Simple, beginner meals

[PrincessShmoo]

What are some other simple, basic, beginner recipes

My easy to prepare meal:

1 lb hamburger, broken into small chunks
1 or 2 carrots, cubed
large celery stalk, cubed
1/2 C chopped onion
1 medium tomato, cubed
1 medium/large potato, cubed
BBQ sauce (could also use any sauce-type liquid)

In casserole dish layer half of the hamburger, carrots, celery, potato and onion. Then pour on some of the sauce. Layer remaining half of hamburger, carrots, celery, potato and onion. More sauce on top. Cover and bake in oven for 1 hour.

Remove from oven, stir in cubed tomatoes, and more sauce (if needed). Place back in oven for 15-20 minutes.

Stir and serve.

 

[NotUrsula]

The Semi-Homemade cookbook series is a good one for a casual cook. It's not haute cuisine, but there's enough variety in there to keep them out of a recipe rut.

Our teens' go-to easy pasta dish is Penne Arrabiata, which is a nice spicy change from typical spaghetti, and tends to be a bit cheaper if you can find a decent source for a jarred arrabiata sauce other than Rao's. (TJ's used to have a good one, but it has been discontinued. These days I usually buy the Culinary Circle version; it's decent, and usually runs about $2.99) The meat in this is loose italian sausage, and some hot pepper flakes (save them from pizza or chinese food deliveries) are needed as well. All that is needed is to brown the sausage and drain off the oil on some paper towels, then put it back in the pan and add the jarred sauce and a sprinkle of pepper flakes for heat. If you want to get fancy you can combine the drained pasta and the meat sauce in a casserole dish, top it with mozzarella shreds and bake it, but it's just fine dished out onto the pasta on your plate straight from the saucepan. We usually have it with salad.

Also a very simple one-pan meal is box-mix Chicken-sausage Jambalaya. It's best with dark meat chicken, pre-cooked and cut in chunks (in a pinch she could buy a few pieces from a deli counter & strip them, but just boiling it first will do, and that gives you stock to use instead of water, which is tastier), plus some sliced smoked sausage. It does need a large saucepan with a tight lid. Buy a box of Zatarain's mix and use it straight from the box as directed, or add some sliced green onion tops & bell pepper chunks halfway through cooking. Jambalaya freezes VERY well and is easily heated in a microwave.

FWIW, when I was in college I shared a house for 2 years with 3 other women, one of whose parents lived in the same city. Our agreement was that we would take turns making dinner M-Th. The girl with the parents in town knew how to make ONE thing: Hamburger Helper. Every time it was her turn to cook she made Hamburger Helper for the rest of us, then LEFT to go eat at her Mom's. After about 2 months of this we were ready to shoot her. Finally she got a decent job, so she tended to buy takeout on her night most of the time, but she still dumped Hamburger Helper on us fairly regularly.

 

[Immadismom]

FWIW, when I was in college I shared a house for 2 years with 3 other women, one of whose parents lived in the same city. Our agreement was that we would take turns making dinner M-Th. The girl with the parents in town knew how to make ONE thing: Hamburger Helper. Every time it was her turn to cook she made Hamburger Helper for the rest of us, then LEFT to go eat at her Mom's. After about 2 months of this we were ready to shoot her. Finally she got a decent job, so she tended to buy takeout on her night most of the time, but she still dumped Hamburger Helper on us fairly regularly.

This is so funny, in a not funny way! DD doesn’t like Hamburger Helper, so her roommates are safe there. But knowing her, she’d make spaghettI every time she had to cook.

 

[LuvOrlando]

https://www.mccormick.com/spices-and-flavors/recipe-mixes/mccormick-one
My kids did a lot of these, they are mostly a protein, a bag of veggies and some basic things like oil and nearly always with an extra side of rice. Farmers market was the favorite.

I found it easy & less expensive to shop with my kids with a shared cart in Instacart and have things dropped off. We'd talk about recipes, they would shop the cart & I'd go in and help them remember basics, it worked well plus I never got annoyed over where all the $ was going since it was my card and we sorted it together.

Roast chicken from grocery store was one meal, leftovers and a can of broth made a nice broth for chicken soup in the slow cooker, stores sell a bag of soup veggies & tortellini.

 

[QueenIsabella]

FWIW, when I was in college I shared a house for 2 years with 3 other women, one of whose parents lived in the same city. Our agreement was that we would take turns making dinner M-Th. The girl with the parents in town knew how to make ONE thing: Hamburger Helper. Every time it was her turn to cook she made Hamburger Helper for the rest of us, then LEFT to go eat at her Mom's. After about 2 months of this we were ready to shoot her. Finally she got a decent job, so she tended to buy takeout on her night most of the time, but she still dumped Hamburger Helper on us fairly regularly.

This is what we did when I was in college. Everyone picked a night when their schedules were most free and made dinner. Minus the whole Hamburger Helper thing, of course--we all actually cooked real food.

A crockpot could be the OP's daughter's best friend--pulled pork or chicken, pot roast, salsa chicken would each take 5 minutes of prep time.

And, if your DD likes pasta, there's nothing wrong with that! It can be made dozens of ways. There's no shame in using jarred sauce--tomato, pesto, alfredo, whatever. Stir-fries are also easy, cheap, and healthy. They can be done with rice or noodles--you can even buy bags of frozen, sliced stir-fry vegetables, which makes prep super easy.

 

[Southernmiss]

I had Momma's summer school of cooking the 2 summers before my kids graduated high school.

Maybe you could do something like that on Christmas or Thanksgiving break.

I also bought my kids an updated Betty Crocker cookbook which not only had recipes, but methods, how to and whys of cooking.

Several times, I have messaged my kids pictures of recipes I make or sent links to them.

3 of my kids are advancing beyond me with international meals they prepare. Homemade Naan breads, butter chicken, etc.

Encourage your daughter to try recipes and follow them. Most recipes turn out great even for the novice.

Like others, my daughter's roommates and their friends who are guys in the same apt complex take turns cooking for the group.

My daughter has made a delicious sweet potato hash and a creamy shrimp and andouille sausage recipe that our family loves for the group.

An easy thing I've done before is cooked breaded chicken tenders by package directions, made spaghetti noodles, put the noodles in the bottom of a pan, added the renders, poured a jar of spaghetti sauce over it all and added cheese on top. Easy, tasty, parmesean chicken.

 

[fly girl]

This is the easiest chicken recipe to make: (Salsa Verde Chicken w/ Rice)
https://www.delish.com/cooking/recipe-ideas/recipes/a50766/baked-salsa-verde-chicken-recipe/

For a soup, here ya go: (Quick and Spicy Tomato Soup)
https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/giada-de-laurentiis/quick-and-spicy-tomato-soup-recipe-1947762

Easy Pasta Dish: (Garlic Butter Shrimp Pasta, I sub baby spinach for arugula)
https://damndelicious.net/2015/03/1...EFs6Pmi9vmNnbPrUeHdre6cEjvNA-3aw9N8m8poe6FNms

 

[Pea-n-Me]

These soups are really good and always a hit. Also low in sodium by themselves. For this one she’d need a jar of salsa and two chicken breasts cooked and shredded (a rotisserie chicken works, or supermarket deli roasted or fried chicken), as well as some low sodium chicken broth. I also like to add some extra corn, and have some shredded cheese and a few crushed tortilla chips for the top. Takes about 40 mins to make but is delicious and filling. You can buy them on Amazon (and send directly to her), there are a variety of soups to choose from. Some supermarkets sell them, too.

 

[3monkeys4me]

My daughter is also a college sophomore. She is living in an off campus apartment with 1 roommate. She loves to cook but she just doesn’t have time to do so with her schedule. Two meals that are fairly easy to make that seem impressive are homage tomato soup with grilled cheese and pasta with spicy vodka sauce (made without the vodka while she’s away)

Tomato Soup - she does blend it with an immersion blender but you could use a regular blender or eat it chunky

Pasta

She also does super easy things like seasons chicken thighs and cooks them in the air fryer and puts it on top of bagged Caesar Salad.

 

[barkley]

yummly is a great website to find easy recipes-it is the source for some that our oldest first prepared in college but have now become staples in our home (taco soup-VERY EASY, stuffed bell pepper soup-VERY EASY and lasagna soup-VERY EASY and quite impressive).

i agree with getting her a crock pot (and a couple boxes of the liners-they make clean up so much easier, esp. with smaller apartment sinks/dishwashers). i also pointed out how some foods are almost entirely the same in ingredients and preparation save a few minor differences to encourage some experimentation (koftas, meatballs, meatloaf are all the same basic ingredients-just a few differences spice wise; feeling confident with this knowledge led the eldest to start experimenting with making their own pasta sauces and pasta bakes (a quick easy one-uses pene, sauce, the small frozen (prebaked) meatballs, pepperoni slices and grated cheese. blend together with cooked pasta into a baking dish, bake for about 30 minutes at 400 degrees and it goes great with a loaf of garlic bread, reheats well too).

 

[QueenIsabella]

Another thought is to watch Rachael Ray's "30 Minute Meal" shows. They have cookbooks to accompany them (obviously a purchase, but try thrift or used book stores). The nice thing is, she's a cook, NOT a chef, and when she demonstrates, it's like she's gabbing with a girlfriend while she chops and preps. She rarely uses exotic ingredients, explains what she does, and turns out some delicious food.

I agree on some basic cooking lessons, when she has time. It's not difficult, she needs confidence, and maybe a few tools, like the crockpot.