One of the hardest realizations of most of our adults lives is realizing that we have to feed ourselves (and our kids) three meals a day, every day, for the rest of our lives.
It inevitably leads to more than one night a week when you’re tired of everything you make, you don’t feel like cooking, and you have no idea what to put on the table.
If that’s you right now, take note – here’s what these 13 people make when they don’t feel like cooking.
13. Wraps
Seriously, keep some wraps around and shove anything in—leftover chicken from last night’s dinner, some toppings from a salad, deli meat—and you’ll have an instant and delicious wrap.
12. Tuna Melt
Does it get any easier than a tuna melt?
If you have a can of tuna, mayo, bread, and some of your preferred fixings, it can be yours in less than 10 minutes.
We’re obviously partial to our own tuna melt recipe.
The best part: You can still make it even if you don’t have every single ingredient.
11. Quesadillas
It doesn’t get more comforting than this one.
Get your tortilla crunchy and delicious and fill it up with anything (we personally love the fixings from last night’s tacos, but you do you!), press, and enjoy.
10. Charcuterie Board
These boards have gotten unnecessarily complicated as of late, but if you’re just making one for yourself, there is no need to make it fancy.
If you’re short on time or willpower, it’s just as delicious to slap a few pieces of deli meat onto a plate with some cheese, crackers, veggies, dips—whatever you want really.
9. Swirls
This dish is one of our editor’s family favorites and dates back to the 1950s.
His instructions: “Mix rotini pasta with a large can of tomato sauce, a small can of tomato sauce, a stick of butter, and three slices of American cheese.
Add a boat load of salt, eat, pass out.” Done and done!
8. Carbonara
This pasta dish may sound fancy, but it’s actually really easy to whip up and mainly uses pantry ingredients.
Pro tip: Always keep some bacon in the freezer and you’ll pretty much always have the ability to make a seemingly fancy pasta meal (or breakfast if that’s your jam) with little effort.
7. Trash Salad
Take whatever veggies, grains, herbs, proteins, etc, you have in the house, put it over whatever greens you want, slap on some balsamic and some cheese and guess what?
That’s dinner, baby!
6. Eggs
Eggs cook up so quickly and can be eaten on their own or added to any leftovers you’re trying to revive.
Our editors named a million different ways to cook them but some favorites are loading leftovers into an omelette, making breakfast tacos, and making Akoori or Indian scrambled eggs.
5. Snack Dinner
As one of our food editors put it, “I don’t cook, I eat.”
Who says you need to make anything at all?
Have you ever just taken out a bunch of snacks and eaten them at your kitchen table?
Why not? Who is stopping you?
Pop some popcorn, munch on some trail mix, snap open a banana, and open up some dark chocolate.
Talk about a balanced meal, and with none of the work.
4. Cereal
Fun fact: There is no law saying that cereal is exclusively meant to be eaten at breakfast.
If you’ve never had cereal at 3 p.m. or 3 a.m., well, you haven’t lived, my friend!
This goes for cold cereal or oatmeal, which is the perfect vessel for leftovers and random fruit.
3. Shakshuka
Chances are you have eggs and tomato sauce in your house right now, so chances are you can make this Mediterranean meal pretty easily.
Bonus points if you have some garlic bread you can throw in the oven.
2. Cacio e Pepe
Another fancy pasta dish that our editors love.
This dish is perhaps the easiest to make and tastes absolutely delicious.
1. Sweet Potatoes Plus
My personal go-to is popping a few sweet potatoes into the oven, dumping any frozen veggies I have into a pan with some sauce and seasonings, and putting it over the baked sweet potato with some hot sauce.
No matter what combo I’ve tried, it’s so good.
I’m definitely putting this list on my fridge!
What do you make when you’re backed into a dinner corner?
Share it with us in the comments!
