I used to own an instant pot. Those are great. I gave it away when I moved and now I just have a regular pressure cooker, which is also really great.
My quickest and easiest, but still yummy thing to make is chickpeas. I soak them overnight. Pick out the ugly ones. Drain the water. Barely cover them with fresh water (since they’ve already soaked, they don’t need tons of water). Then I heat the pot on high until I hear the pressure noise, switch it to low heat, and let it cook for 15-20 minutes. Then I turn off the heat and let the pressure out naturally.
Once they’re done I sometimes just eat a bowl of them with nothing more than olive oil and salt. Yum.
One of my other favorite dishes is a bit more elaborate but still simple and healthy: split pea soup. I don’t soak the peas but I do rinse them. I put them in the pressure cooker with a bay leaf, chopped garlic and onions, diced potatoes and carrots, and I’ll cover the whole thing with a decent amount of water. Then, like the chick peas, I’ll let the pressure hiss, then put it on low heat for 15-20 minutes. I let the pressure naturally release.
Sometimes I’ll sautée even more onions and garlic in a separate pan with avocado oil on low heat for a while, until they look like they’re getting caramelized (fucking yum).
When the soup is done, I’ll remove the bay leaf, add the extra onions and garlic (if I did that step), add some salt, then use an immersion blender. It’s SUPER IMPORTANT to remove the bay leaf if you use an immersion blender.
Then when I eat it, I put a decent amount of olive oil and make sure the salt level is tasty. Even better if I have spicy olive oil around :)
Premaking stuff thats easy to grab and eat is my preference. Chicken Salad, fruit salads, just in a bowl in the fridge and grab it when you want some. For something hot hard tacos are great. The shells take 3 minutes in a toaster oven to cook, and you can premake the taco meat be it chicken, beef, etc then toss some cheese, and pico de gallo on there and youve got a meal in under 10 mins. Just fruit in general too. Oranges, bananas, apples, grapes. Its easy to just grab when hungry for something small.
Beans on toast.
Frozen veggie with curry sauce.
Takes les 5-10 minutes to prepare, Is tasty, adding curry is magic bullet to improve taste It’s veggie, so pretty healthy
I’m assuming you’re vegan?
If what you’re looking for is a quick vegan dish, here’s something I learnt in Japan - baked avocado.
Open a ripe avocado lengthwise and remove the seed. Take a sharp knife and cut a grid-like pattern into the avocado, going as deep as possible (careful not to puncture the skin!).
Now, pour some soy sauce of your liking (ideally not a thickened one, and with a moderate saltiness level) into the cavity. You don’t want to fill it completely, that would be overpowering. Maybe about 1/3 of the depth, just enough to allow it to seep into every crevice when baking.
For the baking process itself, crumble up some tinfoil to make a stand for the avocado halves, you want them to remain as level as possible. Bake them on 350F / 175C for about 20-25 min, you want them to be soft but not burned.
Once done, decorate with sesame seeds and either spoon them out directly (that’s the Japanese way) or spread on a toasted sourdough bread, sprinkle some smoked paprika and chopped chives & coriander over it, and enjoy.
Vegetarian option: Crack an egg into the cavity (on top of the soy sauce) 5 min into the bake. You want about 15 min left for solid eggwhites with a still semi-runny yolk. Mix it up and spread on bread.
Omnivore option: Fry some bacon beyond crispy, crumble it up completely, and drizzle the bacon bits on top.
This sounds fucking incredible, and I will be trying this as soon as I have avocados again.
Dang that sounds good, this vegan is grateful to you.
This sounds amazing.
Wow my mouth is watering now…will try this when I get avocados. Thanks for enlightening me!
Enjoy! It’s really good stuff, hope you like it!
Why has it never occurred to me to cook an avocado? That sounds fantastic.
Just for you I dug out my book and found the URL!
https://www.popsugar.com/fitness/node/30787252/print
(Cert’s expired, but it’s legit.)
Where do your avos come from? The ones I have access to are sad little things that won’t accommodate a whole egg.
Some local market, they are quite large. Think they are from Malaysia.
Pan-fried broccoli and almonds with a little bit of oil.
Rice Burritos
- Set up pot for loose Rice
- Put the vegetables in the same pot and a bit extra water
- Add Curry Paste
- Cook like it says on the Rice
- Maybe add Coconut milk
- Put in Tortilla, maybe add some salad
3 minutes of vegetable peeling while the water starts to boil, 10 minutes of unsupervised boiling, maybe 5 minutes stirring. You only need to clean 1 pot, and it’s cheap.
I have a 5 liter pot. I’ll make a big batch of chili/stew/soup and freeze it in pint size containers. Right now I have portions of lentil soup and chili sitting in the freezer. It takes me five minutes to microwave.
When I don’t feel like proper cooking but want a half-decent(-ish) meal:
I begin frying sausages in a pan. As they’re frying, I chop them up with the egg flip. Before they get actually cooked, I throw on a tin of tomatoes. Then I add basil, salt, pepper, curry powder… whatever’s available and fits the mood. When the sausages are cooked (basically braised), I throw it onto a plate and eat it. Very quick and easy, fairly healthy (you can tweak it to make it healthier if that’s your thing), and (when I get it right) tasty.
Pizza.
That’s not healt-
If I decide I want to live to be old enough to get dementia and have to wear a diaper, I’ll let you know.
Poke bowls: rice seasoned with rice vinegar and soja sauce, cucumber, a fruit, chicken or smoked salmon cut in stripes, season with soja sauce or mayonnaise. One can get fancy with avocado, exotic fruits, tuna, whatever. Everything goes.
Cutting half a cucumber and a fruit is easy, slicing a package of salmon too, and one can consume chicken or meat leftovers. One can do all that meanwhile the white rice boils. Bonus points if you have a rice cooker.
Is soja sauce the same as soy sauce? Google seems conflicted about it.
Yes, soy sauce. Typo :)
Yes. In Germany it’s called Soja sauce. Same thing.
Try it with sesame seasoning too! Tastes so good
Beans, rice, and greens, using canned beans, is fast and feels so healthy to eat.
Grits with tuna was my mom’s go-to and I love that too.
Expensive and too much packaging but the bagged salad kits, topped with a can of tuna, leftover chicken, garbanzo beans or a fried or boiled egg is also an occasional quick meal for us.
Cacio e Pepe doesn’t take much ingredient wise or timewise. Another fairly simple pasta dish I’ve been making a lot is kenjis San Francisco Vietnamese noodles. It’s pretty similar, just with a soy fish sauce mixture that’s added in
Pasta isn’t particularly healthy, but it’s not bad in moderation.
I wouldn’t think of it as unhealthy, especially with home prepped sauce/toppings. Though after posting this I did notice the call out for healthy specifically, which I would tend to think of more so as high fiber and or high vegetable dishes.
Not necessarily quick, but low effort, I’d go with congee. Boil rice, roughly half a cup to 5 or 6 cups water, reduce to simmer until a velvety porridge . I usually do 1.5 or 2 cups at a time though, and have plenty of leftovers. Top with soy, fish sauce or what takes your fancy, and whatever roasted vegetables you want. Really you could add anything and not go wrong. Not necessarily quick , but low effort and pretty set it and forget it
I live in the US, where a ton of people are diabetic, so they need to limit their intake of refined carbs like pasta. It’s not inherently unhealthy.
Agree with the congee. When I’ve been really sick and unable to cook or eat, I’ve just added some carrots and chicken broth in the rice cooker (still easy in a pot if you don’t have a rice cooker).
Soondubu, doenjang jigae (I add gochujang for some spice). Both Korean soups.
Pho Ga (using chicken thighs), with various toppings and vermicelli rice noodles. Takes about 45 all in, if you’re efficient, whilst being delicious and healthy.
Blackened shrimp or chicken burritos. Yes, shrimp. It’s $16 for 2lbs. at Aldi, and it’s quality meat. My wife and I get 4-8 meals for that, the rest amounts to about $2, if that.
-
Sear the tortillas (corn or flour, you do you) in butter or margarine for a few, throw it on the plate.
-
Fry up a few shrimp in a cast iron pan, drench in black spice to taste. (Black spice: Cayenne, chili powder, paprika, black pepper, salt, cumin, powdered garlic, onion powder, mix to taste and add whatever else you like. White pepper is the shit if you can afford it! Use the cheapest bulk crap you can buy at the ghetto grocery, nothing fancy or it will be too spicy, too many strong favors.)
-
Dice onions and chop some tomatoes, cheap lettuce if you like.
-
Throw your choice of shredded cheese on top of the cooked meat, pile on the rest of the ingredients.
-
Bring your own salsa, but I’d recommend something with a bit of acid like a tomato based sauce. Want it hotter? Much on some dehydrated chile árbol peppers (between bites!) from the Mexican store. Stupid cheap for a year’s worth of heat.
-
