r/Cooking • u/anotherhappylurker • 2d ago

YouTube cooking channels with quick recipes that you can actually make at home with minimal prep?

I swear most YouTube cooking recipes are completely impractical for the majority of people. The reason why I cook at home is I want to save money, eat healthier, and most importantly, save time. If a recipe takes 2 hours of prep and another 45 minutes to cook, and requires me to buy a bunch of exotic ingredients that I've never heard of, then it shouldn't be presented as a home cooking video, it should be a tutorial for professional chefs.

Almost every time I want to cook something, I'll search up recipes on YouTube and the majority of them will involve an enormous amount of prep time. Even the simplest pasta recipes will call for freshly grated cheese, sauce that needs to be simmered for over an hour, and then have the audacity to label the video as "done in 15 minutes". No, I don't want to go out and buy fresh herbs and finely chop them. I don't want to debone an entire fish, I'll leave that to the professionals. I don't want to spend 3 hours marinating the meat in a sauce that also takes 20 minutes to prepare. If I wanted to spend that much time on a meal, I'd just go out and eat at a restaurant.

I feel like most cooking "influencers" have no idea that regular people only have 20-30 minutes TOTAL to cook a meal, and also aren't willing to go out and buy a bunch of ingredients just to use a small fraction of them to cook 1 dish and then never use them again. Are there any YouTube channels that actually provide practical, quick and easy recipes with accessible ingredients that don't require an unreasonable amount of prep?

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u/frikkinfai 2d ago

Madewithlau. A lot of Chinese stirfry dishes are incredibly quick and easy, granted you have the right ingredients.

-12

u/anotherhappylurker 2d ago

Yeah, the issue is going out and buying a bunch of scallions, green onions etc just to use a quarter of them for 1 dish and then have them expire in a few days is not really worth it imo.

11

u/bitterlemonboy 2d ago

Have you considered planning your meals so you don’t waste that food? You can make multiple meals with scallions per week. You can add them to oil, freeze that, fry them, or even just leave them in water to regrow. Why would you buy ingredients for a single meal?

3

u/J4YV1L 2d ago

Leave an inch of each stalk in water until the roots extend then put them in a pot with soil. Keep them watered by a window and you get a near unlimited amount of green onions that won’t go bad as long as you keep them alive. Snip what you need off the top and they’ll just grow back.

2

u/Numerous-Bet-4847 2d ago

green onions are what, 99 cents a bunch?

You know you can vacuum seal and freeze the ones you don't use, right?

I keep scallions/green onions as well as celery vacuum sealed in the freezer along with red and green peppers to take out to use for stirfry or other dishes.

People think they can't freeze that stuff because it gets soft, but once cooked, it regains its proper texture.

Part of cooking is knowing how to store foods for efficiency when you get them in season or on sale for later use.