Quick Dinner Recipes - What Makes Them Special?
Every Mom wants to feed her family nutritious, delicious home-cooked meals. But no Mom I know wants to slave away in the kitchen for hours every day! The answer: quick dinner recipes. You probably have a number of favorite recipes that help you get delicious meals on the table in 30 minutes or less.
If you’re pressed for time and need to choose a recipe quickly, look for one with some of the following features:
Calls For Only a Few Ingredients
Most quick dinner recipes have only a few main ingredients. This reduces the amount of time we need to spend getting the ingredient out of storage, measuring it, and preparing it for cooking. However, having a few ingredients does not always mean a recipe will cook up fast. This is why we should also make sure…
Ingredients Require Little or No Preparation
A recipe may only have 3 ingredients, but if you have to scrub, peel and julienne each one, then you’ll need more than 30 minutes to cook it. Of course, having a quick cooking gadget like a food processor to slice, chop or dice ingredients in a flash help significantly. Still, I haven’t heard of any kitchen gadget that will scrub and peel food for you.
Requires Pre-prepared Ingredients
Some recipes make shortcuts by listing already-minced garlic and onions, canned meat, or powdered cream soup. If you don’t mind shortchanging the taste, then this is an option. Personally, I don’t mind taking the extra time to peel and chop garlic, and I use my food processor to dice onions. On the other hand, I use canned beans rather than cook dried beans. Canned isn’t always bad. Canned tomatoes, for example, have more lycopene (the cancer-fighting antioxidant) than fresh tomatoes. Besides, if using these convenience foods will mean the difference between calling in for pizza and making a home-cooked meal, then it’s well worth it. Just be sure to choose those that have little or no salt and preservatives.
Uses Quick Cooking Techniques
Stir-fying, sauteeing and searing are examples of techniques that cook food fast. If you need to get food on the table right now, find a recipe that uses one of these techniques. If the recipe has only a few ingredients that require little or no preparation, then you could be finished in 15 minutes. Certain kitchen appliances, such as a pressure cooker, can make a normally time-intensive cooking procedure into a quick cooking one.
Doesn’t Need Babysitting
Baking, boiling and simmering may take a long time. However, if you can set up a dish and then leave it alone until it’s done, then it just might qualify for a quick cooking recipe. Take roasted chicken, for example. It takes nearly 1 hour to roast a chicken. However, within that hour, you can pretty much forget about the chicken. You can take a shower, go over your bills, play with your children…. You get the idea. No, you won’t get dinner on the table in half an hour, but you won’t be toiling in the kitchen the whole time either.
Every Mom needs a box full of favorite quick dinner recipes in her homemaking arsenal. Home-cooked meals are usually healthier, less expensive and more delicious than store-bought. Quick dinner recipes allow us busy Moms to give our family the best without overworking ourselves.
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