Frozen Shrimp + High-Impact Ingredient = Winning Weeknight Dinner Formula
First of all: If you have any qualms about using frozen shrimp to make your weeknight meals a little easier, don’t. Unless you are purchasing a piece of seafood as soon as it comes out of the water, it was frozen at some point. (The “fresh” shrimp you see at the seafood counter are all previously frozen shrimp that have been thawed.) And that’s a good thing. The moment a shrimp is harvested, its digestive enzymes turn their attention to the shrimp’s body, eventually rendering it soft and mushy. Freezing the crustaceans halts this process and slows bacterial growth.
Once they’re thawed, the enzymes and bacteria pick up where they left off, which is why I’m a big fan of buying frozen shrimp and thawing them just before cooking and eating. (Just rinse the shrimp under cold water in a colander for 10-15 minutes while you gather the rest of your ingredients.)
Once you have a bag or five of frozen shrimp in your freezer, your weeknight suppers will benefit greatly, especially if you lean on high-impact ingredients to keep the seasoning simple. Grab some tomatoes, Kalamata olives, and feta, and you are 30 minutes away from Garides Saganaki, a classic Greek dish that pairs plump, sweet shrimp with the briny cheese.
If you also have a bag of frozen corn (and I always do), you can grab a bottle of fish sauce, a chili, and a bunch of scallions and make our 25-minute rendition of Vietnamese bắp xào tôm khô (made with whole shrimp instead of dried).
Or you can combine shrimp with coconut milk (make your own for even better flavor), lemongrass, and a handful of macadamia nuts for a saucy, aromatic dish of Coconut-Lemongrass Shrimp with Rice in half an hour. Make sure to buy tail-on shrimp—the tails infuse the sauce with a wallop of umami.
Steak Is Surprisingly Weeknight-Friendly
Steak dinners aren’t usually thought of as “quick-cooking,” but searing a ribeye shouldn’t take long at all. This simple seared steak has a shallot-infused, butter-enriched pan sauce that makes the dish taste like it came straight from a bistro. We use white wine instead of red and lemon juice for acidity and parsley for freshness. Roast some potatoes, or air fry a bag of frozen fries for steak frites in half an hour.
If you’d rather pair your protein with some green, the three-ingredient dressing (five if you count salt and pepper) in our Steak Salad with Walnuts and Goat Cheese is perfectly balanced and tangy, thanks to pomegranate molasses, an underrated high-impact ingredient that adds so much dimension, it almost feels like cheating. Make sure to finely chop the toasted walnuts; broken down into small pieces, the nuts better cling to the greens, rather than fall to the bottom of the bowl. Serve with warm, crusty bread.
When in Doubt, Reach for Spaghetti
Unless you are pairing it with a Sunday gravy kind of sauce, spaghetti is one of the easiest things to get on the table in under half an hour. Our Spaghetti al Limone, for example, is done in a mere 15 minutes. It’s a simple dish with few ingredients, but it still boasts bold, bright flavors. Many versions include cream, but we use a little butter and some of the starchy spaghetti-cooking water to give it a saucy consistency and light creaminess that didn't mute the freshness of the lemon.
Some of our other favorite noodle dishes that come together in half an hour or less:
- Spicy Pork Noodles: Peanut butter, soy sauce and oyster sauce (or hoisin) provide saltiness, sweetness and umami along with a creamy texture, for a dish that blends the meatiness of Sichuan dan dan mian with the simplicity of peanut noodles.
- Garlicky Spaghetti with Lemon Breadcrumbs: This classic Italian dish is one of the quickest, tastiest dinners you can make with a handful of staple ingredients. We top ours with garlicky toasted breadcrumbs mixed with fresh parsley, lemon zest and Parmesan.
- Black Bean Noodles with Pork and Mushrooms: This riff on Chinese zha jiang mian—or noodles with pork and fermented bean sauce—substitutes prepared black bean garlic sauce for the traditional and harder-to-find fermented yellow or brown bean paste.
- Aglio e Olio: Pasta aglio e olio, or pasta with garlic and oil, is made with those ingredients and little else. This version gets an infusion of bright color and fresh flavor from halved grape tomatoes and chopped basil (or parsley).
- Sesame Noodles with Chicken and Scallions: This sweet and salty noodle dish calls for non-instant ramen, but you can ramenize plain spaghetti noodles with a little baking soda.
If you want something just as easy, but with more roughage, make this Vietnamese Chicken Salad with Sweet Lime-Garlic Dressing—a symphony of tastes, colors and textures. Fish sauce gives the dressing savory, umami-rich underpinnings, while lime juice, sugar and garlic punch up the flavors.
And if you need an easy weeknight dessert, our Salt and Pepper Butterscotch Puddings take all of 20 minutes of active time to prepare. Unlike other, more cloying butterscotch desserts, these are warmly spiced, slightly savory, and complex. Pop ‘em in the fridge to chill while you’re eating dinner, and finish with crystalized ginger for an easy garnish.
Join the conversation on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Pinterest.
And if you're looking for more Milk Street, check out our livestream cooking classes with our favorite chefs, home cooks and friends for global recipes, cooking methods and more.
