Twenty To The Table – 3 Supper Meals Ready in Twenty Minutes!

It is possible to have supper on the table in 20 minutes – I do it all the time! Here are the things that are pretty essential to making that happen:

• a simple meal plan
• easy recipes with not a lot of ingredients
• a little meal prep, either in the morning or once a week

Even if you serve sandwiches and chips, you have to plan ahead enough to have those ingredients on hand! Today I’m starting a series of supper ideas called “Twenty To The Table.” Shout out to my Mom for coming up with the clever title! These will be supper recipes, complete with sides, that you can have on the table in twenty minutes.

Here are three 20 minute meals that I made just last week!

Confession: the pictures in this post are not from last week’s meals. If you need to have supper on the table in 20 minutes, there’s not time for photos. These are just pictures of similar dishes I’ve made in the past. Ha! 🙂 

1: BBQ Pork Sandwiches/Cole Slaw/Corn

Prep Required: put the pork roast in the crock pot 4-8 hours before supper. I did mine for 8 hours on low, covered in BBQ sauce, garlic powder, liquid smoke and a little water.

20 Minutes Before: Shred the meat, mix up the cole slaw (or if you bought pre-made, just pull it out of the fridge!), cook the corn. I put a little olive oil in my skillet and cook frozen corn just until it’s heated through. Add lots of salt and pepper and you’re done! Serve the BBQ right out of the crock pot.

If you have 10 extra minutes: Heat up the oven and cook frozen french fries. The ones I get at Aldi need about 20 minutes total.

Options for Leftovers: Serve leftover BBQ on a baked potato – which you can cook all day in the crock pot!

2: Spaghetti and Meatballs/Caesar Salad/Garlic Toast

This one can be done in 20 minutes – you just have to keep moving! 🙂 

Prep Required: pull frozen (cooked) meatballs out of the freezer in the morning so they can defrost in the fridge all day. You can use store bought OR make these when you have a little extra time. Make a double batch and put half of them in the freezer for this recipe! 

20 Minutes Before: Put a little olive oil in a deep skillet and brown the meatballs for a couple minutes. Get your pasta water ready and boiling – add in angel hair or thin spaghetti (it cooks faster!). Add the pasta sauce to the meatballs and let it simmer while the pasta cooks.

Open a Caesar salad kit and either put it all in one bowl or make individual salads.

Turn the broiler on. Butter slices of bread and sprinkle them with garlic salt & parmesan cheese. Toast under the broiler for 2 minutes. Drain the cooked pasta and add it to the meat sauce, coating the noodles with the sauce. Make your plates right from the stove!

Options for Leftovers: Serve leftover meatballs on hot dog buns with mozzarella or provolone cheese – meatball subs!

3: Burrito Bowls

Prep Required: For this recipe you need to have cooked chicken on hand. You can definitely use the pre-cooked “grilled” Tyson/Aldi brand chicken or a rotisserie chicken. I like to roast bone in chicken breasts and put bags filled with 2 cups of meat in the freezer. That is more than enough to feed 2 people on this recipe. Pull the frozen chicken out of the freezer in the morning so it can defrost in the fridge all day.

20 Minutes Before: Get all the ingredients ready for everyone to build their own bowls!

• Brown Rice: use frozen brown rice (Birds Eye makes microwaveable bags that are done in 6 minutes) or 10 minute boil-in-a-bag. If you do the 10 minute rice, make sure you start this first.
• Protein: combine cooked chicken and rinsed black beans in a skillet. Add a little taco seasoning and a splash of water. Heat through. You can do separate skillets if not everyone likes beans!
• Corn: Open a can of corn, add frozen corn to the skillet above or use leftover corn from the BBQ night.
• Prep Toppings: chop tomatoes, avocado, cilantro, lime wedges
• Pull out of the fridge: sour cream, ranch, cheese

Set out deep bowls and let everyone customize their own burrito bowl!

Options for Leftovers: Serve all these ingredients in a tortilla for an amazing burrito, or do nachos using everything but the rice!

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I would love your feedback – is this helpful? Would you like to see more of the Twenty To The Table series?