Everything I like has more than 5 ingredients if you count seasonings. Might as well heat up soup.
- Can of soup
Salsa chicken. It’s chicken, a bit of taco seasoning, then salsa. Cooked for 4 hours on high.
I have a variant of this I love. 2-3 lbs Chicken breast coated in taco seasoning and enough chicken broth to cover most of it. Cook on high for 3 hours. Drain the liquid, add half a block of cream cheese and half a cup of salsa, shred the chicken and add it to the now melted goo in the pot. Stir and eat. You might need some time for it to heat back up.
My other favorite is a chuck roast and a big jar of pickled peppers. Cook it for 8 hours on low. Shred it, strain it onto toasted ciabatta rolls with a couple slices of provolone and Dijon mustard.
Chicken and rice. Season chicken legs and sear it in the pressure cooker then throw some water in and veggies of your choosing. Pressure cook for like 10 - 15 min. Take the chicken out then throw some rice in and cook for another 10 min.
Boom tender juicy chicken with flavorful rice.
Country style ribs with baby carrots.
Pack of boneless country style ribs Season to taste Cook on high pressure for 30min Release pressure and add a few bags of baby carrots and reseal and cook for 15min more.
Carnitas
- Pork shoulder
- Oranges
- Limes
- Salt
- Oregano
Dump it all in a pot, come back in 4 hours. Optionally, crisp it up in a pan or under broiler.
Few more ingredients but my carnitas have always been a crowd pleaser
- Pork shoulder
- Coke
- Orange juice
- Chicken stock
- Canned Chipotles in adobo
- Onions
- Garlic
- Spices - I mix it up a bit, but salt, pepper, cumin, cayenne, and oregano will usually get you there. Packet or two of taco seasoning would probably do the trick as well
I tend to eyeball everything, but usually about a 12oz can of coke, oj and stock until it looks right, one onion chopped up, however many cloves of garlic I feel like peeling and chopping
If the pork shoulder fits I do it in a pressure cooker on high about 2 hours, if it doesn’t I do it significantly longer in a slow cooker
When it’s falling apart, pull the bones out, shred (I like to use a mixer)
Then like you, crisp it up under the broiler, and maybe mix in some of the cooking liquid
That’s perfect for the multi device with airfryer. You can get nice crispy tips.
Chicken soup.
Chicken stock, chicken, carrots, onion, celery. Add noodles if you like.
I like making the noodles fresh and adding them after, lets you get away with low quality noodles that would turn to paste sitting in the soup too long otherwise
don’t even need chicken stock. If you cook the onions on bottom of pot first to brown, add chicken in and brown if you want then add all the other stuff + water. Add salt/pepper let it cook a while. This is literally how chicken stock is made. Onions + celery + carrots are called the holy trinity.
We should have a “what should i cook tonight?” community! Deciding what to make is the hardest part!
A change that was truly freeing for our family was to decide on just a few repeating standard meals. We did one night for tacos, one for some kind of fish, and one for some frozen food. Depending on how quickly you get bored, you can make the same or different things within those general outlines, but it helped narrow the decision tree at least for those nights.
After some time, we expanded to an even more thoroughly planned schedule, but that’s not where I would try to start. Just a loose schedule for some go-to meals that aren’t too repetitive but also don’t require too much energy to plan, prep, and make. Then you have more energy for deciding on other nights, or some basis for planning the other nights if that’s what you want.
In my country we are used to eat every part of the animals so I have many recipes, but non you would like lol. Once I said my favorite dish ever was oxtail and people freaked out. Btw, Oxtail and potatoes in the pressure cooker is enough. Omg so goooooooood
That’s bizarre. Oxtail is pretty common in the states these days. At least in California. So good indeed!!
Oxtail soup is amazing. I make it with a whole bottle of wine, and never eat it the first day. Unfortunately oxtail is very expensive here right now.
wow rrally? here is really cheap
So pricey I used short ribs instead the last time I made the soup, because it worked out cheaper! I don’t know what is going on but they are. Enjoy it while you can, all the odds and ends that used to be cheap are not anymore, here.
1lb of dried pinto beans, 48oz of veggie stock, garlic, onion, cumin. Cook on high pressure for an hour. Mash it all up and mmm mmm mmmm
Corned beef and cabbage. Corned beef, one onion, 2 cups of water, can of guiness. Pressure cook on high for 90 minutes. Slow release.
Remove beef, cover with a mix of brown sugar and honey. Broil/grill/torch to carmelize/burn the sugar a bit.
While you’re doing that, you throw the cabbage, potatoes, and carrots into the broth and pressure cook on high for 5 minutes-quick release.
Veggies will be done same time as beef is seared.
Enjoy.
Ground beef and gravy over mashed potatoes. Simple and delicious. Open a cam of beans and you got a meal. Alternatively, ground beef and teriyaki sauce over rice.
Do you eat meat? Big hunk o’ pork is one of the favorite meals of my kids. Salt the meat then broil or sear it in a pan. Put it in the slow cooker. Use broth, water, or wine to deglaze the pan and pour that over the meat.
Cut a couple of garlic heads in half horizontally, you don’t have to peel them. Toss them in.
Pour in the rest of the bottle of wine or box of broth, some orange juice is good too, lime if you didn’t have wine. Or some vinegar works if you don’t have lime. If you have cilantro put the stems in, if you don’t, don’t worry about it.
Close and cook on low all day. We usually have it with rice and black beans the first day, it’s good in tortillas with salsa, good on nachos, good in enchiladas, it’s just good
I got to go to up to 7 ingredients and I’m counting the four mandatory veg as one ingredient (1 cup each of carrot, onion, celery and 1 tablespoon of diced garlic) that I call mirepoix.
African ground nut stew:
- 10 chicken thighs
- 4 cups of mirepoix
- Large can of diced tomatoes
- Can of tomato paste
- Cup of chicken stock
- 2 cups of mushrooms
-High pressure for 28 mins
Stir in 3 tablespoons of unsweetened peanut butter to thicken.
If you want to make it 8 ingredients then add hot sauce to taste.
If you don’t count oip and spices, then any kind of dal. Dal, onion, ginger garlic paste, chili, tomato. Then add your spices, which can be as simple as garam masala, turneric, and red chili powder. Salt after it’s cooked. Aside from the onion everything can come from the pantry or freezer. Technically you could blend and freeze the onion to make life even easier.
I know I’m pushing it but this is basically the easiest meal ever and it’s just one pot. You only need to dirty a cutting board, knife, and spoon. It’s nearly a pantry meal and requires no thought or special technique aside from knowing when onions are caramelized but not burned. And it’s vegan, gluten free, and very inexpensive.
