? All right, so we're gonna spread about a tablespoon or so on each salmon filet and just pop it in the air fryer. Don't let your spoon go back in here because you can serve it with more bang bang sauce at the end, but not if it's been contaminated with our raw salmon. And then these just go into the air fryer at 400 degrees for about 10 minutes. And while that's happening, you saute your green beans and you microwave your rice. Those aren't the most beautiful pieces of salmon. I don't know what it is. Look at that. The sugar that is in the sweet chili sauce is what caramelizes on that. And I've gone all out and made some rice. You really have time to make rice from scratch if you want. I'm just trying to give you all the benefits of a 30 minute dinner. Cooling out my inner Rachel Ray with these 30 minute meals. For the green beans, I just get the steam in bag. Just steam them in the microwave for about three minutes and then throw them in a skillet with a little salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Place on that beautiful bang bang salmon. I mean, this is one of those restaurant quality meals in under half an hour. Spoon on a little more of that sauce. Garnish if you please. Air fryer bang bang salmon with two sides in less than half an hour. See how we did. It has the skin on the bottom. When you cook it like this, you can easily just flake it right off the skin. You can also just peel the whole filet off the skin. Or you can eat the skin. Mm, I'm glad I revived this recipe. Forgot how good it is. And it's another one of those recipes where you're like, why don't I make this every single week? My whole family would eat this one up. As a matter of fact, they will be for dinner tonight. Mm, if you don't make anything else from this episode, you better make that. I bring you another restaurant quality meal, entree and two sides that's also very family friendly in half an hour. I call this poor man's steak because it's not quite steak. It's pork chops, but I'm gonna make these pork chops taste just like steak. This has been my new thing in my house because have you seen the price of steaks these days? And especially when I've gotta buy at least three or four of them. Did you know you can get four steaks for less than 15 bucks? And they're gonna be good. I'll prove it. We are gonna be having poor man's steak with baked potatoes and broccoli in under 30 minutes. How do you ask? Well first of all, we're gonna microwave the baked potatoes. Now if you want this meal to take a little longer but still be just as easy, you can pop these in the oven or the air fryer for a little more time. But microwaved baked potatoes are just fine. So stab them, get them going, about, I don't know, six, seven minutes in the microwave. Baked potatoes are done while we cook the pork. And then towards the end, I'm gonna prepare my broccoli the same way I did the green beans. Just kinda steam them in the bag and then just give them a quick saute. You could just leave them steamed, but they have more flavor when you do that second step. Now when my dad used to make steaks, he used to always do some sauteed mushrooms and put on top. So that's what we're doing here. So when it comes to seasoning, I just keep it really simple. Salt and pepper, a little garlic powder. You do wanna be kinda generous here because we wanna create that good kinda steak crust. I'm also using bone-in center-cut pork chops. That's what you want. This is the best way to cook pork chops if you want a juicy pork chop and not a dried out one. I really did this kinda just by accident one day and it totally satisfied the steak craving that I'm like, I might only buy the real steaks on special occasions. This is how you can enjoy steak on a weeknight and on a beer budget. All right, I'll season the other side when we get in the pan. Everything else happens in the pan, so come on. Get probably your largest skillet, get it hot, and go in with a little oil. Just enough to cover the bottom. I'm gonna place these in, season side down. And then season the other side and let it go, walk away. Let them cook for about four minutes without touching them. Crust, good. First layer of flavor. Kinda give them a little love on the sides. Putting those aside. Now look at all that meaty flavor right here. Time to lift it up. Little bit of butter, let that melt. Flavor the butter with a little bit of garlic and down with the mushrooms. I'm not gonna salt these until later. If you salt them now, it just kinda draws out the moisture and they don't really get brown. You wanna get a little color on these mushrooms. So just kinda let them go for a second. Little olive oil to help it along. You can use just the white button mushrooms if you want. I'm using the baby portabellos or creminis. They kinda have a slightly more meaty flavor. Now, Worcestershire is gonna give it that steak flavor. This is also the way my dad used to make his sauteed mushrooms. And it also has the acid in here, which is gonna lift off the flavor from the bottom. And I'm just gonna kinda stretch it out by adding a little water. And then some fresh thyme. Use your spoon to scrape up that flavor. And I'm gonna let this reduce by half. Now you can see that flavor's kinda concentrated right there. Now I'm gonna stir in a little more butter. And you know in the restaurants when they baste their steaks with butter? That's what we're about to do. So I'm gonna kinda let that melt. Put my steaks, my steaks back in. Along with any juices that might be in the pan. You can add more butter if you want. Tryin' to be healthy. So just kinda take this mixture, spoon it over. We're not basting to cook it like they do the steaks. We're just basting it to add more flavor. Just kinda let it all get acquainted with each other. Okay, so then you're just gonna cook this for about two to three more minutes. Just to kinda heat those pork chops back through. Reminds you of steak. And if you could smell it, you would smell that this smells just like steak. Potatoes are in the microwave, so is the broccoli. I'm gonna saute that broccoli while these rest and serve it all up together. Serve it up. Hot baked potato, straight from the microwave. That was about six and a half, seven minutes. A little butter, let that melt. We always gotta have something green with our dinners. And now our steak. You gotta admit it looks good. But it's all about the sauce. And I hope you were timin' that because that's more of like a 20 minute meal. Finish my potato. There's no way that you would ever guess that we can get steak and potatoes in under 30 minutes. Let me show you how good this is. So tender. So juicy. Like a twinge of pink. Tinge? Twinge. Tinge. Pink. It's a tinge. Just a very faint tinge of pink in the middle. If you ate this blindfolded, I swear you would think it's steak. I swear. This is one of those things you're either gonna have to take my word for it or test it out and see if I'm tellin' the truth or not. This next dish, Cuban style picadillo, is what you're gonna make with your pack of ground beef that's sittin' around. A little somethin' different, but also familiar at the same time. This is a traditional kinda Latin American dish that combines ground beef with peppers, onions, garlic, a few other things. It's packed with flavor. It's similar and can be used for like tacos. But I'm just gonna serve it over rice with some various toppings. I'm just starting with a little bit of bell pepper and onion. This can, like I said, be used for fillings for tacos, but also for empanadas. Kinda like a multi-purpose situation here. And if you make a big batch and you have leftovers, you could easily turn this into a pot of chili. Those are the kinda things I do. When you see me cook from my freezer, it's things like this. This is the extent of the prep, which happens in less than five minutes. Everything else happens on the stove. Start with a little olive oil in my skillet. And I'll cook the onion and bell pepper in that. While this might seem like a base for chili or tacos, when you see some other ingredients I'm adding, you'll see the difference. Give that a head start to soften before I add in the ground beef. Add some garlic. And you want this to be really soft and cooked down, so it takes about five minutes or so. Once that's all softened in with your ground beef, I'm using a lean ground beef here, then cook that till it's browned and crumbled. Now it's about to get interesting. But don't be scared. I would never steer you wrong. This is all looking delicious. Now we really kick it up with the flavors. There's gonna be so much going on, it's just gonna be like a party in your mouth. Going with an eight ounce can of tomato sauce. Olives. Half a cup of raisins. Listen, if I were you, I wouldn't tell anybody. But it's in there. They're not gonna know. It's gonna blend right in. But it's gonna be the sweet to the salty. For more brininess, some capers. Little bit of cumin. Well, more than a little bit. Just a little bit of sugar for balance. And then the sesame. Everybody loves this stuff. Man, oh man, wish you could smell it. This is my first time making this recipe, but I chose it because it sounded so good. Gonna rinse out the can with a couple tablespoons of water. Mm. Doesn't need much salt. I'm just gonna do a pinch. All right, and then we're just gonna cover it and let it simmer for about five minutes. Fast, easy, and on the table in less than 30 minutes. I'm really excited about this. I think if my kids were looking, they really wouldn't think too much about this. They would think it's black beans, because sometimes when I make taco meat or something, I put some black beans in there. I'll try it on them tonight. Serve it up. All right, let me show you how we dish this up. Again, you could have just made rice from start to finish, and it would be ready in 15 minutes. But at this point, I'm on my fifth recipe, and I'm all about the shortcut. Feeling lazy. This is just one serving. Suggestion is over rice. I just did some quick pickled red onion, because I think that sounds good with it. I'm going in with some cilantro. Picadillo in half an hour. In with the fork. Out with the perfect bite. Mm. There's so much flavor going on here from all ends of the spectrum. You can't make out what everything is. It doesn't just taste like I'm eating taco meat on top of rice. This really tastes like a whole new dinner experience. I purposely got a bite with multiple raisins in it, and you cannot tell it's a raisin. You just get a hint of sweetness. I could see how this could be really good inside of an empanada, or layered in some sort of casserole. Either way, if you've never had picadillo before, this is a great recipe to start with. And it won't be a waste of time, because it only takes 30 minutes. I've just completed one meal for every weeknight, and I didn't even break a sweat. To be able to make five complete dinners before lunchtime is an accomplishment. I feel like Superwoman.