Posted 19 Mar, 2021

Easy Weekday Recipes

Coming up with new, fresh recipe ideas for dinner every day is not easy. Coming up with recipes that are not only tasty but also fast and easy enough to make for your family after a long day of work is even harder. That's why we've put together a list of five tried and true recipe ideas you can rely on to make dinner easy and fun again - one for every day of the work week!

Halloumi Traybake

Vegetarian, Gluten-free

This is a delicious and oh-so-simple recipe to make when you don't have the time or energy to think of something complicated but you still want a healthy and tasty meal for your family. The secret to this easy recipe is that you bake it all in one pan, so all you have to do is set a timer and give it a good stir halfway through. Nevertheless, we recommend par-boiling your potatoes rather than just roasting them, since potatoes are always a little finicky in these kinds of one-pan recipes. Also, while the halloumi is incredibly yummy and definitely one of our favourite parts of this dish, if you're a fan of spice we do recommend adding some, to taste, since in our opinion this meal on its own is a tad bland. 

Instant Pot Butter Chicken

Butter chicken isn't just a delicious Indian dish, it's also pretty hard to mess up. Tender chicken in a gently spiced tomato-based sauce, with a buttery, creamy flavour that makes this a perfect choice for easy comfort food on a weekday. Try this widely acclaimed Instant Pot butter chicken recipe, and you'll see just how easy it can be to have butter chicken for dinner tonight.  

Spicy Root Vegetable and Lentil Casserole

Vegetarian

If you want a great comfort food recipe that's simple enough to make during the week, this lentil casserole with potatoes, parsnips and carrots is a great option for you. This is another recipe where we suggest you modify it a little. But don't worry, it's a simple change. The recipe calls for you to fry up onions and garlic before you add potatoes, carrots and parsnips, and cook until the vegetables are golden. We find the suggested 6-7 minutes of cooking time here just isn't long enough to brown our vegetables, and while the onions can take the extra heat the garlic could burn if you fry it too long, so we suggest you hold that ingredient back until a few minutes before you move on to the next step.

Chorizo and Mozzarella Gnocchi Bake

We confess that we haven't made this recipe before, so we've got no recipe adjustments to offer this time. But it's at the top of our list of easy weekday recipes to try, and how could it not be? The combination of smoky chorizo, cheesy mozzarella and light, fluffy gnocchi can't be beat. If you make this recipe let us know how it turns out in the comments below, because we think it will be delicious.

Cast-Iron Pizza with Fennel and Sausage

Making pizza at home in a cast-iron skillet is not only fast and easy, but also delicious and very customizable. If you're vegetarian you can swap the sausage for your favourite veggie instead. If you don't like fennel you can change that too! It's also customizable in terms of how much time you want to spend on dinner. If you're feeling lazy or are in a hurry, you can use store-bought dough, pre-made pizza sauce and shredded low-moisture mozzarella, and it will still be delicious and taste homemade. But if you want to get more advanced by making your own dough or sauce, you can do that too! Before you jump into pizza making, here are a couple tips: If you struggle with stretching your dough out, try taking it out of the fridge a few hours before dinner, that way you can stretch it in stages and let the gluten rest in between. Also, if the bottom of your crust isn't crispy enough after cooking your pizza in the oven, just cook your cast-iron pizza on the stovetop for a few minutes to finish. This will brown the bottom without burning your toppings. 

Happy cooking!