Top 5 30-minute weeknight dinners
Quick answer
For fast weeknight dinners, try Marion Grasby's 15-minute garlic prawn udon, J. Kenji López-Alt's cherry tomato pasta, Downshiftology's chicken fajitas, Tiffy Cooks' salmon teriyaki and Once Upon a Chef's chicken piccata. All five are ready in about 30 minutes or less, and none of them needs special skills or gear.
It is 6 pm, everyone is hungry, and nobody wants to wait an hour. These five dinners are the ones we reach for on busy nights. Each one is ready in about 30 minutes or less, uses ingredients you can find at any supermarket, and still tastes like you made an effort.
We picked a mix of noodles, pasta, tacos, fish and chicken so you can rotate through the week without getting bored. Every pick links to the creator's original video or recipe, and the button under each one saves it to Recepti so it is ready on your phone when you start cooking.
1 15-minute garlic prawn udon
By Marion Grasby, Marion's Kitchen on YouTube · Written recipe
Marion's speedy noodles are the definition of a weeknight win. Pre-cooked udon only needs a quick dip in boiling water, then everything comes together in one hot wok: charred cabbage, lots of garlic, juicy prawns and a glossy soy and oyster sauce. It serves two in about 15 minutes, and it tastes better than takeout.
- Time
- About 15 minutes
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Key ingredients
- Pre-cooked udon, prawns or shrimp, garlic, cabbage, soy sauce, oyster sauce, chili flakes, spring onion
The button copies this recipe's link and opens Recepti. Tap +, paste, and tap Import recipe.
2 Pasta with cherry tomato sauce
By J. Kenji López-Alt on YouTube · Written recipe
Kenji's secret is the tomato itself. Cherry tomatoes are sweet and full of pectin, so they burst into a rich, creamy sauce in about the time it takes the pasta to cook. Garlic, good olive oil, basil and a splash of starchy pasta water do the rest. The video runs under three minutes, and the whole dish needs just a handful of ingredients.
- Time
- About 25 minutes
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Key ingredients
- Dry pasta, cherry tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, fresh basil, Parmesan
The button copies this recipe's link and opens Recepti. Tap +, paste, and tap Import recipe.
3 Easy chicken fajitas
By Lisa Bryan, Downshiftology on YouTube · Written recipe
Lisa mixes a quick fajita seasoning from spices you probably already own, then sears the chicken and sizzles the peppers and onions until they are soft and a little charred. A squeeze of lime finishes it. Set out tortillas, avocado and pico de gallo and let everyone build their own. It makes six servings, so lunch is sorted too.
- Time
- About 30 minutes
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Key ingredients
- Chicken breasts, bell peppers, onion, lime, homemade fajita seasoning, tortillas
The button copies this recipe's link and opens Recepti. Tap +, paste, and tap Import recipe.
4 Salmon teriyaki
By Tiffy Cooks (@tiffycooks) on TikTok · Written recipe
This was day 3 of Tiffy's 15-minute dinners series, and it proves homemade teriyaki is easier than it looks. The salmon gets a light dusting of flour so it sears golden, then it is glazed in a quick sauce of soy, mirin, sugar, ginger and garlic. Serve it over rice with whatever vegetables are in the fridge.
- Time
- About 15 minutes
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Key ingredients
- Salmon fillets, a little flour, soy sauce, mirin, sugar, fresh ginger, garlic
The button copies this recipe's link and opens Recepti. Tap +, paste, and tap Import recipe.
5 Chicken piccata
By Jennifer Segal, Once Upon a Chef
Written recipeChicken piccataonceuponachef.comJenn gives the classic a little crunch: thin chicken cutlets get a coat of seasoned bread crumbs before they hit the pan, then a bright sauce of stock, lemon juice, capers and butter goes over the top. It feels like a restaurant dinner but takes half an hour. Serve it with pasta, rice or a simple green salad.
- Time
- About 30 minutes
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Key ingredients
- Chicken breasts, flour, eggs, Italian bread crumbs, lemon, capers, butter, chicken stock, parsley
The button copies this recipe's link and opens Recepti. Tap +, paste, and tap Import recipe.
Keep your quick dinners one tap away
The best weeknight recipes are the ones you can find again in ten seconds, not the ones buried in your camera roll. Recepti is a free web app that keeps them together. Paste a link from YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook or a food blog and it saves the ingredients and steps, with the creator's name and a View original post button.
When a recipe lives only in a video, Recepti works from what is said and shown in it. You can scale the servings, switch between metric and imperial, and start as a guest in your browser with nothing to download.
Open ReceptiFree. No download. Start as a guest.
Questions
What is the fastest dinner on this list?
Marion's garlic prawn udon and Tiffy's salmon teriyaki both take about 15 minutes. Kenji's cherry tomato pasta is close behind at about 25 minutes.
How do I make a 30-minute recipe really take 30 minutes?
Read the recipe once before you start, put the pasta or noodle water on first, and chop everything before the pan gets hot. Most of the time lost on weeknights goes to hunting for ingredients mid-recipe.
Can I swap the protein in these recipes?
Yes. Chicken or firm tofu work well in the udon instead of prawns, shrimp cooks even faster than chicken in fajitas, and thin pork cutlets are a good stand-in for chicken in the piccata. Adjust the cooking time so nothing overcooks.
How do I save recipes from YouTube, TikTok and blogs in one place?
Paste each link into Recepti. It saves the ingredients, steps and creator credit, so videos and blog recipes end up in the same list. Our guide to saving YouTube recipes shows how it works with videos.
Every recipe here belongs to the creator named above. We link to the original post and do not copy full recipes or photos. Times and difficulty are our own estimates from each recipe.