---
title: '5 Easy Dinners for One (No Waste, No Fuss!)'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=tYc1oYQU3rA'
video_id: 'tYc1oYQU3rA'
date: 2026-06-30
duration_sec: 1441
---

# 5 Easy Dinners for One (No Waste, No Fuss!)

> Source: [5 Easy Dinners for One (No Waste, No Fuss!)](https://youtube.com/watch?v=tYc1oYQU3rA)

## Summary



## Transcript

contrary to popular belief I don't
actually cook for Caitlyn every single
night and that's because quite often she
goes out with the girls for dinner and
on those nights I cook one of these five
dishes so these were meals I used to
always make myself after working huge
shifts as a professional chef in London
years ago they're easy to pull together
you don't have heaps of dirty dishes and
there's not loads of leftovers today I'm
going to run you through the beef quader
auna NWA a delicious bowl of spicy Ramen
a chili and prawn pasta and my personal
favorite the chicken chicken rice in a
rice cooker all amazing dishes that are
going to fill you up and won't take
heaps of time to pull together should be
a fun one today let's get stuck
[Music]
in okay the beef case is here I promise
you this is as hard as they get the most
ingredients and as complex as these
recipes get we're going to start with
this capsicum and we're just going to
dice it we honestly probably only need
half of
it yeah I reckon that's enough save that
for a salad later it's probably worth
mentioning we're in a new studio hello
so I'm in the Sydney now if you want a
bit of a tour of the studio jump over to
the backup House channel there should be
a video there and we are close to the
airport if you hear an airplane it's all
right let's not call it out in the
comments so I'm just going to dice this
capsicum about 1 cm
square put that to one side I got one
white onion I probably only need half of
it so I'm going to use half of the half
for the pic DEA and the other half for
the beef top and tail peel and then
we're just going to dice we've been here
for like 2 weeks I haven't heard one
airplane we shoot the First Youtube and
I've heard three half of this with the
capsicum and keep the other half with
picoa what else do we need to cut garlic
we're not even going to cut it we're
just going to microplan it yeah the
reason we microplan is just easier I
mean you can cut it but it's going to
make your board smell nasty so I like to
put it on my bench scraper then your
board doesn't get covered in garlic
juice to the pan you turn a pan on high
like you want a large fry pan we're only
to use one fry pan for those recipe get
a bit of olive oil in there and get that
heating up the only other thing we need
to get done is we need to finish our
Pico Deo so I got one R of tomato here
we're just going to dice that take the
core out leave the seeds in and just
dice it jalapeno take the top off in
half and dice it can leave the seeds in
or take them out I'm going to take them
out the reason I love this dish is cuz I
often have some leftover mints hanging
around it's also super comforting and
cheesy when you get that big cheese pull
food makes me happy I'm an emotional
eater and this is one of those kind of
delicious emotional eater things that
Pan's nice and hot in there we got the
garlic the onion and the make sure
you toss that quickly so the uh the
garlic doesn't burn to a bowl we going
to add Our tomato the other quar of
onion jalapeno for the pic DEA we're
also going to put some coriander through
it stalks and all just cut it in half
and then make sure you cut it in One
Direction so you don't have long bits of
stalk but there's nothing wrong with
eating the stalks make sure it's washed
too coriander is often grown in
hydroponic sand you don't want to get
any that sand in there and that goes so
we're getting some nice color what we're
going to do is we're going to move our
veggies to the side if we need to we can
add a little bit more oil but I reckon
there's enough in there for me I'm going
to add some ground beef this is for me
it's about 200 g that's more than enough
for my dinner break it up a little bit
and then just kind of let it hang out
you do want to try and get a bit of
color on that before you start tossing
it another season of salt so the meat's
starting to Brown a bit we just want to
toss the veggies through it now mainly
because I don't want the veggies to burn
still haven't got much color on that
meat but we'll just cook it down a
little bit longer and we should develop
some make sure you break up that meat a
bit too use the back of your spoon now
we're going to season with our spices so
I got smoked paprika here about a
teaspoon ground cumin teaspoon ground
coriander that half a teaspoon some
oregano if you got Mexican oregano extra
points if you just got normal that's
fine as well they are quite different
though a flavor profile Mexican oregano
tend to taste a little bit more uh I
guess earthy toss those spices through
and keep breaking that meat up but we're
pretty close here this beef mints won't
take long to cook and we don't really
want to overcook it or it will dry out
even though we're going to add a little
of moisture back in with our cheese
another 30 seconds in the pan and that
is done just while that's finishing
we're just going to dress our pick go
little drizzle of olive oil pinch of
salt and the juice of a lime that meat
is done heat off make sure you get all
that delicious stuff off the bottom of
the pan we're going to use this pan to
cook our the so scrape all that stuff
off the bottom makes this pick of guys
that's ready to go all we need to do now
is grade our cheese I like to use a dry
mozzarella for this kind of really use
whatever cheese you want or like a
montere jack a Mexican cheddar it looks
like it's got some chili in there and
some spices you can use one cheese you
can use two cheese I don't know about
anyone else but I always have random
blocks of cheese in my fridge the reason
we grate cheese I own cheese as well
instead of buying it is because when
they grade it in the factories they kind
of use a non-caking agent on it which it
has this like weird Dusty kind of
feeling to it look I'm not judging you
if you buy grated cheese doesn't really
affect the mou it's just an extra
ingredient that I don't really want in
my food I don't think there's anything
wrong with it it's also cheaper just to
make it yourself as well that's about as
much as we need for three quadas I think
three is the right number after a big
day at work we're ready to start cooking
our quad is we're just going to wipe out
the bottom of our pan a little bit more
oil not heaps sprad that around heat on
so I'm going to use flour tortillas but
you can use corn tortillas if you want
just spread your oil out you don't want
heaps of oil here we're just trying to
toast this we're not trying to like deep
fry the the tortilla so place your
tortilla down in your pan on half of it
add your beef and veggies cheese on top
fold it over move that to the side turn
your pan down low you want to control
your temperature here we're trying to
toast this tortilla we're also trying to
melt our cheese so our beef will be hot
our cheese isn't particularly cold
either so it shouldn't take long but you
don't want to toast this super hard want
a nice golden color evenly so the other
side and the same thing beef cheese
then I'm going to try and be tricky and
fit three in here what do you reckon
yeah we can do it this is a good dish to
do as well if you're camping if you just
got a barbecue that you're cooking off
on a flat plate would work really
well told you it would fit no one
believed me cool but just going to toast
those both sides it's probably going to
take 3 or 4 minutes each side and we'll
get them out you can do this with any
meat you wanted to SCE chicken thigh
fish if you really wanted to or some
prawns would be really nice through here
or you can just do veggie straight
veggie so mushroom capsicum onions all
right we're going to have a look at this
first one see how it's going yes yeah
can't wait to eat
these it's time to get these out I like
to cut these into
three onto a plate now the Pico to go
you either put it over the top I prefer
to kind of have it any ramkin bit of
that on top nice
freshness that is a delicious TV dinner
next up something a bit lcer and fresher
a classic n
[Music]
was one of my favorites and an absolute
classic it takes about the same amount
of time as it going to take to boil
these potatoes so that's first off the
rank we're going to take some potatoes
into cold water a bit of salt we're
going to bring them up to the boil and
we're going to cook them until they're
fork tender it's going to take about 25
minutes while that's happening we're
going to go everything El ready so tuna
now in an idea World I'd love to eat
some beautiful fresh yellow fin tuna but
it's not an Ideal World a nice good
quality tin tuna works just as well then
we're just going to have some simple
cherry tomatoes sliced in half we've got
some Co lettuce which we're going to
keep lovely fresh and whole and then we
got some green beans here we're going to
blanch these for three or 4 minutes then
plunge them into iced cold water and
then of course we need some eggs so I'm
going to use two eggs of mine I like my
eggs like for salads cook for like 7
minutes where they're just Jammy then
all we need is some black olives and
we're going to make a simple dressing by
adding some lemon juice olive oil and
salt to a jar and shaking it really
really well so it emulsifies all right
we've got everything ready it's time to
bring this together and it couldn't be
simpler half the dressing on the leaves
we'll save the other half for the top of
the salad a little bit of finishing salt
in your leaves too make sure you toss
them round get a good amount of dressing
over all those leaves and then get them
on your plate and then we can start
piling it up with all the other
ingredients so now we got our potatoes
once they were cooked we just kind of
let them come down to room temperature
this a bit warm but that's all right
we're just going to cut them so that
they're like mouthful size if that makes
sense means you can put it in your mouth
and you're not looking like a ganet
trying to chew your food arrange your
spuds evenly across your salad or your
ca I should say then we go with our
Tomatoes our olives so the beans we do
want to cut these a little bit but I
think just in half is fine on an angle
so it looks pretty you know nalk isn't
really a NE well without green beans so
I like to add a lot of green beans next
we're going to add our tuna so if you're
getting t tuna break it up a little bit
I reckon 100 G is enough it's Quant qf1
Landing from
La we just got our eggs left so I just
want to cut these in half you can cut
them in quarters as well if you want but
on they go bit of an egg shortage
worldwide at the moment if you can't
find them just leave them off it's also
going against my three's only plating
philosophy so we can sort that out by
eating one anyone let me know in the
comments of why where this whole three
only design philosophy came from I don't
know I heard it one day and then I've
stuck to it ever since
all right just going to finish this with
a little bit more of the stressing kind
of focusing on the tuna tuna especially
can can use a bit of livening up
sometimes bit of flaky sea salt that's
it my chuna Nisa with tin chuna black
olives potatoes green beans a classic
for a reasin next up a dish that's going
to take a shorter amount of time to make
than it's going to take me to eat
[Music]
this I did this one as a short the other
day not only did it do really well
performance- wise but I've had like
literally a dozen people come up to me
and say that's amazing I've done it it's
delicious so we'll run over it really
quickly at the start I was like oh I eat
this when I finished work this is the
one probably eight times out of 10 this
is the dish that I eat when I finished
work there some slight variance but
nothing too crazy so it's the shin Ramen
it's is not sponsored I just like this
brand so I'm going to talk about it it's
the black one I think it's black garlic
I don't know it's just a anyway I
thought it was black garlic maybe it's
not so we need the noodles obviously but
I'm trying to get all these things here
so water not too much I don't know
what's that 200 M soup base goes in and
sometimes when I'm was really lazy
growing up I'd literally just like pour
the soup base on top of the dry Ramen
and eat it I don't think I'm the only
person that did that either flakes what
does flakes mean and another soup base d
double soup
base okay let that Cil boil give it a
mix with your chopsticks and then we're
going to add peanut butter the secret
ingredient a good tablespoon and crunchy
peanut butter has to be crunchy doesn't
have to be crunchy if you don't like
crunchy don't put crunchy but I'll judge
you let that peanut butter dissolve and
then while that's dissolving we're going
to get the rest of it ready so an egg
into a bowl and whisk it so I'm going to
put some chicken in this cuz I have some
shredded chicken if I didn't have
shredded chicken I'd probably put two
eggs in it if you're going to add two
eggs I would add a little bit more water
the egg will thicken up the the soup
face but I've got some chicken so now
that's boiling noodles go in chicken
goes in with the noodles to come up to
temperature spring onions real simple
tops off just slice the whites I like a
bit of texture in the white part
otherwise it kind of just gets lost all
the way down to the really green part in
those go now we're going to cut the rest
of these nice and fine for the top just
going to break the noodles up and then
once they're almost done or actually
going to season with a little bit of soy
sauce sometimes soy sauce sometimes fish
sauce but you don't need heaps of
seasoning too there should be enough
salt and MSG and stuff in the in those
packets of soup mix okay you want your
noodles pretty much ready they're going
to take about maybe 30 more seconds
before you add the egg all right our
noodles are good we're going to stream
our egg in and stir it as we're doing it
it's going to thicken up and stop
stirring it at the end and you will get
like some big pieces of egg if you don't
want big pieces keep stirring it and it
just thicken your sauce I like to stir
for half of the egg and then just let
the other half kind of cook what that
does is that you get effectively
scrambled egg or steamed egg so let that
do its thing for 30 seconds egg don't
take long to cook and then stir it
through that's to add half of your
spring onion greens turn the heat off
your Bowl's ready stir the greens
through into the
bowl to finish the spring onion Greens
on top and then of course chili crisp
and I like lots of the crispy but the
little fermented beans and stuff get
some oil in there as well make sure the
picture looks pretty for the YouTube
thumbnail so
important spicy that's dinner literally
in 5 minutes and what dishes did I use a
bowl a spoon a fork a pot a pair of
Chopsticks and a bow of Servin it's
comforting it's
filling and it will certainly make you
sleep well at
[Music]
night okay just like the last one the
next one well this one the pasta is
going to dictate how long this takes to
cook so I got a big pot of water here
boiling away
nicely we're going to season it with
salt generously it's going to boil over
everywhere and cause chaos and then
we're going to get our pasta in there I
kind of said famously in the video 100
to 150 g of pasta everyone got mad at me
they said it's not enough so we'll say
200 g so people don't get mad the 200 g
of good quality spaghetti and we'll let
that do its thing it's going to take
about 10 minutes or so to cook we got
one chili here I don't need the whole
thing probably just need half of it and
we're just going to slice it nice and
fine and
then that's enough uh maybe a little
more
I got some cloves of garlic I'm just
going to use two and I'm just going to
crush them I'm not even going to cut
them then I got some prawns here now
these were frozen raw peeled and daine
prawns I always have these in my freezer
cuz they're really quick and easy they
defrost really quickly and they're great
source of protein they're really line
fat um you know they're super tasty and
they cook really fast so I've got about
10 or 12 of those ready to go quickly
give
my pasta a bit of a stir so this is the
the trick to having your pasta not stick
together is once it's kind of relaxed a
bit and it's falling like it's you can
actually fit it on in the pot it's to
stir it every 30 45 seconds especially
at the start so I got some cherry
tomatoes I'm going to say 10 of these
and I'm just going to cut them in half
just like that I'm going to move my
pasta back to this other burner here and
put a fry pan on the big burner say 2
tbspoon of olive oil in there and before
that really heats up add your crushed
garlic well that's going to do is really
like Flavor that oil really nicely
continue with my tomatoes and then I got
some flat leaf parsley we're just going
to trim a lot of this off so we don't
have all those stalks Bunch it up tight
I like lots of parsley in this pasta
some people find it gets a bit earthy
but I enjoy it if you do just don't
don't add quite as much if you're trying
to add some more veggies in here as well
you could put in some baby spinach or
something if you wanted to you know try
to be bit more health conscious so back
to our pan can hear this garlic is
starting to sizzle which is perfect
that's what we're after now control your
temperature of your pan at this point
it's really important we want this
Garlic's good it goes nice and brown you
don't want it to go blacker it will go
bitter so I'm going to turn that heat
down all the way and just hold that pan
for a minute while the oil kind of drops
in
temperature okay going to add our prawns
to the oil turn the heat back up cuz
that temperature that pans drop right
off with those cold prawns in there
we're also going to add our
tomatoes and our chili little pinch of
salt now was good now we're pretty much
waiting for our pasta to be cooked if
you got this to this point and you're
worried that the PRS are going to over
cook just turn the the heat off I think
there are at the moment for me I'm going
to turn that temperature down a bit and
I'm going to wait for my pasta to be
cooked I like it pretty aent but yeah
cook it how you want it and you bite
into it but if he still seeing like a
white core it's probably not quite ready
yet however carry over cooking will keep
it cooking so we're good so we don't
want to drain this pasta at all cuz we
want some of the starchy water to help
multiply sauce so just get your tongs in
there pull your pasta out into there
little splash of the water
heat back up to full and just
toss so at this point once your your
your sauce is starting to stick to the
pass which is what you're looking for we
can add our parsley and save a little
bit more for the top toss that through
we're ready to plate so if you don't if
you're not like a huge garlic fan you
can pull those garlic clothes out I like
to leave them in cuz I love like eating
half cooked garlic but maybe I'm weird
sure you get all the all the good bits
on the top
and clean up my
mess little bit more parsley drizzle of
olive oil and then heaps of parmon just
joking the Italians will understand the
non-funny joke that I just made and
there you have it my prawn and chili
pasta it's super simple super hearty
full of protein and it only takes as
long as it takes to cook the pasta to
pull it together next up one of my
absolute favorites that's a close second
to the ren that we just made my rice
cooker chicken
[Music]
the rice cooker chicken the final one
this is an interesting one because it's
this is a really common dish I
definitely did not invent this dish it's
a very common dish throughout most of
Asia it's one of those dishes that you
all you need is a rice cooker to cook it
so if you live in an apartment or
something like that it's really easy to
pull off the other interesting thing
about this dish is that it's kind of
like a I guess you'd almost call it a
version of hes chicken rice although
that feels unfair to the hone Andes
chicken rice cuz it's an amazing dish
and far more complex anyway so I posted
this video not long ago and there's
always people in the comments that are
like I don't want to eat boiled chicken
and it's like I urge you to please just
give this a go I know it might seem
really foreign to you to have a piece of
poach chicken in rice with aromates you
know but honestly there's a reason a lot
of the world eats this dish and it's cuz
it's delicious so it's pretty simple
we're actually going to start with the
rice so take a rice cooker and Jasmine
rice you can either use the cup that
comes with it or just any measurement
that you kind of want oh I don't know
what happened that's what
happened we're going to use equal
quantities the reason we use a cup is
cuz we want the even quantity so fill
your rice cup up once with rice this is
for one person by the way in that goes
now we're going to go to the sink and we
have cold water and we're just going to
wash our rice three times so pour it in
use your hand to really you know agitate
it and you can see there you can see how
milky that's going already pour that off
I'm going to do it two more
times okay I'm going to drain this last
part off really well make sure you get
most the water out because the otherwise
if we don't the ratio will be wrong cool
back to the rice cooker so that goes
into your rice cooker and then we have
the same amount this is bone broth so
it's you could just use chicken stock
you can use water if you want or you can
use like an Oxo Cube and dissolved in
water I like to use bone broth cuz it's
got more flavor yeah it's a lot more
gelatinous too you see how thick it is
so the same amount of rice of bone broth
in there and then we're just going to
give this like a little a little swirl
like you're you're being one of those
fancy Wine Guys and all that does is um
make sure the rice is even so it's going
to cook more evenly now we need to
flavor that so we got the spring onions
we're going to cut these into batens I
got three spring onions here 2 cm until
the green part in they go garlic two
cloves just smash give it a good Smash
in that goes nice knob of Ginger we're
going to peel it you can use the back of
a spoon you can use your knife if it's
really rough like that I'll use the
knife on the big bits and then I use the
back of my knife to save the dishes on
the nice flat bits and then we're just
going to slice that into battens it's
probably AIT big that piece I'll
probably half of it so just slice it
thinly One Way arrange them in some
order and then and finally slice them
the other way in the ginger goes spread
it out evenly pinch of salt pinch of MSG
if you don't want MSG just leave it out
you're missing out though the only other
thing we got to do is the chicken so I
like to use this here which is a chicken
thigh bone on skin on sesame oil on the
chicken and we're going to rub it all
over we're going to place that into our
rice cooker so in that goes and we're
just going to like nuzzle it down right
it's not going to be completely
submerged close your lid first time I've
used this r cooker so the regular
setting so white regular push start
that's going to cook for its normal
cycle the rice cooker is going to take
anything from 15 to 25 minutes depending
on how much rice you got in there with
that much rice it'll probably take about
15 minutes that's more than enough time
for that chicken to get cooked through
trust me on that we'll see you in 15
okay this has been 25 almost 30 minutes
actually but we are good look at that
that's hotter than it should be that's
88° that's right on the bone too the 90
that's definitely cooked so what we're
going to do is we're going to pull this
piece of chicken out and we're just
going to kind of let it rest on the
plate for a second and we're going to
let that Rice Steam for a bit when I'm
saying steaming I mean it's kind of like
it's kind of drying it out not you know
so it will um wow it's the end of the
day my vocabulary is not the best when
I'm not tired so it's really lost now
when I say steaming I mean letting some
of that Vapor come off it it'll kind of
dry some of the rice out a little bit
while that's happening we're going to
slice some spring onion greens nice and
fine for garnish also add a bit of extra
onion freshness to the end so this is
one of these dishes that's it's like it
only takes 5 minutes to pull together
though there was some funny comments
about people taking 20 minutes to 5
minutes to peel the garlic but it takes
about half an hour to cook so what I
used to do is get home put everything in
the rice cooker close it down then go
have a shower get myself sorted and then
come back and dinner's ready I think I
have some chili crisp in here I do take
our rice out we're going to fluff it up
and you see there so the chicken fat
renders out and then it makes some of
the rice go real delicious and golden
brown so toss that around a bit get all
that chicken fat through that Rice
nicely put our chicken on a board and
plate up some of our
rice and we're going to carve our
chicken off the bone Chicken on the rice
spring onions on top and then lastly bit
of chili oil chili crisp Sriracha is
actually really good with this as well
that kind of vinegary kind of chili
sauce number I think the vinegar works
quite well with it but there you go an
absolute favorite of mine the chicken
rice and a rice cooker it literally
takes 5 minutes to pull together uh and
then you've got half an hour over it
cooking you just you can just ignore it
you don't have to do anything for it and
the proof is in the eating cuz this eats
amazingly it's a delicious plate of food
I guess we should try some and honestly
the star of the show the chicken's
really important cuz it's the fat from
the chicken that makes this rice so
delicious but the star of the show
is
100% that Rice it absorbs all that
delicious chicken flavor super well
balanced with that little bit of MSG in
there nicely slded and a bit of heat
from the chili crisp delicious so there
you go five delicious dishes that are
super quick to pull together without
heaps of leftovers and not a pile of
dishes let me know in the comments what
one of these you're going to try first
uh and like this video If it took
anything from it subscribe if you're not
we'll see you next week for another
recipe but I know what one I'm going for
the chicken rice