#133: How We Actually Make Dinner in 30 Minutes

This week, we’re breaking down how to actually get dinner on the table in 30 minutes. We talk about quick recipes, but also systems we use that make weeknight cooking faster and less stressful. We discuss what slows dinner down, common mistakes, and how to simplify your approach. From using convenience ingredients to prepping ahead and building a go-to list of fast meals, this episode will help you think about how you approach meal planning and cooking so it works for your busy life.

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Transcript

30 minute dinner system
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[00:00:00] I'm Riley and I'm Roni. And this is the plan to eat podcast, where we have conversations about meal planning, food, and wellness. To help you answer the question what's for dinner. 

Roni: Hello. Welcome back to the podcast Riley. How you doing today?

Riley: I am doing pretty good. It's very warm outside. Did you see that? We're gonna get snow this weekend.

That's so hard for the meal plan.

Roni: Tell me about it. Spring is so awkward. I'm sure it's awkward in other places, but it feels extra awkward. In Colorado, I feel like just the, like, do I wear a jacket today? Am I wearing a tank top tomorrow? Are shorts appropriate? Should I bring a different pair of shoes along with my flip flops? Oopsies, I planned soup and now it's 87 degrees.

Riley: Yeah. There are the, there are those like things, you know, people are like, oh, well just pack layers. Like that is the epitome of where we are. Pack layers.

Roni: [00:01:00] Yeah, I don't like packing layers. I, my favorite time of year are the, like four weeks, I feel like it's only like four weeks in the summertime where you can leave the house in a tank top and shorts and sandals, and you don't have to care. Because like even if you stay out until nine 30 at night, it's still like 80 degrees.

And so you're still comfortable. 

Riley: That is usually very brief. 

Yeah, 

Roni: Yeah, there are other places where that's like way, like a longer stretch of time. Right. But like in Colorado, it's like a very specific part of our summer.

Riley: Yeah. Like five months if not longer. Yes, it is. It's like the peak of our summer. It's like the peak warm weather of our summer and the rest of the time you have to make sure you've got a jacket

because as soon as the sun goes behind the clouds, you're cold again.

Roni: Right. Or it's like gonna start raining or snowing.

Riley: Yeah. Otherwise, I'm doing good. How are you?

Roni: I'm doing great. I like the warm temperatures. Colorado's weather this year [00:02:00] has been scary. For all of the snow that we did not get. But I like the warm weather.

Riley: I know you do.

I am a fall girl.

Roni: I love fall.

Riley: I am looking forward to warm days when I can just drink my coffee on the porch, though. That is my favorite part of summer.

Roni: Well, me too. Because we moved into our new house at the end of last summer, so we didn't get very much time to be able to do that, to enjoy our, our deck before it turned into like being cold every morning. So I'm like super excited about this summer and I'm just gonna sit on the deck the whole day.

I need to get one of those computer shades. Have you seen these things? It's like a.

Riley: definitely need

Roni: It's like a weird little like shade contraption that you can put around your computer so your computer doesn't overheat when you're sitting outside and working in the sunshine. And also it makes us, you can like see your screen better.

I need that because I'm just gonna be out on my deck the whole summer.

Riley: Yeah, they're not very expensive. I just go, I just Google with [00:03:00] it. Some of them are hilarious, but some of them are, look, they look like very petite.

Roni: Yeah. I think they make like standing ones that even have like umbrellas on them that I've seen. I'm not gonna go that far.

Riley: There's some that are, they look, they look like a video game console from the nineties, you

Roni: Yeah, that's what I'm thinking of. Yeah.

Riley: screen. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Roni: I saw somebody, there's like some other, some podcast that I listened to. She was talking about it on that podcast and then I saw on her Instagram, like she's like posted a picture of it after she talked about it on the podcast and I was like. I need one of those.

Yeah. And it looks like almost, yeah, like an arcade game console or something.

Riley: Yeah, that's what I was trying to say. Arcade game. Yeah.

Well, I guess that's a good segue welcome to the Plan to eat podcast,

all of our 

Roni: If you're still here with us.

Riley: if you're still here with us today, we're talking about 30 minute dinner. As a system, how do you get dinner around the table quickly, every single night.

30 minute [00:04:00] dinners are awesome. Do you ever make dinner and it only takes 30 minutes and you're like, that was awesome and you were surprised by it?

Roni: Yes. Well, I feel like I maybe had this rant a while ago on the podcast, but I. Really hate it when a recipe misleads you for how long it's actually gonna take. They say like, easy 30 minute dinner, and then you make it and you're like, no, that took me an hour. Clearly your version of a 30 minute dinner is different than my version of a 30 minute dinner.

And I feel like sometimes when recipe authors say that it's a 30 minute dinner, they're talking about the like cooking process and not necessarily like chopping of the veggies and like getting all of your things together because sometimes. I don't know. Sometimes that just takes a long time and, and I feel like I'm pretty good with my knife skills and being pretty fast at like chopping things, but maybe I'm just way behind compared to some recipe [00:05:00] authors.

Riley: Yeah, I, I think maybe it is that it's cook time. Oh, only 30 minutes of cook time or something like that. I think also almost every recipe that is a new recipe for me. Even if it says it's 30 minutes isn't because it's new. You know, I dunno. It's just like, you've gotta follow somebody else's new lingo.

You know, when you're reading a recipe and you have to like kinda get used to the way a recipe author talks or, or even just like how the recipe comes together, just depends on what it is. Like a pasta dish with a new sauce or something like that. And you're like, okay, well what goes when? 'cause those components are a little more important in something like that.

Like when you add things to it. Or I don't know. We also live at elevation and sometimes things take longer to cook, like water takes longer to boil, or like the pasta takes longer to cook than the rest than it calls for on the package. And,

Roni: Things take longer to bake in the oven.

Riley: yeah. And so all of those things can kind of add to a 30 minute dinner.

But when you get a true 30 minute dinner from start to finish, it is really the way to win the week, I think, because it just eliminates all that [00:06:00] time that you spend cooking.

Roni: I agree. What's your expectation for a 30 minute dinner? When you look at a recipe and it says 30 minutes, what's your expectation? Is it cook time? Is it cook and prep?

Riley: Oh, it's prep, prep to prep to plate,

Roni: I like that.

Riley: yeah, prep, uh, prepping like, you know, everything getting in the oven or wherever you're cooking it to eating it is around is, or 30 minutes or less. That's my 

Roni: expectation.

Yeah, that's my expectation too. Yeah. Yeah,

Riley: And I think it's just, that's just like, maybe it's semantics, right? Just like some recipe authors are like, it only takes 30 minutes to cook, but everything else takes a little longer.

And that is okay. It's just, you just need to know, which is why one of the most important things is that you read the recipe first, even when you plan it, not even just like when you go to get started cooking it, but when you plan it to like ensure that it actually is, I dunno, the process that you understand and the step by step that you're familiar with and all of that.

Roni: And it is the recipe that you think it is and not the one that's supposed to be like slow braised in the oven for four

Riley: Roni [00:07:00] knows about that.

Roni: Yeah, I think that most of the time, so. I definitely think that there are sometimes a different expectation for what a 30 minute dinner is, as far as like me as a person versus maybe the recipe author. But in general, I think that a lot of people just fail when it comes to 30 minute dinners because like they just wanna be more ambitious than they actually have time for on a busy night.

And so it's like, you know, this recipe sounds really good, or it has ingredients that we really wanna use, and they're not really thinking that much about the amount of time that it takes and. I don't know. I, I just think that that makes dinner way more frustrating

Riley: Mm-hmm.

Roni: when you are trying to be like the master chef on a Wednesday night and you really don't have time for it.

Riley: Mm-hmm. Yes, a hundred percent. I. This is when it really comes down to like being like a planner. Plus, you know, like you've got the meal [00:08:00] plan, but then as your week is progressing. Keeping an eye on what's coming. And I, I don't know about you, but I, my schedule changes as the week goes on sometimes, you know, like a night where I thought we could have time to cook a longer meal.

It ends up being a night where we need a fast one. And so looking at kinda keeping an eye on the meal plan as you go, moving recipes around as you need to move them around and also. Potentially looking at those recipes and saying, oh man, can I make this faster? And trying to figure out what you can look at, what you can adapt in a recipe to still make the same thing. Use the ingredients you bought, but just speed up the process a little bit.

Roni: Mm-hmm. I'm excited to talk about that. Before we go there, what, what do you, so we talked about re not reading a recipe. What else do you think slows people down when it comes to getting dinner on the table quickly?

Riley: Well, one that comes to mind is not thawing out ingredients that you need to cook with.

Roni: Oh yeah.

Riley: I, I don't, doesn't matter what that thing [00:09:00] is. If you've got something in your freezer, maybe you planned around protein that you had frozen, the frozen vegetables, which usually you can cook from frozen, but other things that need time to thaw, if you do not thaw that out, then you're already looking at so much extra time.

Roni: Yeah.

Riley: So that's one that comes to mind. What about you?

Roni: Well on that thought, I will often, if I forget to take, you know, some like chicken or ground beef or something out of the freezer in the morning and then maybe I'm like away from home and I realize like two o'clock like, oh no, I didn't do that. There's definitely not enough time for this to thaw. I. I usually will just pivot my meal plan and be like, what else can we eat?

Like what is already thawed maybe for a different meal that I have planned this week? Or like, what can I make out of pantry staples instead? Because I really hate the process of speed. Thawing meat in particular, like in the microwave and like

Riley: no, no, no.

Roni: the, no, it's so bad. Like the edges get like cooked and then ooh, ugh.

Riley: Don't do it. Don't do.

Roni: [00:10:00] it's so bad. So I would literally rather pivot and be like, we're having peanut butter and jelly sandwiches tonight,

Riley: Yeah, and you know, you can't always pivot the meal plan. I'm thinking like, I had friends over for dinner. Well, what I've got planned for tomorrow night is with friends. So tonight is, this is our option. Or we go take out or pivot to a pantry meal. So sometimes shifting gears is hard.

Roni: It can't, oh, it

Riley: and avoiding the panic planning, right?

Like the panic pivoting, if you can do that. So one thing is just looking ahead, that thing, that idea I was talking about before is just. Taking your planning and adding to it a little bit and planning ahead, looking out ahead and saying, okay, we gotta thaw that. Oh, I need to chop that, whatever it looks

Roni: Yeah, I try really hard to check in with my meal plan in the mornings

just to try to avoid this, but then 

also. 

Riley: perfect time.

Roni: But then also, like you're saying, if something has changed about that day or my husband made plans that evening and I wasn't expecting it, [00:11:00] something like that. That is then the time that I can switch around a recipe in the meal plan for something that is more suitable for that night.

But that's my rec, that's my number one recommendation is check in with your mail plan in the morning.

Riley: Yeah. That's great.

Roni: I think something else that also slows people down. When it comes to getting dinner on the table fast is choosing recipes. Even if it says it's a fast recipe or a 30 minute recipe, sometimes recipes still have too many steps or too many ingredients to prep.

Kind of like I was talking about earlier with like, even though I feel like I have pretty good knife skills and I'm pretty fast at prepping things, if a recipe calls for seven different vegetables to all be chopped, like that's inevitably gonna take a long time. And like there are recipes that you know, like I'm thinking.

Like a stir fry recipe. I don't really like frozen stir fry vegetables. So almost always use fresh vegetables. And there are some stir fry recipes that like you have cabbage and you have broccoli, and you have bell peppers, and you have [00:12:00] onion, and you have mushrooms. And it's like the list goes on and on and it's at some point you're like, okay, we need to like cut down the number of vegetables that we have in this dish because I'm gonna spend 30 minutes just chopping all of these things.

Riley: Oh, for sure. Well, I mean, seven ingredients or one butternut squash,

Roni: Oh yeah, totally.

Riley: I think. Yes. You're hacking it Well, you know when you try to peel one and it just keeps slipping outta your hand, like there's just, so, yeah. And then you got 30 minutes right there of just prepping one vegetable. Yes, I agree with you.

Also, I agree with you on the stir fry vegetables because there's like more crispness to them if you use them fresh, whereas they're soggier if you use them from frozen. Um, so I'm with you. Now granted, there are times we're still gonna use 'em frozen because that's the time that we're living, but,

Roni: Right.

Riley: Another thing that slows people down is choosing to plan recipes they've never made before. On a busy weeknight. Now I am all about trying recipes that I've never tried before and I want you to keep doing that. But there is an [00:13:00] element of, you don't have to like, uh, I dunno. You, when you're familiar with how a recipe, the process of a recipe and it's one that your family likes and it's familiar and you've made it before, it automatically goes faster because you don't have to go back to the recipe to say what's next.

Usually you can say, oh, I, I just remember that this is next. Or, oh, I already know I need to boil water. Or, oh, I need to start the rice when I start everything else. You know, those kinds of things. But if I, I mean, I, I've done this, I made an unfamiliar recipe a couple of weeks ago and it didn't come together very fast or very well.

I felt a little clunky in the whole process. It was like an Italian, like a, like an oil and butter based sauce that just like, was like splitting. It wasn't really like working. So then I had to kinda like, you know, fight with that. I probably did something wrong 'cause I was trying to hurry. And all those things just slow you down.

And if you literally only have 30 minutes or you start late and everyone's starving and you don't want everyone snacking endlessly before you feed them. Planning recipes on busy [00:14:00] weeknights that you are familiar with as much as you can is super helpful.

Roni: Yeah. And for me, a recipe that I'm familiar with, it's easier for me to outsource different components of that recipe. A lot of times my husband will ask how he can help with dinner, and if it's a brand new recipe I've never made before, I'm, I'm like, I don't know, because I don't know what the, I don't, I, I don't, you know, I, even though I read the recipe, I don't have. In my head exactly what the next step is, or maybe what the next thing that needs to be cooked or prepped is. Whereas if I've made the recipe before, I can be like, oh yeah, I need you to grate the cheese for that, or I need to do this other thing. So there's an aspect of that too. Like if you're trying to get dinner on the table faster and you can outsource some components to somebody else, you're gonna be able to do that when you have a recipe like semi memorized, you know,

Riley: Totally. That's great. That's a good, that's a good point.

Roni: I think one of the biggest mistakes that. That can be made though, is trying to decide what to eat at five 30 because you didn't make a meal plan.

Riley: Because think about, I mean, I think we [00:15:00] talked about this last week or last episode, but just the idea that like, you know how hard it is when you're asked like, what do you wanna eat for dinner?

Roni: Yeah,

Riley: How hard it is to make a choice. That'll take 30 minutes right there.

Roni: right.

Riley: We're running out of time. Just find something and eat it.

Yeah.

Roni: Yeah, but it, yeah, I mean if you're like, oh, it's five 30 and you know, say we have to like leave the house 'cause something is happening and we have to be to that thing at six 30 and we need to eat before we go. But I never decided what we're actually eating for dinner. I had to take time to just decide what we're going to eat and then get the things ready for it and prep it and cook it.

Like that's Disaster Canyon right there.

Riley: Disaster Canyon. Okay. Tell me on the very rare occurrence, because you're a meal planning pro on the very rare occurrence, when that happens, what do you go to to eat? You're at home. Oh shoot. You've got to eat. It's a night. You didn't plan anything. Go.

Roni: Ooh, that is a good one. I would say, I think I mentioned [00:16:00] this recently in a recipe is if it's chillier outside, I'll go for like a ramen. There's a really easy recipe, that I found this winter that's, it's like a beef ramen and you make you use like hoisin to make the sauce

and you can just, you know, use whatever random vegetables you have for it. It's a, it's a recipe that comes together really fast. I personally always have ramen noodles on hand and, always have either ground beef or like, cube steak or something, which you could just like chop up and, you know, use really similarly to ground beef.

there have been times when I have just resorted to like a frozen pizza. One of the great things about Costco is the Costco brand of frozen pizza is like a box with four pizzas in it. It's like $14. It's not the greatest pizza you've ever had in your life, but it gets dinner on the table.

It does, it'll do. Um, and my husband's never complained about a frozen pizza before. [00:17:00] Honestly, we might do something like hamburgers because again, we pretty much always have some sort of ground meat on hand. They might be hamburgers without buns, or we use just like regular.

Sandwich bread for

Riley: And we call that a smashburger, or we call that a yes smashburger. 

Roni: Yeah. Well we call that a patty melt.

Riley: patty, melt. That's it. That's what we call it.

Roni: Yeah, we call that a 

patty melt. 

Riley: We call it a patty melt. Yeah. Thank you.

Roni: yeah. So we might do something like that because that is super easy. And then, we also often have, I also often have like frozen french fries in the freezer that like I can just put in the air fryer and then it's like, I'm just having hamburger and french fries tonight.

Riley: Yeah, that's good. We will do, I guess, chicken seed salad.

Roni: Oh, yeah,

Riley: I often have some kind of chicken, air fryer, chicken product.

Roni: yeah, yeah.

Riley: So we'll make that or make that into a wrap. It's like a chicken salad wrap. That, which helps if you are low on ingredients because putting it into a tortilla, like you don't need a huge plate of salad [00:18:00] with chicken on it.

You just can wrap it in a tortilla. It kind of helps the portions go further.

Roni: Oh yeah. Tacos is another one. Like just put something in a taco. Yeah.

Riley: dude. Tacos is, what was my next one? Um, avocado toast with like a fried egg on top.

Roni: Ooh.

Riley: My kids love that. They love that. And so that's, that's one, that's one that we'll do. We think there was, oh, oatmeal. My family, uh, that like savory oatmeal.

And so savory oatmeal with some eggs on the side or something along those lines. Everyone was really happy with that when I'm like, we need a five minute dinner. Do what you gotta do sometimes. But

Roni: Yeah, I'm into it. It's always good to have just like back pocket ideas because yeah, we can catch ourselves off guard.

Riley: Yes, and I think you and I have talked about this before, but both of us, our method to planning is often that we will plan like four nights or five nights of a seven night week. And so that's when there are holes, like I, I leave a hole because I use that for [00:19:00] leftovers sometimes.

Roni: Mm-hmm.

Riley: We potentially will go out to eat maybe once a week, maybe again, that hole might get filled.

Um, might do something with friends one, you know, like I, I like to have the space in the week. I don't wanna be so locked in. And so it's good to have those little ideas when, because it's not because I didn't plan, it's because I left a hole for something and that I need to fill it. So, 

Roni: One thing that we wanna talk about is how you can take a recipe that's not a 30 minute recipe and turn it into a 30 minute recipe. One of the things that you have talked a lot about before on the podcast, Riley is doing some work ahead of time. Like you've talked about doing your meal prep and stuff while your kids are napping and getting some things done earlier.

I feel like that's a good way to help make a recipe come together a lot faster when dinnertime comes around.

Riley: Yeah, it is. It's not even just nap time anymore. Now it's just kind of like, oh, I've got a little time. Or if I'm making dinner already, like, so if I'm making [00:20:00] dinner, it's Tuesday. But I know Wednesday night dinner needs something similar. Like, let's say I'm chopping an onion and I know I'm gonna use the rest of it for the next night.

I may go ahead and chop it and just save it. So other things that I do, oftentimes sauces usually taste better if you make them in advance, right? So whether that is nap time or morning or the day before, I'll try to get some kind of sauce put together because all those flavors. Just do so much better, in my opinion.

If you give 'em a night,

Roni: Mm-hmm.

Riley: I will chop vegetables earlier in the day and just put them in the refrigerator to wait for me. I'll make guacamole earlier in the day. I'm trying to think what else I do. Oh, with things I call for chicken, like let's say there's a recipe, this creamy Tuscan chicken soup that I recently made, and it was actually a night where I'm like, I do not know what we're about to eat.

And I just found a recipe and pivoted, and the recipe called for chicken breasts to cook in the broth, and I had rotisserie chicken [00:21:00] frozen, so I just put that in there. That saved me a crazy amount of time. That dinner probably wasn't supposed to take 30 minutes, and I think it only took 30 minutes 'cause everything just came together so quickly.

So that's another thing. Particularly things like, um, like if I'm making homemade french fries, that's always better if you like, chop them, soak them in water and then dry them. And that's a process, right? That takes some time. So if I'm doing that, I'll often make that earlier in the day or get it started way earlier in the day.

Chopping vegetables for a salad. Zesting, lemons, you know, like, it doesn't have to be anything crazy, but just these like simple little things, chopping sweet potatoes earlier in the day. I'm trying to think what else. Like I just, I just try to look ahead and see what's in this recipe.

Is there anything I can do in advance? And I just try to do that thing. It does, it's not like super complicated. It's not, it really doesn't take that much time in the moment. [00:22:00] It just that it takes a little bit of time away from when I prep it later and it's a task I don't have to do later.

Roni: Right. Yeah. I don't have quite the same situation as you, but a lot of times when I get done working for the day, it's not time to start making dinner yet, but I might have a little bit of idle time before it's like, okay, well if I made dinner now it's gonna be ready and it's gonna be ready like five 15 and my husband won't even be home yet.

So a lot of times, yeah, I'll do a really similar thing where I'll just get everything chopped or ready, even just do like a mise en place where it's like all of the things will be out and ready and then when it is time to start cooking dinner, I can just get started rather than needing to do all the little things.

Riley: Yeah. And for the person who's sitting here thinking like, I have no extra time in my day. You know, like I get up at breakfast, I make breakfast, and I make lunches for my school lunches, and then we all go and then we are, are not even home until five 30. Like, I get that this doesn't sound

Roni: Feasible for everybody. 

Riley: or feasible.

Right. Um, and so I [00:23:00] think that's where. Like if I'm meal planning and I look at a recipe and I say, oh, I could use a rotisserie chicken for that. I will buy it when I do my grocery shopping. uh, look ahead in my recipes and I see that something needs the beans to soak for 24 hours, I'm gonna buy canned beans.

If I. Think, I don't know if my vegetables will last until next Sunday. I will buy a canned vegetable or a steamer bag of vegetables. And again, this is not all the time, but these little things are really helpful. I've been making this, um, like, it's like a rice bowl basically, which is such a fast, such a fast dinner for anybody who's like, I need a great idea.

And I know we talk about those all the time, but we do them a lot lately because they are so fast. But I bought these. Meatballs at Costco that are like teriyaki and pineapple meatballs from the Adele's brand. And I've just been doing whatever vegetables we have left in the house. I'm sheet roasting them on a sheet pan, heating up those [00:24:00] meatballs on that sheet pan.

And making rice. And then, we've done a variety of fruits, but like one time I added mango to it. One time I added pineapple to it. I'm not heating that up, I'm just chopping it on the side and usually it's already chopped. But then I have like a sauce, the Kevin's brand teriyaki sauce I really like.

And just like having that on hand to like put over the top of those vegetables. That's like a 10. I mean, it, it should, it's not 10 minutes because those take, those vegetables take a long time to roast, but it's certainly a 30 minute dinner. All those little pieces make it 30 minutes, whereas if I had made the meatballs, made the sauce, all of those things, it would've taken so much longer.

So just kind of like doing that like prep ahead thing we've been talking about and eyeballing your recipes when you're even going grocery shopping and saying, how can I make this a little easier? So many grocery stores offer pre-chopped vegetables. Like, we want you to not be inundated with tasks. You know, like, and it's helpful.

Those things are helpful. So I'm all about it. I will buy shaved cabbage so often when I'm using [00:25:00] cabbage in a recipe. I know, like we were joking earlier about the butternut squash, but you can buy those pre cubed, like. If you, yeah, I, there's just no shame in it. Just do it. Help yourself out. Do your future yourself a favor, like we always say.

Roni: Yeah, I think there's a lot of ingredients that you can, a lot of things that you can find at the grocery store that can help turn a, you know, quote unquote regular recipe into a 30 minute or less recipe, like you mentioned, the pre-chopped veggies, coleslaw mix, obviously canned beans and canned tomatoes.

I actually think, I mean, I don't, I don't know. I. Soak beans and make them from scratch. And maybe that's unfortunate, but

Riley: They are really good.

Roni: they are really good. Yeah. But it is a process. So like, if that's you, kudos. 'cause I, I eat a, I eat, we eat a, eat a decent amount of beans here at my house, so I feel like I would constantly be in rotation of like soaking and cooking.

Riley: Yeah.

Roni: you know, sometimes you can get kind of like [00:26:00] pre-prepped grains. Like I'm thinking of those packages of, uh, rice that are like, you know, it takes like a minute to heat 'em up in the microwave or whatever. Things like couscous, couscous is super fast to cook. Um, so like you could do like swaps like that where it's like if it calls for something that's gonna take longer, you could use couscous or something instead.

Riley: Rice noodle sometimes, like the rice noodles, um, take really like you start them boiling water and then they sit there and not boiling water in five minutes, they're ready.

Roni: Right. Yeah. Or like tortellini, frozen tortellini is like literally, you basically just like blanch it because it's already cooked and ready. You just need to heat it up. Of course, like you said, pre-made sausages are great rotisserie chicken. I'm also thinking, your meatball thing got me thinking about like pre-cooked sausage, you know, like kielbasa or just like chicken sausage.

And then of course we love the the frozen components. This was one thing that I wanted to mention, and I think I've mentioned this recipe a couple of times before actually. It's just like this Tuscan chicken recipe [00:27:00] that I make and. I started making it with Frozen. You and I were at the grocery store together actually, and we saw a bag of frozen Tuscan vegetables, and so I started making the recipe that way, and not having to chop and prep the vegetables for the recipe, it co it.

I think it's a 20 minute recipe with how quickly it comes together for not having to actually prep those things. So I really think frozen vegetables are super key, and particularly if it's something that's like a skillet or a soup or like. You're not looking for like that crispness of the vegetables to be like the main profile of the recipe. Frozen vegetables all the way.

Riley: Yeah. Yeah. And again, like if you have the time, like what we're specifically referring to right now is how to get dinner on the table within 30 minutes. And I feel like, I think we always give this caveat, right? Like if you have the time to make your pasta every night, amazing.

Roni: Yeah. [00:28:00] Amazing. And,

Riley: If it is top chef at your house every night, like you that is count yourself blessed.

Right? Like, that's amazing. But for a lot of people, 30 minutes is like the max that they can give to a scenario.

Roni: Yeah, and I will say this is something that I don't think we've talked about super recently, but I know we've talked about it before, which is the idea of like pulling on different lever levers for your meals. And so there is an aspect of some of these things that are more convenient and get the recipes on.

The plate faster can potentially cost more money. I'm thinking particularly of like the fresh pre chopped vegetables at the grocery 

Riley: they're more

Roni: Those are more expensive than just buying a butternut squash. So there is a little bit of like a tug award that you have to play here as far as like your budget is concerned versus how much time you have.

But if one is ultimately way more important than the other, like if you're like, time is the most important thing for us in our life right now, then just do the convenience items because that's, that clearly is the thing that you need to prioritize.

Riley: yeah. Absolutely. What else? What [00:29:00] else do you think? What about cleaning up these 30 minute meals? Because that we shouldn't be including that, right?

Roni: I think we should be including it. I cleaning up is one of the, I think most people's least favorite part about cooking at home.

Riley: One of my biggest issues with a one pan dinner is when I get into the recipe and it actually takes like seven dishes. To make it happen.

Roni: Mm-hmm.

Riley: It's really frustrating because you're thinking one pan, like a here's a sheet pan, here's a skillet.

Roni: Yep.

Riley: And I, you know, I understand. Okay. A, a cutting board. A knife like, okay.

Like the, yes, I get that. We need those things too. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about when it's like hard boil your Brussels sprouts and then add them to the sheet pan. Um, that's really

Roni: par boil or brussel sprouts, and then put them in a bowl with, you know, oil in your spices and then put them on your sheet pan and then do this other thing. And you're like, now I have like [00:30:00] four bowls that I mixed stuff in.

Riley: Yeah. I need every recipe to be like genuinely one pan dinner,

Roni: I mean,

Riley: excluding your cutting board.

Roni: Yeah, let's be real. I don't even like it when like a cookie recipe is like, mix your dry ingredients in one bowl and your wet ingredients in another bowl. I'm like, that's two bowls. I wanna make my cookies in one bowl.

Riley: Do you follow that instruction?

Roni: I always make

them in one bowl. 

Riley: Uh, and probably Anna, our resident, um, recipe blogger who is so good at baking, she'd probably be cringing,

Roni: I think most people who are,

Riley: dump it all in.

Roni: yeah, most people who are seriously into baking are probably cringing about that. 'cause I'm sure it's the part of the science and whatever. But my cookies turn out just fine. I still eat them.

Riley: Yeah. It's 'cause they're break and break. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I'm kidding. Uh, no. My, one of my favorite banana bread recipes is just a dump it. Okay. I should, let me backtrack. I actually don't know if it's a dump it all in the bowl thing, but that is how I make [00:31:00] it. I just dump it all in one bowl and it does great.

Everybody loves it. It's everyone's favorite. We love it.

Roni: I, 'cause I know, I think that part of the reason for this, for, for making baked goods of, like, you, you sift together all of your dry ingredients is so that it's like evenly distributed. Well, so my solution instead is that like if I have like baking powder or something, I sprinkle it evenly over my wet ingredients 

Riley: getting derailed here. This is so we're admitting to not being bakers, that's 

Roni: That's so true. Yeah. Don't have total patience for that.

Riley: Okay. Are we okay with paper plates?

Roni: I'll be honest, I have a bunch of paper plates at my house and I rarely ever use them, but also it's usually it's just me and my husband, so it's, you know, two plates or two bowls or something that we're putting in. If I do have people coming over to the house, a lot of times I'll use paper plates instead just because honestly, when, when you're like [00:32:00] cooking for other people, there's already a bunch of dishes because you're like cooking for other people and then having all the plates and stuff, it gets like, you're like, well, I could run the dishwasher three times.

Riley: I, I think paper plates are seasonal. Yeah, I think paper plates are seasonal. If you see paper plates in my house, it usually means I'm pretty maxed out on time, on, uh, the will to do dishes. And so I like, we don't use them all that often, but then I will go through seasons where I'm like, okay, it's paper plate season.

We just gotta get some paper, like, and after I've had kids, like paper plates are so helpful, postpartum just, just, it reduces the load a little bit. Um, so that's a reason to have them, in my opinion. Like, I, I don't use 'em every day, but I do think they're okay. But for me, they're very seasonal. They're very, um.

If you see paper plates at my house and it's not like having a ton of guests over, you can probably [00:33:00] assume that I'm a little bit like trying to like limit, like lower my load. Like I've got a lot on my plate, what can I do? And yet paper plates somehow make that feel a little easier sometimes. But I mean, I'm mostly home with my kids all the time, so that's three meals a day, every day of dishes.

Roni: Right.

Riley: And if we're eating outside, which we eat outside in the summer all the time. And so my kids have reusable plates that we'll use for that. But that's also a reason to have them. I think just outside, you don't wanna, you don't wanna break your nice plates 'cause you're outside, but we eat outside. Mm. 85% of the time in the summer, so.

Roni: Right. Yeah. Yeah. I think that there's a good case to be made that. Your, if you're making something like a 30 minute meal, you, the expectation should be that cleanup should be fast. I don't know that that's always the case, but that's my expectation is like cleanup is also fast. But I'm also one of those people who like refuses to hand wash things and we have a, like, we have an induction cooktop, so all of our pans are stainless steel so they can go in the [00:34:00] dishwasher, which I know like if you have Teflon and stuff, it can't go in the dishwasher.

And so I do everything I can to stuff. The dishwasher because I do not like hand washing things.

Riley: It is not. It's not my favorite task either. That's for sure. But we do hand wash quite a few things, but I don't clean while I cook usually. I've been trying to get better about it. This is actually a place I'm trying to grow. And I have been trying to clean while I cook because I don't like to wait to eat.

Like I, if I make food and it's hot, we're eating it.

Roni: Yeah.

Riley: I'm the person who tells everyone dinner's ready five minutes before it's actually ready because I want them to be present, to be

Roni: Yeah. Yeah,

Riley: Because I don't like to eat cold food and I just worked hard on this dinner. Like I don't eat it cold. Like

Roni: yeah. But if you have, like, if something's like simmering in a pan, do you clean your dishes in the, in the interim, or are you like doing other stuff?

Riley: Um, yeah, sure. Sometimes I'll clean up. Sometimes, well, usually I've gotta go prepare another part of [00:35:00] the dinner, but, yeah, I really just am not very good at cleaning while I cook. My husband on the other hand, wants the entire kitchen cleaned prior to eating, which means that sometimes food is very cold, and I'm like, we've, we've come together on that.

I've tried to be better and he's tried to be better so.

Roni: I, I definitely clean while I cook, but it's like that idea of like, oh, this thing needs to simmer on the stove for 10 minutes, and so. I'll just put the dishes in the dishwasher or hand wash if something needs to be hand washed in that time. But I am not going to delay eating because stuff needs to get cleaned up.

No way.

Riley: Yeah. In general, one pot, one pan dinners, which a lot of 30 minute dinners are, they do tend to have less dishes if they're truly that one pot, one pan, which does make it easier. So then you just serve and then you toss whatever you know you cooked on or whatever. I'm thinking like foil, if you put that down or clean the one sheep pan, you know, that kind of thing.

Roni: Well, so I feel like we have given some ideas already [00:36:00] for four 30 minute dinners. Let's just see, have some quick hits for everybody if they just need some inspiration tonight. Uh, I also wanna mention that we have a plan to eat eat podcast account in plan to eat that you can connect with.

There's a link in the description, in the show notes, I mean, you can connect with that account and we have all of these 30 minute dinners in there. We have a bunch of other recipes in there too that Riley and I have talked about previously on the podcast, but I have them tagged as 30 minute dinner.

So if you wanna connect with that account and then be able to use those recipes that we're talking about today, they'll all be in there. If you use plan to eat, it'll just automatically connect you through your friend's account. If you don't use plan to eat yet, you can click on the link, and then you can get started with a free trial, and you'll also be connected with the recipes, which is a great way to start your plan to eat account.

All right, Riley, gimme your quick hits. Mm-hmm.

Riley: Okay. Taco salad. It's a big one at our house. Creamy spinach and sausage Pasta. Chicken Bacon, ranch [00:37:00] casserole, 20 minute garlic beef and broccoli air fryer salmon bites with honey Chili crunch. That one is so fast. It's so good. But it's air fryer in like eight minutes. It's done Except for the rice. It's so good.

Um, Italian grinder salad. I know I've mentioned that one here before. That Tuscan chicken soup I mentioned earlier in the episode that is in the account. The sweet potato beef cottage cheese bowls. Guys don't sleep on those. They're so good. Greek chicken bowls. Pretty popular at our house. Uh, Roni's probably gonna mention this one too, 'cause she loves it, but the meatballs with carrot and yogurt sauce.

The freeform meatballs, we talk about that one every year. It's so good. Like a cranberry walnut salad with apples and some kind of protein.

Roni: Yeah.

Riley: Super easy.

Roni: I love

it. 

Riley: do you, what do you got?

Roni: Um, let's see. Did you mention beef and broccoli stir fry? Did you mention that? I know we had a couple. Yeah. We had. 

Riley: mine was like, uh, with noodles?

Roni: Okay. Yo, I, I know we had a couple overlaps. Um, yeah. 'cause I also had the Italian grinder salad in my list. I think I talked about this maybe last episode or two [00:38:00] episodes ago.

This like 10 minute sausage and, cherry tomato skillet that also had broccolini in it. I love that. Sloppy joe's. Sloppy Joe super fast, and like, not the, not even like the man witch kind, but like, you actually just like make your own sauce. I made this the other night and I was like, I think it took.

18 minutes to make the Slop Joes. And then, I know I've talked about this before, two weeknight Beans on toast is a recipe that I will do often. So just like, and well, I guess that, and then that ramen that I mentioned earlier, do that a lot too. So yeah, there's some really good ideas. So connect with the Plan to Eat podcast account so y'all can get these recipe ideas.

Riley: Okay, I think that wraps it up for our 30 minute meal breakdown. I found this to be a really helpful exercise to me to go through and look at all the meals I already make that are around 30 minutes, and tagging them in my own account or just compiling the list. And I think that would be really helpful for our listeners too, is so that you're not [00:39:00] panicking when you're meal planning to like, oh no, what's gonna be, what can we make, you know, like what are we familiar with?

What's 30 minutes? Like having a place in your plan account, that's just your list of 30 minute recipes, I think would be really helpful. It was good for me. To do, to just be reminded, look at all these recipes we love that are only 30 minutes. So I hope this episode is super helpful for everyone and I hope that you come up with some delicious dinners that don't stress you out for your busy nights.

Roni: As always, we appreciate you listening and we will talk to you again in two weeks.