5 Quick and Easy Family Meals
Coming home after a long day and having to cook for a whole family can be an absolute nightmare. Coming up with ideas alone when your brain has been wired all day can be difficult, so if you’ve got a set of ingredients in your fridge, but don’t have the energy to make something fancy, or can’t seem to come up with recipes, here are a few easy meals you can put together in no time:
Beef Fajitas
A dish that combines a bunch of ingredients cooked together with a whole lot of flavor is always something your entire family will appreciate. But that doesn’t mean that it has to take hours to prepare. Corrigan Duffy from Corrie Cooks proves that having an instant pot will allow your meals to be cooked with minimal preparation. This mouth-watering dish takes 12 minutes to prepare and 13 minutes to cook when throwing the below ingredients together in an instant pot and letting it do its magic. Doesn’t that sound like a piece of cake?
Before you start cooking this delicious meal, here are a few ingredients that you should have at home:
- 0.5 kg of sliced beef steak
- 0.25 cups of beef stock
- 2 colored bell peppers, thinly sliced
- 1 sliced onion
- 2 tbsp of minced garlic
- 1 minced jalapenos
- 1 tsp of powdered cumin
- 2 tbsp canola oil
- 1 tsp chili powder
- 0.5 tsp paprika
Once you have the ingredients ready, it is time to get prepped and start cooking. In order to get your instant pot ready for cooking, pour the specified amount of canola oil in your instant pot to prevent it from sticking, then add the onion and peppers to be sautéed for two minutes. Wait until the onions turn into gold before you add the slices of beef, and then add the rest of the ingredients, except the beef stock to the pot. Make sure you stir everything together really well for one minute to let the different flavors come together before adding the beef stock to the mixture. After locking the instant pot, it is time for it to do its magic while you sit back and relax while it’s cooking (for 8 minutes). Once it is ready, you can add cheese or salsa to your fajita and voila!
Teriyaki Chicken
It’s highly unlikely that anybody could find this meal as anything but tasty. It is also very easy to make, can be ready in 20 mins and won’t require that many ingredients. As long as you have chicken teriyaki sauce, or soya sauce and honey, you’ll be good to go. You’ll also need a few other basic ingredients such as garlic, wine vinegar, sesame oil, and ginger. Easily found around the household!
All you’ll have to do is add two tablespoons of oil to a pan and fry the chicken until it becomes golden. Add the other ingredients except for the soya sauce and honey and continue to stir for an additional two minutes. The next step in making the teriyaki sauce is adding the soya sauce and honey with 100 ml of water to a pan and wait for the mixture to boil. Serve with rice and you’ve got yourself an easy, hot meal to die for.
Spaghetti
Any form of pasta is a delightful meal that is not only easy to prepare, but also keeps your belly super happy. Add that in an instant pot and you won’t feel the pressure of having to make dinner anymore. All you have to do is add a tablespoon of olive oil to your instant pot and switch on the sautee button. Once it is heated, you can add ground beef, mushrooms or whatever ingredient you’d like to add on to your pasta with crushed cloves of garlic, once you’ve stirred it and the color has indicated that it’s cooked, you can break the spaghetti in half and add it to the content along with a cup of broth or stock and the marinara sauce. With all the ingredients in the pot, you can lock it and leave it for 8 minutes and your spaghetti will be ready without the minimal effort involved.
Salmon
One of the easiest, most delicious and nutritious meals you can prepare is grilled or baked salmon. It literally takes 6 mins on the stove, 10 mins in the air fryer, and 20 mins in the oven if you’re going for a baked version. All you have to do is add a tablespoon of olive oil onto a pan, add garlic and stir for a few seconds before adding the salmon. Season the salmon with salt, pepper and any other ingredients you feel like. Whether it’s honey and mustard, or thyme and lemon, there’s a variety of ingredients that can entirely change the flavor of your salmon. Cook for 3 minutes on each side and it will be ready to be served next to a salad, any form of potatoes or even rice.
Tomato soup
When the weather gets cold, having a hot bowl of soup is a perfect meal to warm you up. The best thing is, you probably don’t even need to go grocery shopping as it only requires three ingredients: tomatoes, onions, and butter. In a pot, melt the butter and add half an onion (chopped) on top, with either canned or finely diced fresh tomatoes. Add broth to it and just let it simmer for 40 minutes until it becomes super creamy. Take all that mixture and pop it into a blender to get a fine, creamy blend that is just heavenly.
While the thought of cooking seems time-consuming, with these recipes you can have a delightful meal prepared in no time without that much effort included. These recipes aren’t just easy, but also tasty, creative and the kind of meals that will leave the entire family satisfied. So, for the coming week, you’ve got yourself a few crowd-pleasers that will be super-duper easy to make.
