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My Top 5 Fast, Quick, Crazy Easy Meals to Make

I am not a chef by any means. Not even a home cook. I can make food, but my idea of making meals is throwing things in a big broiler with some seasoning and cooking it, and I am done.

So here are some interesting, easy meals that I make that do not seem too arduous to carry out. Just some chopping or prep work but then you’re done. For most of it, I am done within 15 minutes, or I prep ahead of time and can make a meal within 5 minutes with the items.

You can google all of these recipes and find what works for you, I am just going to talk about what I do (no measuring, etc), and how I think of the meal when I go to make it.

VIETNAMESE SPRING ROLLS

I am talking rice paper rolls. The kind you dip in cold water, and wrap things in.

I like to put rice vermicelli (noodles) inside, which you buy at the store, and just put in a bowl, and some boiling hot water over them in 5 minutes cooks them and makes them ready to use.

I then chop up vegetables into sticks (bâtonnets if you want to be precise) to roll inside:

  • cucumber
  • carrots
  • salad leaves
  • avocado
  • radishes
  • green onions
  • green mangoes – adds a nice sour acidity
  • jicama
  • raddichio
  • herbs – coriander, basil….

I can stuff this roll FULL of vegetables, and it will be eagerly devoured by my child.

You can of course, add in cooked meats – chicken, ground pork or beef, sausage slices, salmon.. it all works. Just pick the mix you like.

For a dipping sauce you can make anything! The traditional one would be fish sauce (nam pla), rice wine vinegar, with some spicy chopped chillies, watered down by 50% that you can use to dip into, to eat.

You can also use salad dressing as a dip, like ranch salad dressing, you could also make Dragon sauce, which is nutritional yeast with soy sauce.

You could also make them, and pan fry them to make the outside crispy, so there is a crunch!

OH! I EVEN DO HUMMUS ROLLS NOW TOO! I add in hummus as the spread along with avocado, vegetables for crunch, and then wrap it all up. It is ridiculously good and delicious.

RAMEN NOODLES

Same concept as above. Grab some soba or udon noodles, get a broth (chicken broth), and cook the noodles in there, and add meat, vegetables, and crack an egg on the top at the end. Easy peasy.

Add soy sauce to increase the seasoning. You can even add chili pepper for spices, or any other seasonings, including strips of dried seaweed.

Some vegetable ideas for this ramen noodle soup:

  • mushrooms
  • bamboo shoots
  • carrots
  • green onions
  • white onions

And your meats:

  • chicken pieces
  • ground pork
  • ground beef
  • sausage slices
  • ground chicken
  • salmon

If you want to get fancy you can make a 7-minute onsen egg (see above, it’s a soft boiled egg that is custard-like inside). You take an egg cold from the fridge (or two), you start a boiling pot of water, and when it hits is boiling peak, drop the egg in gently, and let it go for 7 minutes.

Take it out after 7 minutes, cool it down with cold water, crack it open immediately, and then douse it in soy sauce. You can leave it overnight to let it develop flavour for the nighttime or the next day, and eat as you wish.

I also like to add bonito flakes (skipjack tuna shavings) on top of it. It’s a real hit.

PASTA

I have it ready in 15 minutes or less.

I like fettucine, boiling water, 10 minutes (mix it around so it doesn’t stick to the bottom or to each other, you don’t need to even add oil, the starch will separate). While the water is boiling up, I prep the items to mix the pasta into.

In another bowl, put some olive oil (tablespoon or so), smoked paprika (spicy or not), some raw minced garlic (I like it raw, but some people microwave it for 30 seconds to take the bite out), mix it together, add a pinch of salt or so to taste.

Then when the pasta is done, drain it, drop it in the bowl with the oil and seasonings, mix it up really well, and top it with vegetables and herbs.

I like to add basil, dried rosemary sometimes… I also like cauliflower (cooked) in there, or whatever leftover vegetables or meats are around. Carrots also work, but I don’t like carrots (too sweet) for a pasta. You can also do cherry tomatoes (fresh, or cooked).

Mushrooms, eggplant – these two have to be cooked but if you have it leftover, just throw it in.

Sometimes we grill chicken, I save aside half of it for meals later in the week, and add a pinch of a few pieces of meat with handfuls of vegetables (heavy veggies, low meat for us!), and mix it all in.

Another good alternative is tuna chunks mixed in. They go really well with small tomatoes and basil.

Add salt to taste at the end.

You can also add cheese on top (shaved Parmesan), and I also like to sometimes mix it up by adding curry pastes (green and red being my favourite), or basil pesto to add another flavour level to it.

I even do fish sauce (a few drops), to add a umami flavour.

SOMETHING + RICE

Cook brown or white rice. A rice cooker helps greatly here, or a one pot as it is easier to make rice in a pot than on the stove in my opinion.

When you need a protein, you can also just put seasonings on a piece of chicken like honey + soy sauce + pepper, mix it all around as a marinade, throw it in a broiler on top of some vegetables like sliced carrots, potatoes, mushroom, eggplant, or sweet potatoes, and crank it to 20 minutes or until cooked. The chicken juices will run into the vegetables to cook it.

Take it out, put on a plate with some fresh rice beside it and whatever cooked vegetables you have made.

I also like to sometimes jazz up my rice by adding furikake which is a type of seasoning sold in Japanese stores, of dried bonito, salt, seaweed and other seasonings. You mix it into the rice to give it some flavour (I can even eat it plain like that, with it mixed in), and have vegetables on top of the seasoned rice.

SUSHI

Sushi is ridiculously easy. You just need a rolling mat, some seaweed and cooked food (or raw if you are comfortable) to wrap inside it to make maki rolls.

What you see above in the photo there is nigiri. It is much harder to do, along with temaki (hand rolls). Maki is easy peasy sushi for anyone to do.

Cook the sushi rice, and immediately pour in rice vinegar (not just any vinegar, RICE vinegar) to season it and then set it aside. You can’t wait until it has cooled, the rice will stick together and not mix well with the vinegar.

Then you spread rice on top of the rough side of the seaweed sheet (called nori), in a thin layer (not thick, and not fully covered, leave about 2 inches of seaweed), then roll up bâtonnets of vegetables with meat or seafood in there, and pull it tight to make the roll neat, rather than loose.

Seal the end of the sushi roll with some water, and to cut it, just wet your knife, and slice carefully through the roll to create chunks.

For vegetables I find the following works best:

  • jicama
  • pickled vegetables like radishes
  • cucumber
  • carrot
  • green onions
  • avocado

…even kimchi! I like kimchi in there as well.

For the meat or seaweed portion:

  • frozen eel – just buy it, and defrost it and then cut, no need to pick the bones out, they’re so soft and small, they’re edible as-is
  • slices of teriyaki cooked chicken
  • slices of beef marinated in soy sauce
  • slices of salmon (even the smoked kind can work too)

Check out the sushi menus in restaurants to get ideas, that’s what I do.

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