Simple, beginner meals

[Minnesota!]

When we were young and broke, my cheapest meal was:
Cut up an onion or two and start sauteeing in italian dressing.
Boil a # of pasta, at last few minutes, toss in a container or two of frozen spinach. Drain all.
Mix with the sauteed onion/dressing, top with parm cheese and more dressing or balsamic.
You can add frozen meatballs or, hell, chopped up nuggets, for some protein.

Other easy:
Pot of chili/chili mac - brown the beef with some onion, pepper, other veggies, drain.
Mix in tomato juice, seasoning packet, meat/veg mix, a few cans of drained beans, simmer. Then make some rice or macaroni to throw in, too. A huge pot can stretch a few days

 

[TwoMisfits]

My spouse lived on stir fry (bottled sauce, bags of frozen veg, microwave rice, and chicken - usually from the leftover rotisserie he didn't finish) and hamburger helper. I don't know how many times I ate those two (more stiry fries b/c I hated HH) before I just offered to cook for him when I went to visit him, or told him we'd use my meal plan.

But I can guarantee, both are very easy and cheap. And a good sauce means you can do anything in the stiir fry - fresh or frozen veg...

 

[Praying Colonel]

Quesadillas are easy--you can buy pre-cooked chicken strips, or brown some ground beef and add seasoning, or go veggie with peppers, onions and spinach. Throw in some lettuce, tomatoes and guacamole and you're eating!

This article really helped me up my quesadilla game:

https://www.seriouseats.com/food-lab-great-quesadillas

 

[TAX GUY]

A very easy meal that our son would make for us (he wanted to help once in a while and cook dinner) was a three cheese chicken penne. Can be done with Purdue chicken strip pieces (non breaded), a box of penne pasta, Alfredo sauce (jar is fine). Cook pasta, drain, add chicken and Alfredo sauce, warm. Serve and sprinkle with shredded parmesan cheese.

Another is a dish my wife and I love and have often. Assuming no seafood allergies, and if they have an air fryer...

One pound of peeled, deveined and butterflied shrimp (we prefer the large shrimp), anadolu chicken sausage (or any kind of chicken or regular sausage), sliced, cut zucchini and summer/yellow squash.

Toss shrimp with olive oil to coat, season as desired (salt, pepper, etc), add cut veggies and coat all with oil. Add sliced anadolu chicken sausage. Put into preheated air fryer basket, cook for 12-15 minutes at 380°. Serve. Here's a picture of it that I just made last week...

 

[jaybirdsmommy]

Haven't seen it listed here but what about breakfast for dinner? Scrambled eggs and bacon or sausage are pretty easy to make. Quiche is simple as well with a store bought pie crust. Add some cut up fruit or salad.

 

[kdonnel]

We eat a lot of sheet pan dinners. They work well at college as well.

Generally we do broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, and zucchini. Sometimes we do potatoes. Cut them up into similar sized pieces. Put them all in a ziplock bag with a little olive oil and half a packet of dry ranch seasoning. Shake it all up and dump on the sheet pan.

15-20 minutes at 375. If doing potatoes they need to go in for longer so they go in first on their own sheet pan for 5-10 minutes before the other veggies go in.

For the protein we do sausage or shrimp or chicken or a combination. If chicken cut into small pieces, toss in a ziplock with olive oil and the other half of the ranch packet. If you cut the chicken to the correct size it will be done in the same 15-20 minutes so both sheets go in at the same time. If doing sausage just cut it up into small pieces and put it in with 10 minutes left. If doing shrimp put it in at 5-7 minutes remaining.

 

[mrodgers]

Tik Tok pasta:

Box of pasta ( I use bow ties or penne)
1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
Block of Feta cheese
Garlic ( I use about 2 cloves)
pinch of salt
Cherry or Grape Tomatoes (I use about 3-4 pints)

Heat oven to 400
In Glass/ceramic baking dish ( I use 9x11) place feta cheese in center. Place tomatoes around the cheese and garlic and drizzle olive oil all over. Cook for 30 minutes at 400 and then increase to 450 for another 15-20 minutes until tomatoes start to char a little on top.
Cut pasta according to directions.
Remove dish from oven, be careful very hot, and add drained pasta and stir. Reserve some of the pasta water if you want to thin it out.

There are a lot of videos o YouTube for this. It's the easiest recipe I make, My daughter's favorite.

I got called out for dinner over the weekend a few weeks back. "The girls make this all the time, they saw it on Tik Tok..." and this is what it was. It was quite delicious, but had added some cream cheese.

When the tomatoes and feta cheese was removed from the oven, you were suppose to crush the now softened tomatoes up and mix with the feta and cream cheese to make the sauce, before adding the pasta.

 

[Turn the Page]

BLT's. Easy and always a crowd pleaser.

 

[mjkacmom]

Dd19 apparently doesn’t know how to cook (except buffalo chicken quesadillas since those were my emergency easy meal, rotisserie chicken, shredded chicken, Buffalo sauce, tortillas), I cook everything from scratch (right now marinating tandoori chicken with chick pea masala in the slow cooker, raita with garden cucumbers already made). I sent her a small crock pot and told her to use some premade sauces and mixes (make sure they’re gluten free). She lives my tikka masala but I literally use about 20 ingredients. I also told her how to make a simple marinara sauce.

 

[Maggie'sMom]

Dinner salads can be easy. Chicken caesar salad: Buy the frozen grilled chicken strips, grated parmasan or romano cheese, caesar dressing, and croutons if desired. Toss it all together.

Crockpot meals where you dump the ingredients and let it cook all day. Plenty of recipes online for these.

Chili. Brown 1lb of ground beef and a chopped onion, drain, add 2 cans of beans, a can of diced tomatoes, a can of tomato sauce, a cup and a half of water, 4 teaspoons of chili powder, 1 teaspoon salt. Let simmer for about 45 minutes.

Stirfry. Use jarred sauces and frozen vegetables.

Agree with tacos.

 

[HeatherC]

Does she have a crockpot? Can be a lifesaver.

Pulled pork….throw some pork in and cut up an onion. Put the onion in and dump a jar of bbq sauce on top. Can also do the same thing with chicken.

Buffalo chicken…chicken breasts, cream cheese,packet of ranch seasoning and tbsp of butter. Cook all day and shred and serve as wraps or over baked potatoes.

Soup…broth, some seasonings, cooked ground beef, chicken, turkey. Add 3/4 cup rice or noodles and let simmer all day. Can leave meat out if you want.

Beef stew…use a McCormicks seasoning packet. Put meat and veggies in and add seasoning. Can’t be any easier.

Baked potatoes in crockpot…wrap in foil and cook low all day. Serve with broccoli and melted cheeses on top, or taco meat, etc.

Crockpot Lasagna…mix cheeses (ricotta, mozzarella, Parmesan with one egg. Layer lasagna noodles, cheese, pasta sauce in a couple layers. Top with more sauce and cheese and cook low all day.
Can even use frozen ravioli if you want.

 

[Karin1984]

Not the cheapest option, but a meal box like Hello Fresh can help.
At least I can say it did for me. I can cook, but I am not a great chef and the thought of cooking for someone else scares me to death.

I've been using Hello Fresh for a few months now and I think my cooking skills are improving. I learn which flavours go well together, certain techniques etc. It takes the stress of buying the ingredients, the right amounts and it comes with pictures.

 

[Maggie'sMom]

Something I meant to mention in my first post was if the other girls are more comfortable with cooking, maybe your daughter could ask if she could help them cook and learn some recipes that way.

 

[Imzadi]

While DD is at home, it would be better to teach her the basics of how and WHY to cook things at a certain temperature, or why oil is put in the pan after the pan is heated up, how and when to broil meats so they get a crispy sear, etc., so she can cook more than just a couple recipes. It's kind of along the lines of teaching people to fish, instead of just providing a couple of meals to make yet not understanding the process beyond that, to be able to experiment and make more.

That said, YouTube and Pinterest have a LOT of "one sheet pan" meals that are super easy:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=sheet+pan+dinners

https://www.pinterest.com/search/pins/?rs=ac&len=2&q=sheet pan dinners&eq=sheet pan&etslf=5957

 

[Imzadi]

There are other "jars of sauce" that make good really easy meal but are slightly different than the norm. I like to get a jar of tikka masala type sauce from the grocery store and cook a couple of pieces of boneless skinless chicken (breast or thighs work, but thighs are much cheaper) in it for maybe an hour on the stove on a fairly low heat. (If she doesn't have long to cook it she could sauté the chicken a bit then add the sauce to simmer just to heat through while she cooks some rice.) Serve it over rice with some fresh veggies or a salad. If we have leftovers, I pour in a box of chicken broth, the leftover rice and sometimes add a can of cannelloni beans for soup the next night. (Sometimes I freeze leftovers for this purpose. She could save it for her next turn to cook and make up soup and serve it with warm storebought sourdough bread with lots of butter. Trust me, no one would complain.)

A trip down the specialty food aisle of a grocery store could yield some interesting sauce options that could all function the same way and she'd just have to look for the ones on sale. I like to pick some up on sale to have for a quick dinner when I need something easy.

YES! I've been getting jarred sauces at Trader Joe's and Target. All I have to do is cut up the meats, add some frozen veggies (either the stir-fry varieties or mixed veg, or simply broccoli & cauliflower heads) saute them a bit, then add the sauce and simmer or put the whole thing in the oven to allow the flavors to meld.

Some of my favorite jarred sauces are:
Trader Joe's Alfredo sauce (very simple, wholesome ingredients.)
Trader Joe's Thai yellow curry simmer sauce
Trader Joe's pizza sauce (tastes like authentic pizza sauce)
Target's Pad Thai sauce
Jarred pesto - mix with pasta, add a simple salad for dinner
Lots of meat marinades

 

[bjscheel]

DD21's most popular meal to make for friends was sliders. A package of hawaiian rolls, cut in half the long way (so one big piece of bottoms and one piece of tops). Top with cheese, browned hamburger, ketchup, etc as desired, then add the tops back on. Melt a 1/4 cup of butter, add some brown sugar, and pour that over the tops. Bake 350 for 18 minutes.

Or instead of beef, do shredded chicken, cheese, ranch, italian seasoning instead of the brown sugar.

Or a ham & swiss version, etc.

 

[scrapquitler]

This weekend DD has been home from college. She’s a sophomore, and is living in an on-campus apartment with three other girls. All of the other girls have cooked a couple of dinners so far. DD has not, as she really doesn’t know how to cook, other than maybe Mac & cheese or grilled cheese. The other girls have made baked ziti, beef stroganoff, meatloaf, baked chicken. DD said that of one of them cooks, she’ll contribute and buy groceries, but feels she should also take a turn cooking occasionally.

We’ve managed to land on a chicken & rice bake I make occasionally that is very simple. I’ve gotten all of the ingredients for her to take back to school, given a few written instructions and I’m sure she’ll FaceTime me when making it to make sure it is out together properly.

What are some other simple, basic, beginner recipes I can help her put together so she can contribute to the weekly cooking? She’s already said she’ll do spaghetti one night, she can handle boiling noodles & opening a jar of sauce. But they can only eat so much spaghetti in a semester!

I'd buy her a crockpot and teach her a couple simple crockpot recipes. Maybe something like Chili, chicken and dumplings, pot roast or some soups. Then I'd write each of them on a recipe card (I'm old fashioned and work better off a written recipe) or give her a link to a video tutorial she can watch while she makes it.

I'm actually kind of suprised (pleasantly) by the idea that they are sharing meals like that. When my husband lived in an on camput apartment, and when my daughter did, everyone prepared their own meals. Sharing the cooking was just never a thing. Its pretty nice that they are doing that.

 

[Immadismom]

Something I meant to mention in my first post was if the other girls are more comfortable with cooking, maybe your daughter could ask if she could help them cook and learn some recipes that way.

This is my hope. That she will learn from her friends. i guess we will see!

 

[Immadismom]

I'd buy her a crockpot and teach her a couple simple crockpot recipes. Maybe something like Chili, chicken and dumplings, pot roast or some soups. Then I'd write each of them on a recipe card (I'm old fashioned and work better off a written recipe) or give her a link to a video tutorial she can watch while she makes it.

I'm actually kind of suprised (pleasantly) by the idea that they are sharing meals like that. When my husband lived in an on camput apartment, and when my daughter did, everyone prepared their own meals. Sharing the cooking was just never a thing. Its pretty nice that they are doing that.

I‘m going to have to get her a crock pot. They don’t have one. I provided a toaster oven, at her request, and they use it frequently. But no one brought a crock pot. I’m sure she can handle tossing stuff in there.

 

[CdnCarrie]

I guess my question is why didn’t you teach your daughter to cook? She didn’t help in the kitchen at all?