Some days you get home with no time and no ideas. The solution isn’t to cook faster, but to keep a few pantry ingredients on hand that come together in minutes. Here are three dinners of about 10 minutes and a rice-and-meat dish for when you need something even quicker.
The minimum pantry for these dinners
- A can of tuna and a can of cooked legumes (chickpeas, beans or lentils).
- Fresh mushrooms, which cook in a few minutes.
- Rice, ideally already cooked ahead of time, and eggs.
- Oil, lemon or vinegar, salt, pepper and fresh herbs.
If you want to round out your pantry, the basic grocery list tells you what to always have and how much to buy per person.
1. Warm legume and tuna salad
- Drain and rinse the canned legumes, and drain the tuna.
- Mix them with chopped fresh onion or spring onion and fresh herbs.
- Dress with oil, lemon or vinegar, salt and pepper. Taste and adjust before serving.
It needs no heat. If you’d like it warm, heat the legumes in a pan for a minute before mixing.
2. Sautéed mushrooms with egg
- Slice the mushrooms and add them to a very hot pan, without crowding them.
- Let them brown without moving them too much and season with salt and pepper.
- Add chopped garlic for a moment and finish with one or two eggs, cooking until they set the way you like.
3. Tuna with legumes and hard-boiled egg
If there are boiled eggs in the fridge, combining them with tuna and legumes makes a complete dinner without cooking anything. With a drizzle of oil and lemon it’s ready in the time it takes to set the table.
When speed matters most: rice with meat
With already-cooked rice, thinly sliced meat cooks in a few minutes in the pan. Make sure it’s cooked through; for chicken, the pan-seared chicken guide explains how to tell it’s done without drying it out. Everything gets easier if you leave the rice prepared from the weekly plan.
How not to run out of ideas
The hard part is almost never the cooking, but knowing what to cook and keeping going. Write down which combinations have worked for you and repeat them with small variations: a legume, a simple protein, a vegetable and a dressing. If you want to know what each dinner costs you, use the calculators.
From the kitchen · 7 years on the jobA can of tuna, a can of legumes, or simply mushrooms satisfy your appetite without feeling greasy. The fastest thing of all is rice with any kind of meat. And salt, pepper and fresh herbs, always.
Sources and review
This article reflects general cooking criteria and the author’s experience; it does not cite figures from external sources. For the safe temperature of chicken, see the linked guide, which cites the USDA.
Last reviewed: October 14, 2026. If you spot a mistake, write to us from the contact page.