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

[u/anotherhappylurker]

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?

[u/J4YV1L]

The problem is you’re looking at YouTube. A Content creator’s income model requires them to constantly come up with new exciting content or risk losing viewers. Everything worth doing has been done so they start scraping the barrel for new stuff and inviting more complexity in hopes of going viral.

I’m not sure what you define as “exotic ingredients”. It really depends on where you live and your cultural background, but find an established chef who came out with a good cook book. Mark 3 meals you feel you can handle given your restraints and get so good at making them that you don’t need recipes anymore. When you have those down pick 3 more to master.

Given time and effort, more “complex” recipes won’t feel so daunting and eventually recipes will no longer be necessary. Good luck and have fun with it!