One of our favorite things in the world to do is cook. We love trying new recipes and experimenting in the kitchen, and we love that we can cook and bake well enough that we dub a lot of our food “restaurant” (as in, restaurant-quality). We like that with all of Isabelle’s food sensitivities we know how to make food that doesn’t taste “gluten free” or “allergy friendly,” but totally is.
That being said, there are days when we really, really don’t want to cook at all.
But between the effort of going all the way to a restaurant where we both can eat (because many of our favorites aren’t that close), and the cost of eating out as a celiac, we usually realize that we need to make something. This is even more the case if we’re sick, tired, or we’re too busy. Sure, we sometimes wind up eating cereal or some chips and salsa, but we’ve also found some go-to meals that are quick and easy when we don’t want to spend the time or energy making anything.
Some of these meals require some food prep, some involve using leftovers, and some can be made from scratch. Whether you have the time to plan ahead or you’re pressed for time, you’ll find something here that should suit your needs and schedule. As a bonus, you can take some of these into account to prevent running into these issues in the future.
With all of these, you can adapt them to your particular dietary restrictions. We always make these will Isabelle’s food sensitivities in mind, but you can make these recipes to suit your needs. Many of these can also be made vegan or vegetarian with minor alterations.
Table of Contents
Fried Rice
One of our go-to meals is fried rice. Stovetop, rice only takes about 15-20 minutes to cook, and turning it into fried rice means that we can throw in any leftovers or veggies we have on hand. Sometimes we do this with rice noodles, which only take 4-5 minutes to make. But the nice thing about making rice is that it’s good for a few days, and it’s even better for making fried rice the next day.
We’ve even made a rice and beans casserole with this before, which turned out pretty great. In any case, having some form of rice with meat (for meat-eaters), veggies, eggs (for non-vegans), and any seasonings you want is pretty easy to make, a complete meal, and tastes great.
Pizza
Who doesn’t love pizza? It’s one of our favorite go-to meals because it not only tastes really, really good, but it only takes around 10 minutes to cook. We make a large batch of gluten free pizza dough ourselves and cook the crusts in advance so that we can stick them in the freezer. We just pull out a pizza crust, top it with whatever we’re feeling, and cook it from frozen and it’s done in no time.
When we haven’t planned ahead, making the dough takes a little extra time because we let it rise for 20 minutes, but the cook time is only about 7-8 minutes before toppings. When the dough is still hot, the cook time with the toppings is more like 5-7 minutes.
Breakfast for Dinner
We make a few different varieties of breakfast foods for dinner, but we love it all every time. Not only can this be a quick, hearty meal, but it feels like a treat. We did recently get a mini waffle-maker as a housewarming present, so it’s been fun trying out different recipes. These waffles cook in about a minute (per waffle), so it’s fast and pretty easy to do. As a bonus, we usually have extras that we put in the freezer.
When we make breakfast for dinner, we make anything from French toast, to banana-based pancakes (made only with banana and eggs), to bacon and eggs, to mini waffles. We just see what we have and go from there. It’s a pretty easy way to switch things up and try some new recipes, too.
Slow Cooker Meals
When you think about making a meal fast, slow cooker food probably doesn’t sound like it would help you. But in a pinch, making something ahead can help you save time in the long run because these meals tend to make a lot of food at once, and they can reheat like a dream.
Our favorite is our slow cooker pulled pork (see the vegan version here) because it never tastes like it’s been frozen and microwaved, even when we do that. It’s a quick meal to make that always tastes amazing.