Category: Lazy Recipes

8 Minimal Effort Meal Ideas

valmanwill2 Comments

Hey. It’s October. Holidays season is coming up. Plus NaNo season if you participate in that. It’s a busy time for everyone! So I compiled a short list of my favorite no-effort to minimal-effort meals that you can whip together on a busy working day.

This ravioli with a jar of spaghetti sauce

I don’t know why it took me so long to discover Rana raviolis, but these things are life savers! I keep a bunch of them frozen and make them for lunch on heavy writing days. They only take five minutes to boil and one package is pretty hardy. You can feed two people or eat it all yourself (you might want to, it’s really good.)

These croissants with deli chicken salad

These are so good to have on hand. Premade croissants and premade chicken salad. Nothing you have to make yourself other than putting one of those ingredients on the other haha

Tortilla chips with a can of tuna

Hear me out, I know this sounds really gross, but it’s honestly so good! You could do mayonnaise with the tuna or not. Either way tastes great.

Pre-made pinwheels

These saved my post-partum life guys! These are TRULY zero-effort meals. You don’t even have to warm them up, you can just pull and eat them straight out of the refrigerator.

Frozen mixed veggies with this jar of Tikka masala sauce

Warm up the veggies in the sauce. That’s it. That’s all you have to do.

Hummus and Naan dippers or pita bread

A naan-effort meal

This Home Chef Chicken Street Taco Kit from Kroger

The chicken one specifically.

This Cajun pasta platter from Chili’s

Okay, but bro, hear me out again haha. This To-Go platter is the perfect meal to eat off for the rest of the week. It’s the only thing I know of that tastes better the longer it marinates in your fridge. So it’s basically meal prep, is what I’m saying.

If anyone else has any other ideas please feel free to share in the comments! Let’s all embrace an easier way to lunch.

Cajun Pasta Chicken

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It’s been quite a while since I’ve shared a recipe with you guys, so I figured this would be a good one. This, in my husband’s opinion, is my best dinner. Originally it was a buzzfeed recipe (I’ll post below), but I ended up modifying it for several reasons. First reason is that I can never find good sausage so I don’t even bother with it. Secondly, I already had garlic salt and lemon pepper from another failed Cajun recipe so hey, can’t let that go to waste.

The biggest change is that the original recipe was a “one-pot” deal. Which I really liked the idea of only using one pot, but what I found is that it did NOT take ten minutes to cook out the chicken broth, it took more like fifty minutes. Ultimately, I decided that I would rather clean an additional pot than spend an hour plus standing over a hot stove. If that’s not a big deal for you, I’ve included both recipes below. Enjoy!

 

INGREDIENTS:
– Vegetable Oil (2 Tbsp.)
– 2 Diced Chicken Breasts
– Lemon Pepper
– Garlic Salt
– Onion (chopped)
– Red Pepper (1, sliced)
– Green Pepper (1, sliced)
– Mushrooms (2 cups)
– 16 oz box of Fettuccine
– Chicken broth (5 cups)
– Heavy Cream (1/2 cup)
– Shredded Parmesan (1 cup)
– Cajun Seasoning (1 Tbsp.) (I use Cajun Choice)

DIRECTIONS:

Get pasta cooking in the five ounces of chicken broth. (Or alternatively, four ounces of chicken broth and one cup water)

Pour vegetable oil into the pot. Add diced chicken breast to the pot, coat with Cajun seasoning.

Once the chicken is cooked, add in the onion, peppers, and mushrooms. Stir in the garlic salt and lemon pepper. (If you would like your pasta to be spicier, you can add more Cajun seasoning here.) Continue stirring until the veggies cook down.

Add the cooked pasta. Stir in the heavy cream and Parmesan.

 

 

Here is the original video and recipe:

 

How To Bake Rice

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I was supposed to publish a recipe last Thursday and never got around to it. Did you notice?

To make up for it, I’ll teach you how to make rice without busting your back over the stove. Fair?

 

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup uncooked rice

2 cups water

 

DIRECTIONS:

Heat water in a 2 quart container for 2 minutes in the microwave. Stir rice in immediately, cover and bake. 400° for 20 minutes.

 

Makes PERFECT rice every time! I never make stove top anymore since this one is super easy.