Fast Dinner Ideas From Your Kitchen Cabinet

Fast dinner ideas come from the combination of quick cooking methods and the ingredients you have on hand. Planning and cooking meals for your family can be frustrating when you depend on written recipes that command specific ingredients. Sometimes you have the items, sometimes you dont.

A quick dinner recipe frees you from the kitchen faster, but a mastery of just a few basic cooking methods will give you endless dinner ideas.

In todays video, Im going to let you look over my shoulder as I make dinner in my own home. Why do I do this? Because I want to transform as many frustrated recipe followers into home kitchen masters as possible!

Every night, I hurt my arm patting myself on the back, saying if everyone could cook like this, theyd look forward to planning dinner and theyd never run out of dinner ideas. If you agonize over what to make for dinner every night, just watch what I do and substitute the ingredients you desire.

Todays Shrimp and Cannellini Bean Florentine is a dish I just made up 10 minutes ago. I looked into my pantry, peered into the refrigerator, and created a fast dinner idea from the ingredients I already had.

Heres what I found in my cabinet to create the dish:
Olive oil
Onions, sliced
Spinach leaves
Garlic, minced
Shrimp, Peeled and Deveined
Cannellini beans
Diced Tomatoes

Stove top saut is the quickest method for getting dinner done quickly, but the most important part is assuring that the pan is hot first. A few drops of water from your fingers that evaporate immediately on the pan shows its hot.

When you add just a tablespoon of olive oil to the pan, swirl the pan to cover the entire bottom with oil. The fat in saut is used to transfer the heat from the source to your food. Remember, youre not deep frying. Just a small amount is necessary.

Sliced onions are sauted in the hot pan, adding their flavor to the olive oil. When they are translucent and sweating, add the fresh spinach leaves to the hot pan. Spinach will break down, releasing its moisture and quickly wilting in the pan. Minced garlic is also sauted with the spinach.

Now, you can add any protein product youd like. I use shrimp, but you could certainly choose chicken, beef, or tofu. None of those will slow down our process, its still a fast dinner idea regardless of what ingredients you choose.

After adding a can of Cannellini beans and diced tomatoes, I want to change the cooking process from the direct source heat underneath the pan to an indirect moist heat caused by placing the lid on top. The lid traps moisture and begins to steam all the ingredients.

Changing from direct dry heat to indirect moist heat is the most important step in this process. This helps retain moisture and combine flavors in a single pan. Change the ingredients if youd like, but follow the method and youll create your own fast dinner ideas.

See the entire fast dinner ideas video here.