Quick weeknight dinners under 30 minutes
Six dinners sorted by honest total time, from ten minutes to half an hour. No '15 minutes' that is really forty.
The times below are total time: from switching on the hob to food on the table, cleaning and chopping included. That is the only time that matters on a Tuesday.
Silverbeet is a quick vegetable by nature. The leaves are done in one to two minutes, and thinly sliced stems need little more than three or four. What takes time in these dishes is everything else: rice, pasta, eggs that need to set. That is why the order here runs from fastest to slowest.
The recipes
Green Omelette Wrap with Silverbeet
Around ten minutes: eggs, baby leaves, and a hot pan, done before your coffee goes cold.
Garlicky Sautéed Silverbeet with Lemon
Fifteen minutes all in, and five of them are cleaning the leaves.
Rainbow Chard Stem Stir-fry
A good twenty minutes with the rice included; the stir-frying itself takes five.
Shakshuka with Silverbeet
About 25 minutes from cold pan to eggs with runny yolks.
Green Silverbeet Pancakes
Just under half an hour, and the batter can wait in the fridge from the night before.
Silverbeet Pasta with Pine Nuts & Raisins
An honest half hour, most of it spent on the pasta water.
Tips
- Clean the silverbeet when you come home from the garden or the shop, not when you start cooking: dinner is always ten minutes closer.
- Frozen pucks cut all the prep time in the wet dishes, straight from bag to pot.
- Thin slices are the whole difference: stems in half-centimetre pieces cook almost as fast as the leaves.