My 30-Minute Meals

Fast and easy recipes for on an evening when you don't want to spend hours in the kitchen. 

You may have heard of Jamie Oliver's 30-minute meals...well mine are better trust me😏

DID YOU KNOW: You can now buy powdered sachets from the supermarket which contain the sauce/spices you need to make the meal of your choice. They even have the recipe and ingredients you need on the back, what could be simpler?

1. Spaghetti Carbonara 

Probably my favourite meal of all time. Not the healthiest of things (especially if you have a garlic bread on the side...mmm now you're talking), but it sure is tasty! 

All you have to do is fry up some bits of chopped up bacon and mushrooms together in a pan, whilst at the same time cooking some spaghetti in a separate pan. Multitasking at it's finest I know. 

Now there's three ways you can do the sauce...

1. You use a sachet like I mentioned above 🠉 which involves adding milk to the powder and adding it to the bacon and mushrooms and waiting from the mixture to thicken. 

2. You can buy a ready-made sauce which you simply re-heat and add when everything is cooked.

3. Or...you can make your sauce from scratch (oooo fancy), which involves mixing eggs and cream together and adding it whilst the spaghetti is still warm. You do have the risk of this curdling and going like scrambled eggs though, so you have to get it just right!

TOP TIP: Once cooked sprinkle with a small amount of Parmesan and black pepper👌

                                                               

 2. Fajitas 

An absolute classic. Who doesn't love fajitas? Mexican is one of my favourite cuisines and although I don't deal with spice very well, I have adjusted my pallet so that it can handle just enough to enjoy it.

The best thing about fajitas is that you can have whatever filling you like. I usually opt for chicken with peppers and onion, then add salsa and cheese and sometimes guacamole or salad cream if I want to go all out. You can buy fajita kits with different flavours too, for example mild, spicy or BBQ, so you can choose which suits your tastes best. 

It's one of the simplest things you can make. You just need to fry the chicken until golden then add the veg with the flavouring sachet and mix until cooked. Then you just need to heat up your fajita wraps in the microwave for 30 seconds and BAM you're done. They are ready to be assembled. 

TOP TIP: Don't add too much filling to each fajita wrap as you'll end up making a right mess!

3. Chilli Con Carne

Again sticking with the Mexican theme...you can't beat a good chilli. Again it's a simple dish to make and takes no longer than half an hour to put together.

Similar to the carbonara, you can either opt for the sachet, ready-made sauce or make a sauce from scratch (this is likely to take longer than half an hour though). It's better to make it simpler for you, especially if you've had a busy day, don't feel bad about cheating with a ready-made sauce.

Some people are put off by chilli because of kidney beans...I however LOVE them. They are so good for you and I think they have such a nice flavour! However, you can leave the beans out if you'd prefer and replace them with another veg you like (mushrooms, sweetcorn...there's no rules! Make it your own). 

TOP TIP: Make sure the mince is nicely broken up when you cook it, there's nothing worse than finding big clumps of mince 😨