Today I want to talk about last-minute dinner ideas. It’s a term I’m sure you’ve seen on the internet, and it’s for whenever you suddenly realize you need dinner and you don’t have anything planned. You’re desperate to make dinner, not have to get takeout and spend more money, but you have to make do with what you have in your kitchen.
So, to have a list of ideas is very helpful because in the moment of panic, it’s often hard to think of something. Yesterday afternoon at about 4:00 PM I suddenly thought “Oh my goodness, what’s for dinner?” I’d planned lunch. I’d planned dinner for the next night with guests, but I’d forgotten to plan dinner for that night, so nothing was defrosted. “What do I do?”
I’m gonna give you some ideas of what you can do at the last minute, and then encourage you to make your own list of desperation dinners, and put them just inside a cabinet in the kitchen, somewhere where you can access them easily when you need to.
So, I ended up doing a quick order – this is cheating slightly. I did a quick grocery store order for sun dried tomato soup, and then we made grilled cheese sandwiches with ham. It was delicious, and it was good for a cooler evening inside. We bought tomato soup and made homemade grilled cheese; you can do whatever works right. It might be helpful to have some tins of your favorite kind of soup in the cupboard that you can open without needing to have them in the fridge at the last minute to do a meal like this.
But let’s start at the beginning. Here are some meals for your desperation dinner list. Number one, as I’ve already mentioned, is any type of tinned soup with grilled cheese. Perhaps you like something like ham or sliced chicken on your sandwiches, or perhaps you’re like me and you just like the cheese, but you can be creative, add some mozzarella, some cheddar, or some Monterey jack cheese; whatever you have in your area. The combination of different cheeses makes the sandwiches even more delicious, and a little sprinkle of salt and some butter on them really makes them amazing. The kids can help make their own sandwiches, and make some interesting combinations of fillings if they want to, or they can just help you to grate the cheese and put it on the sandwiches. It’s an easy dinner.
There’s always the option of having frozen food in your freezer that you can defrost and use, but most of those need some time. It’s better to get those out before lunch if you’re gonna cook them for dinner, but certain things are quick from the freezer. There are frozen pizzas – maybe have a few if you find you often need something. I know my mom-in-law had crumbed fish in the freezer which she would make. You can keep any kind that’s easy to put in the oven. I know it’s always good to cook frozen fish. You only have to add a little salt on top, but pepper, butter or olive oil, and some lemon juice and it makes it delicious. Sprinkle on some almond flour if you want a gluten-free coating. So, that helps.
Then you can have some cabbage that you can just slice up, add some salt, and make into a cabbage stir fry as a side. You could also do baked potatoes in the oven as a side. Just wash them, sprinkle them with salt, put on a bit of olive oil, and put them in the oven for an hour at 400 Fahrenheit or 200 Celsius.
A baked potato bar, or baked potatoes with toppings is also a great last minute dinner. The moment you realize you’ve forgotten dinner, go and get the potatoes out, wash them, get them in the oven, and then while they bake, you and the kids can come up with some toppings. If you have some bacon in the freezer, perhaps you can defrost it under running water and cook it to chop up for a topping. If you have any canned corn, that’s nice to add. You can grate some cheese, and add any leftover meat that you have in your fridge. If you have chicken breasts or ground beef that’s already been cooked, those are great to add to your baked potatoes. Anything that is in your fridge is good. You can also have some salad ingredients to put on the side – some tomatoes, lettuce, feta, and cucumber, and you have your meal.
You can also make the twice baked potatoes where you scoop out the insides after they’re cooked, mix them up with a bit of cream and seasoning, add some corn or other additions, and then put them back in the jackets. You sprinkle cheese on top, and then you heat them up again in the oven.
Let’s go with the bread idea like earlier when we were talking about grilled cheese sandwiches. You can use dinner rolls and put slices of ham and cheese in there. You can use croissants with ham and cheese as a last minute dinner. You can do anything to do with pita breads, and tortillas are also great. Having some frozen pita breads and frozen tortillas in your freezer is very helpful, especially if you’re gluten-free – in that case you’ll want to have gluten-free versions of those ready to go. You can also make quick flatbreads by mixing equal quantities of yogurt and flour with a tiny bit of salt, and then frying those in a dry pan as your wraps.
So, then you’ve got your base, and you can do a number of things with it. You can use it as a wrap – cook a little bit of chicken, or if you have a bit of leftover chicken, use that, and you can make wraps with avocado, tomato, lettuce, and cheese.
You can also do them pizza style; the pita breads or the tortillas. It works well to warm them in the oven, or you can fry them on both sides in a dry pan, and then that’s the base for your pizza. You can put some tomato paste on top, and then add whatever ingredients you have for pizza, and some mozzarella cheese. That’s a great quick dinner. It works well with any flatbreads or even naan breads that you might have in your freezer, and you can put on any kind of toppings. Instead of mozzarella, you could use some ricotta from your fridge if you happen to have it, again with tomatoes, bits of ham, pineapple, feta, or anything that goes well with that. If you have a bread machine and you want to bake quick pizzas, you can have the dough ready in an hour or two, and then you can make any kind of flatbread pizza in the same way as we just said.
But we’re usually talking about shorter times here, so let’s talk about a few other meals that are even quicker. There’s egg fried rice if you have leftover rice, or you have a rice cooker, or you know how to cook rice on the stove. If you’re like me, it never works on the stove. My rice cooker is such a blessing. You take some rice and then you add a little bit of olive oil. Make some scrambled eggs on the side, and then mix them in. You can add frozen peas and a little bit of tamari or soy sauce. Then for the rest of the meal, you can use whatever vegetables or meats you have around. Maybe you have leftover stir fry, or you have some cabbage that you can make stir fry with, or maybe you have zucchini. Anything like that is great to add to your rice. It’s filling, and it’s delicious. Season it with salt and it’ll taste good. Add the tamari, add the salt, and then taste it as you go until you’re happy with the flavor.
You can do a similar thing with any kind of stir fry. If you have some chicken breasts that you can defrost quickly under some running water, then you can give those a quick stir fry with tamari or soy sauce and salt. Then add a little honey, some sesame seeds. You can eat it with either rice that’s left over, or rice noodles, and make a great stir fry. You can add any vegetables you have to throw in, and you can grate some carrots so that they cook quickly. Shred the cabbage with a grater as well, and then you’ve got a great stir fry.
Then there are sheet pan dinners in the oven, or one pot in the oven with a lid. The latter steams it as well as baking it, and it cooks a little faster. The sheet pan will tend to toast it, and it will be more like a grilled version. You could do chicken breasts, potatoes or baby potatoes, and chopped vegetables with olive oil, salt, and herbs, and then roast it in the oven. It’s a very good idea with this to have all the elements in similar sizes, especially the vegetables, as they’ll take longer than the chicken. Cut the potatoes and the carrots smaller, and add the olive oil and salt to those because that helps them to cook faster. Either take the chicken off when it’s ready, or add it a bit later; it takes about 25 minutes. For me, the potatoes always take closer to 50 minutes. Keep testing it along the way. You want it to be nice and crispy, and well flavored. Brussels sprouts work well on a sheet pan. Zucchini would work great, but it cooks faster than the other things. Some people like broccoli, but don’t – I would prefer it cooked in a closed dish.
If you’re doing an oven casserole in a cast iron pot or a glass dish with a lid, you’d cook your chicken separately, maybe in a pan or in a different dish in the oven, and then you’d cook your potatoes, your carrots, and whatever other vegetables in the glass dish with a lid. Again, add olive oil and salt. A container with a lid basically steams them as it cooks them so it goes a little faster.
Another last minute desperation dinner idea is pasta. You would cook your spaghetti or your tagliatelle or your penne in a pot of boiling water that’s salted ‘like the ocean,’ and with a little bit of oil added. I like to add about a quarter of a teaspoon of coconut oil, and that helps the pasta not stick together. You cook your pasta, and then you’re going to add something to it that’s quick. One of the quickest things would be adding cream and some grated pecorino or parmigiano reggiano cheese.
You could also add a few vegetables. For example, if you have zucchinis, chop them up and fry them separately in a pan till they’re soft. If you put a little lid over the pan, it helps to cook them. Then you add them to your pasta. If you have a tin or a jar of red pepper – often you get that cooked red pepper in jars – that’s great to slice and add to your pasta. If you have some mushrooms, you could cook them up in the same way as the zucchini. Add a little bit of olive oil or coconut oil, some salt, a tiny bit of nutmeg, and some onion powder. Stir fry your mushrooms with a lid on until they’re cooked, and then add them to your cream pasta. Cheesy, creamy pasta with a vegetable or two is always great.
You could try to always have some canned pasta sauce on hand. There’s one I like that’s sun dried tomato and pecorino sauce. Perhaps you like plain marinara sauce. With lots of freshly grated Parmigiano reggiano, that’s delicious.
Pasta is quite versatile, and there are many things you can do at the last minute to make a good pasta. If you have meat on hand, you can cook it, cut it up, and add it to your pasta as well. We even make tuna pasta. I know a lot of people don’t like tuna, but last minute tuna spaghetti is amazing. For that, you cook your spaghetti like you would usually, and then you flavor it with olive oil, salt, and parmesan or parmigiano reggiano, and you put it on a plate. Then you take some tuna tins, you mash up the tuna with a little bit of water until it’s nice and loose, and you spread that over the spaghetti. You grate cheese, either mozzarella or another cheese that you like, maybe cheddar, and sprinkle that all over the top, trying to cover the spaghetti so that it doesn’t bake hard. Then you put it in the oven for a few minutes until the cheese is melted, and you serve it on those hot plates on mats at the table, and it’s such an amazing last minute, quick tuna pasta.
Here’s another idea. If you have a whole lot of leftover vegetables, and some canned vegetables like chickpeas or lentils, then you can make a soup. You would take some bone broth and some water, and then just add whatever vegetables you have. Chop some potatoes, chop some carrots, and cook them up. If you have leeks or onions, they also work great. Then you blend it up with the blender. Perhaps add a little bit of cream and salt at the end for taste. Have it with some bread, and that’s a hearty winter dinner.
Tacos or nachos are great if you already have some cooked ground beef, or if you can cook some ground beef, or just take some tins of beans – red kidney beans, borlotti beans – whatever beans work well in chili. You can use them in tacos or with a nacho dip. Hopefully you’ll have a couple of bags of nachos in your pantry, or some tacos or tortillas that you can use for tacos in your freezer. Then you just add toppings that you have on hand. This can be salsa, lettuce, or cheese. You can make avocado into guacamole, and that works beautifully for a quick dinner.
You could have the old favorite breakfast for dinner. This would be scrambled eggs, toast, hash browns, bacon, sausage, and baked beans if you’re British. You could even do a bubble and squeak, which is kind of a frittata or an omelet where you just add all the leftover things you have from your fridge. If there’s some savoury pie like chicken pie, leftover meat, or some leftover vegetables, you put them in the pan and give them a quick stir fry. You warm them up, and then you pour in some egg that you’ve whisked with some milk and seasoning. Pour it over, add cheese on top, and cook it up like a frittata. That’s bubble and squeak, if you hadn’t heard of it. It’s a British thing – they love to do that at breakfast after a dinner with a whole lot of leftovers. After Thanksgiving dinner, throw in some turkey and some unusual vegetables. It makes a great quick meal.
You can make curry in a hurry if you have some coconut milk or coconut cream on hand, as well as some curry paste or powder. You can put in any vegetables or protein you have; chicken, potatoes, or peas. You can eat it with rice, or you can put it into naan bread; whatever you find. It’s not a lot of work, but you do need to have the chicken available. You can do a quick stir fry to go on the side. It even works to add yogurt to the curry if you don’t have coconut milk, or you can do some of each, with the curry powder.
You could also make ramen soup. That’d be more broth and less vegetables. If you have some canned broth or some shelf stable broth of some kind, you can cook that up. Add lots of herbs and seasonings. If you have any fresh herbs in your garden, those are good. Then add some chicken breasts. Cook them in the broth, then take them out and shred them, and put them back in. It even works when they’re still half frozen. Then you would add a couple of vegetables like carrots. Chop them quite small, and stir fry them a bit first for flavor and so that they get soft in time. You can add fresh parsley, as I said, and then you add a few noodles at the end, something similar to ramen or rice vermicelli noodles. Don’t add too many noodles – it needs to be balanced with the amount of broth. Then you can add some greens if you have any from your garden, like bok choy, spinach, or kale. It makes for a great ramen noodle soup.
The grill is also a great tool for making last minute dinners. If you have some burger buns and burger patties in the freezer, or if you can pop out and buy those, it’s cheaper than takeout. Just grab a few burger buns and do them on the grill. You could also do any kind of kebabs or other meat that you might have available on the grill – make a side salad, and have some bread with that.
So, just be creative. Of course, it depends on what you have available, what you can get, and what you feel like doing. Sometimes we just don’t feel like cooking, so we want to choose the easiest of these. Other times we have time, so we’ll take our time, but we need to start with fewer options. Make a plan for whatever works for you at the time.
Desperation dinners are all about those quick no-fuss meals that come together when you’re feeling tired, you don’t feel like cooking, you don’t have the right ingredients ready, or you forgot to plan dinner, and you just want something comforting and easy.
I hope this gives you some ideas. I’d love to hear if you have any ideas of things you do regularly. My email address is karyn@familyfoodformoms.com. I’d love you to email me and say “we do this dinner,” and I’ll reply to you personally.
Just a reminder that our new recipe book is out. It’s called Elegant Easy Appetizers, and it’s to help you as a family to have some ideas for appetizers for family dinners, just to make your family dinner a little bit special if you want to have longer time to eat together, so that you have more conversation. Maybe you feel like something a little fancier, and you wanna make memories together with your family, perhaps you’ll set the table a little more special than usual – I’ve got a few episodes to give you ideas about that, and then these elegant, easy appetizers are very easy to make. They have five ingredients each, and the photos will help you know how to style them on the plate. Some of them you don’t even have to cook, you just have to arrange. They’re delicious and they’re easy. Go and have a look. It’s on our website, familyfoodformoms.com in the store. The recipe book is on special for $15 printed and $14 as a PDF.
