What to cook when you have twenty minutes

The meal that ruins a week of eating well is rarely a planned indulgence. It is the Tuesday where you got home at seven, looked in the fridge, and ordered something instead. Twenty-minute cooking is less about speed than about having a shape in your head before you open the door.

The formula

A fast protein, a fast carbohydrate, a vegetable that needs no peeling, and something with flavour. That is it:

• Fast proteins: eggs, prawns, tinned tuna, tinned beans, halloumi, tofu, thin chicken strips, smoked salmon.
• Fast carbs: couscous (five minutes, boiling water), noodles, wholewheat pasta, microwave rice, bread.
• No-prep vegetables: frozen peas, spinach, cherry tomatoes, pre-cut peppers, cucumber, rocket.
• Flavour: garlic, lemon, chili, soy sauce, mustard, yogurt, olive oil, herbs.

Five that work

• Prawn and garlic pasta. Pasta on. Garlic and chili in oil, prawns three minutes, spinach wilted in at the end.
• Tuna and chickpea bowl. No cooking at all: drained tuna, chickpeas, chopped pepper and onion, olive oil and lemon.
• Egg fried rice. Cold cooked rice, an egg, frozen peas, soy sauce. Better than it sounds and done in eight minutes.
• Halloumi and couscous. Couscous steeping, halloumi in the pan, cucumber and mint stirred through.
• Omelette with whatever is left. Three eggs, any vegetable, a little cheese, bread on the side.

Two habits that buy you time

First, put the water on before you take your coat off. Everything else happens while it boils. Second, keep one shelf of the cupboard as the twenty-minute shelf: tinned fish, tinned beans, couscous, pasta, and nothing you need a recipe for. On a bad day you are not choosing, you are reaching.

Make it a proper meal, not just food

Fast meals fall down on two things: not enough protein and not enough vegetables. A palm of protein and a fist or two of vegetables turns a quick plate of carbohydrates into something that actually holds you until morning.

If you want these written out

Every one of our recipe books labels its quick recipes, with ingredients in grams and calories and protein per serving, so you can pick one at seven o'clock without thinking. If you would rather not decide at all, the 7-Day Healthy Meal Plan has the week decided already, shopping list included.