The One Big Dish has you covered for veg as well, cooking More of the Main Bit leaves you free to make elaborate sides like pomme dauphinoises or hasslebacks should you so desire, but you can also crowd a plate with side dishes with minimal extra work. My definition of Very Lazy Sides is that it takes less than 3 minutes of prep AND that you can get it ready beforehand or throw it together just before you eat - no faffing about with multiple steps. So even Will's Amazing Seared Broccoli doesn't make the cut for a Very Lazy Side, because the broccoli needs chopping and it's about ten minutes with occasional shaking. When I say lazy, I mean lazy. And also delicious.
These are all the ideas I could think of today; I'll add more if I think of them, so if you bookmark the post to scroll back to when you need ideas, more might have popped up next time. (Note: this "might" depends heavily on people's enthusiasm!) I've arrranged them in order below as...
- No-work fresh veg
- Quick-cook fresh veg
- Quick-prep oven veg
- Carbs: all the breads
- Carbs what aren't breads
No-work fresh veg
Peppery greens inna bag: This is what those bags of mixed rocket, watercress, and baby spinach were made for. (Especially if you have a beady eye on the discount area - because they have short shelf-lifes, they're regular visitors there.) Grab a handful, put it on the plate. Job done. They're so delicious and fresh that they don't even really need a dressing and are better off without one if the main is rich and creamy, like the jewel bake, but if you're feeling very energetic you could toss them in a little oil and vinegar, or a salad dressing if you have one already made.
Bunch of watercress: Does not sound as good as it is, but it is. When Will's restaurant shut down for refurbishments a while back, chef had some fresh produce left over that he hadn't managed to sell and couldn't send to food banks, including a big tray of living watercress. We had watercress with every meal for about a fortnight and it is spectacularly tasty and fresh. I believe British children grow up growing their own. If you have British children handy, try harnessing this power.
Salted cucumber sticks: Again, gotta eat it to love it. Slice the cucumber in sticks not rounds: I slice the cucumber into about 4-inch lengths, then lengthways down the middle, then cut each half lengthways into four more slices, angling the knife so they come out as elegant narrow wedges. Sprinkle on some salt and pepper, sorted. If you have a posh salt, this is its moment to shine. (I especially love smoked salt for this so I use that when I remember that I have a carefully hoarded box of it.) Fresh and cool and crisp.
Sauerkraut: When I was a kid, we usually had a jar of this in the fridge as a staple, perhaps because my mum's dad was Dutch. It's a crunchy, tangy, instant side. Mom always rinsed it to get rid of extra salt, but that depends on your tastes and the brine it's in. We started making our own in March this year and it's ridiculously easy to make masses of it and have a jar or two on the go, playing around with different seeds to add - fennel, caraway, etc. We used Katz's sauerkraut recipe from the book Wild Fermentation. You don't have to make it yourself, but you can if you want!
Quick-cook fresh veg
Flash-fried crispy crispy kale: If you hate kale, I challenge you to cook it like this before you accept that hatred as part of your life. This is one of my absolute favourite side dishes and I am not about hairshirt eating! I buy the big bags of ready-chopped kale so it doesn't even need chopping. Heat a deep wide frying pan or a wok to the hottest you can, with a generous amount of oil (3+ Tablespoons if you're counting for 100g of kale, but I tend to do it by eye). Throw in the kale, stepping well back because the oil will sizzle and spit like crazy. Stir it / toss it well, while it spits and crackles at you; it'll collapse down a bit fairly quickly and what looks like far too much rapidly becomes a reasonable serving. As soon as it's collapsed a bit, sprinkle salt over it very generously - I do several good pinches, which is probably about half a teaspoon, for 100g of kale. Keep tossing it fairly continuously, cos the pan is so hot, but not all the time, because you do want bits to crisp and char. It takes 2-3 minutes total. It's ready when all the kale is bright green and some bits are looking crispy and heading to black. Crispy and crunchy and I once ate an entire bowl of just this for lunch, because it's so damn good. I allow about 50g of kale per person but you could easily do more.
Peas & sweetcorn but better: Yeah fine, frozen peas or frozen sweetcorn isn't a groundbreaking suggestion, BUT a) they are quick, and b) they can be groundbreaking. Step one is don't just drain them and serve: treat them like the honoured accompaniments they are, and once you've drained them, throw them back in the pot with plenty of salt and pepper and a generous knob of butter. And if you want them to be groundbreaking, you can make the sweetcorn into Chetna Makan's corn chaat. (Chaat is a spice mix, you can make your own or buy it.) Short version: while the sweetcorn's boiling, you melt some butter, stir in some chaat and a pinch of chilli powder if you want the heat; when the sweetcorn's drained, add that. In a perfect world, you have some fresh coriander to stir through and some lime juice to sprinkle over. You can do the same to peas, or go trad and add some fresh mint leaves, or go off-piste and add any spices-heated-in-melted-butter or any herbs you like. You have 3-4 mins while the veg is cooking to grab any accoutrements that take your fancy.
Quick-prep oven veg
These ones aren't quick-cook options but they take less than 3 minutes prep and you can do the 3 minutes in advance whenever you fancy, and then just pop them in the oven for 30 mins while whatever else is cooking is in there.
Roast courgette: As much a favourite as fried kale for me and such a favourite that I even made a wee video for you on how to prep them. Under 3 mins even when I'm working slower to demonstrate - they'd usually take me about 1.5 mins to prep. These are the ones in the photo at the top, after cooking, and here is their prep process:
Summary: check your courgette's skin is clean. Don't top and tail it. Slice it in half lengthways then score it lengthways, quite deeply, with three lines. Baste the skin and pop it on an oven tray. Baste the cut side lavishly. Sprinkle on salt and chilli flakes - about 1/2 tsp of salt and 1 tsp of chilli flakes per courgette. Use less chilli flakes if you don't like the heat. If you really don't want heat but like spice, use cumin or coriander instead. Put it in the oven at about 180 degrees fan for about 30 minutes. It's very forgiving of temperature and time differences, and almost impossible to burn, so...
- you can prep it hours in advance if you want, it's fine like that
- if your oven needs to be lower, start the courgettes off first at 180 for 20 minutes, then let them sit at the bottom continuing to roast while the other food goes in at a lower temperature
- if your oven needs to be higher, just give them slightly less time, maybe 20 mins.
Sometimes I baste it again halfway through its cooking time, once the slices have opened up more; sometimes I don't bother. Either way it's heavenly. I almost always make more than we'll need, as it's so easy to make and anyone wandering down hungry in the morning will gladly inhale half a spicy courgette. Theoretically we could use the leftovers as a side for another meal, but they rarely survive. You'll notice I'm not protective of these the way I am of main meals meant for the freezer - that's cos it's pretty affordable veg, healthy random snacking, and extremely easy to make.
Roast asparagus: My absolute favourite way to do asparagus and I'll never plunge the poor bastards into boiling water again. Similar to roast courgette, you lay it on a baking tray, decorate it with whatever oil, seasonings, and flavours you fancy, and then it goes in the oven for 10-25 mins depending on how thick the asparagus is and your oven temperature. And again, you can prep it and leave it on the side until it's ready to go in. My favourite recipe site for roast asparagus is Cookie and Kate: they give heaps of ideas for different combinations to put with it. Some of the things people typically add are olive oil, lemon juice, capers, parmesan, chilli flakes, nuts - you can follow their suggestions or make up your own combo. They cook at at 425F which is 220C or 200C in a fan oven. If the oven's at 180 anyway, I just give the asparagus 20-30 mins. Again, it's pretty forgiving.
Whole sweetcorn in tinfoil: Anothe prep-it-and-forget-it dish where you can do the 3-mins prep in advance if you want, then just pop it in to cook 30 mins before you're eating. Rub the sweetcorn with butter, sprinkle salt and pepper over it, and wrap it into a little tinfoil parcel. Give it 30 mins at 180 degrees fan. It comes out blissfully succulent.
Spiced red cabbage, defrosted: Cheating a bit here because this relies on you already having cooked and frozen portions of spiced red cabbage. But it's fairly easy to throw together (especially if you just toss all the ingredients instead of faffing about with layers like Delia) and makes such enormous quantities that I almost always have 250ml tupperwares of spiced red cabbage bouncing around the freezer. Here's the recipe.
Carbs: all the breads
At some point we all took against bread, but we seem to have stopped that now, which is good, but also forgotten that it's a perfectly brilliant carb for dinners, not just breakfast and lunches. (I actually rarely eat bread at lunch, cos I get all afternoon-sleepy if I do.) It's our traditional staple food (well, that and ALL THE PIES) so let's be PROUD of it! For a dinner side, I don't mean the sliced white, except in case of emergencies. This is when I do, finally, bring out the posh breads (with my eye on economies, as ever).
Straight-up ciabatta: For a treat, just yes. Buy a lovely ciabatta. Put it in the fridge if you're not eating it in the next day or two, because their shelf lives are short, and then you discover your lovely expensive ciabatta is all green and blue and you could weep with the loss. For "ciabatta" feel free to interpret that as whatever your favourite Posh Treat Bread is.
Posh loaves, sliced and frozen: The bakery loaves with all extra fancy bits like walnuts and apricots and olives, things called Cob or Tiger or whatever, sourdough loaves, all the ones you might not usually buy for regular breakfast consumption, all of them. Buy them, slice them into suitable dinner-serving slices, and freeze them. At some point, enjoy your homemade caponata with a delicious slice of walnut sourdough. If you're canny, haunt the bakery section of the supermarket close to closing time on a Sunday (or any day if you're willing to shop that late) when the special breads get their discount stickers. You can just toast the slices from frozen.
Ready-to-bake breads: Baguettes, petit pains, etc, ready to bake, keep for a long time in the cupboard (so no extra pressure on the freezer or fridge) and freshly baked bread definitely counts as a treat. That's my favourite to have with stew, doro wat, etc.
Naans: Supermarket naans are very happy in the freezer, ready to be deployed when you can't be bothered to make rice to go with your curry. We buy the little naans, which fit very neatly in the toaster, so defrosting and cooking them is both at once just into the toaster.
Carbs what aren't breads
Couscous: can't believe I forgot this in the first draft! It's the pot noodle of the respectable grain world. Cup of couscous, cup of boiling water, cover and leave for 5 mins. Of course you don't just want bland unflavoured couscous, so before you add the water, add a pinch of salt, some stock powder (I like the vegetable bouillon), any flavoured oils or sauces you want (eg olive oil, sesame oil, soy sauce, chilli), stir it through, and then add the boiling water. I also used to make a hasty work lunch out of this, by putting sesame oil, chilli sauce, and soy sauce in the with the couscous, then throwing in some hastily chopped salad veg and rushing off to work with it. (Or, equally often, without it.)
Chips was Will's suggestion, I'd kinda forgotten they exist outside the realm of with-steak-and-pepper-sauce but that might be my foreignnness showing. Frozen oven-bake chips.
Perfect rice is actually dead easy and definitely comes in at under 3 mins prep, plus it's happy to sit and rest till you're ready to eat. The One True Way To Cook Rice is wildly culturally various, but this is the way I cook it, which I consider perfect, and which is always extremely easy and creates delicious rice and none of that monstrous draining business. Here's the recipe.
No-peel mash: Mashed potato is three billion times quicker if you don't peel the potatoes - just halve them or so, boil them, mash them with butter and salt and pepper. Maybe a dash of wholegrain mustard or horseradish. The secret to making no-peel mash is...
come closer now...
let me whisper in your ear...
don't peel the potatoes.
Unless the potatoes have leathery skins, you honestly don't need to peel the things. Embrace economy. Tell people "all the nutrition is next to the skin". Whatever you need to tell yourself, just give up peeling them. Most factory-cleaned potatoes come with such sparkling thin skins anyway, the idea of peeling them is just absurd. So there you are. Mash is easy now.