I requested this book from Netgalley because I've recently become disabled and I am fed up of microwave meals. I wanted something new and easy and quick to make as standing for long periods of time is no longer in my future. So I wanted to improve my diet.

Firstly, I was impressed by the photographs. Also, the fact that these recipes took 30 minutes or less. Also, using one pan. Reduces the washing up which is also a plus. Also, very few ingredients. Which is also advantageous for what I need.

I've actually tried a few of the recipes and they are true. Tasty, easy to make but most importantly took less than 30 mins. I also liked the way she gives some kitchen tips like how to wash salad leaves.

I'll be using this a lot, and hopefully find a more healthier lifestyle than microwave meals.

Enjoy!

This is a well-organized book. It has a lot of recipes I will be trying. I like how the various items are broken into making it easy to find what I might want to try.

The title had me hooked. The recipes were simple, yet not at all mundane or pretentious. A good cookbook for someone who is trying to break the eating out habit and cook more at home.

Sometimes it’s all I can do to put food on the table at night for the family. Half of the weekdays I’m completely exhausted by dinner and all my grandiose ideas of putting together huge meals or following big, long recipes just go right out the window. When I saw the title of this Cookbook, I new that it would be right up my alley as I really need simple, no frill ideas for dinners that can be made really fast.

If simple, low-cost meals are your thing, check out this Cookbook. There are so many good ideas for inexpensive meals that are simple and fairly easy to put together. These are great for new cooks as well as for weeknights, after a busy day out.

The structure of the book is set-up nicely, providing explanations on equipment needed and how to use the book.

So many good, solid recipes that I have several now on my list to work in to my rotation with the family. There were even several side dishes that I’m going to start making as well.

Here were some of my favorite recipes throughout:
– Provini Pasta
– Ginger-Scallion Turkey Burgers
– Tuna and White Bean Salad
– Sweet and Tangy Beef and Broccolli
– Summery Pesto Pasta
– Black Bean Burgers
– Magic White Bean and Tomato Stew
– Slow-Cooker Salmon with Lemon and Dill
– Eat-with-Everything Slaw
– White Beans and Sage
– Two Ways with Roasted Brussels Sprouts
– All Purpose Yogurt Dip
– Peas with Walnuts and Parm
– Quinoa Pilaf

There is even a whole section for Instant Pot users. There isn’t anything over-complicated in this one and it’s overall very well rounded. I think this would be a good staple in a new to intermediate cook’s kitchen.

The recipes are indeed quick, easy to follow and try to keep ingredients and prep time to a minimum. But the dishes are still complex enough to look and taste like you spent hours in the kitchen. This almost has the feel of a summer season cookbook. A number of these dishes lend themselves to be enjoyed on the patio. If you are in a hurry and looking for something that combines a few old favorite ingredients, and still manages to have a wonderful black-bean-burger recipe, this is a nice go-to book for a busy home chef.

SHELF AWARENESS, Sept 7, 2021: The more than 100 recipes in Jenna Helwig's Bare Minimum Dinners are centered around the concept of "doing less in the kitchen," but that doesn't mean they sacrifice flavor or creativity in the name of simplicity. Instead, Helwig arranges the dishes here to maximize available resources, like prep time, clean-up time or limited ingredients, to best effect.

Helwig, food director at Real Simple, admits that she has spent her career up to now encouraging people to do more in the kitchen, "all for the goal of serving delicious, healthy-ish homemade meals most nights of the week." Batched freezer meals, weekly food prep, well-stocked pantries: all were fair game in her encouragement of home-cooked meals. But recognizing that it is often time that stands in the way of even these meal ideas, she began to rethink the way she framed her recipes, finding ways to achieve the same end result--healthy, home-cooked meals--with less effort and less time. Bare Minimum Dinners features meals that can be started and served in 30 minutes or less: Lamb Pita Pizzas and Moroccan Tacos; dishes that require minimal ingredients, like Baked Rigatoni, or minimal clean-up, like Za'atar Roast Chicken; make-ahead meals for the Instant Pot or crockpot; and side ideas featuring grains and vegetables. While little here is revolutionary in terms of flavor or concept, Bare Minimum Dinners stands out in its invitation to busy home cooks to spend less time in the kitchen; Helwig even includes recommended shortcuts to make her recipes even faster when necessary. The result is a beautiful and inspiring collection of meals that will appeal to any home cook looking for easy dinner ideas--ideal for weeknights and on-the-go households. --Kerry McHugh, blogger at Entomology of a Bookworm

Discover: The food director of Real Simple offers more than 100 recipes and strategies for maximizing at-home dinner options while minimizing time in the kitchen.

This cookbook will be a lifesaver for many busy parents, as the recipes are ready in 30 minutes or less. The author, Jenna Helwig is no stranger to the food industry, and her expertise is clear throughout the pages of this cookbook. The chapters are clearly delineated into the following: recipes ready in 30 minutes or less, recipes with fewer than 7 ingredients, recipes that can be prepared in 1 pot/pan, recipes that can be prepared in a slow cooker/instant pot, and easy "add-on's" for the meal.. There are even recipes included that fit all of these characteristics and this is marked in the book. Each recipe contains: ingredient list, preparation instructions, hints for preparation, rounding it out suggestions, and cooking tips. The recipes seem quite easy, tasty, and 'do able' for even amateurs in the kitchen. I highly recommend this cookbook with anyone looking to serve tasty, healthy, food in under 30 minutes.. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the advance copy on exchange for my honest review.

What a good idea! Helwig’s approachable, practical guide is one of the most useful cookbooks I’ve seen in recent years. My thanks go to Net Galley and Mariner Books for the review copy. This book is for sale today.

One of the drawbacks to growing up with easily available readymade meals, as most Americans have done, is that nobody has to learn to cook anymore. It’s optional, the way that baking elaborate meals and desserts used to be. But it’s always more expensive to order take-out food than to make it yourself; it has to be, since you are essentially paying them for not just ingredients, but also the labor costs, utility and rent, and other expenses associated with producing it. The meal that you pull out of your freezer is a bit cheaper, and so is the ubiquitous ramen, but neither is useful nutritionally. A lot of people have become born-again cooks over the course of the pandemic, and after all we have been through, it’s nice that at least some of us have benefited in small ways.

Most cookbooks—and I love the things, even the useless ones—aren’t especially helpful. They call for elaborate preparation; tools you probably don’t own; unusual ingredients that have to be hunted down; and then in some cases, produce far more food than a single person or couple can make use of. Helwig’s is different. Her recipes call for ordinary, inexpensive ingredients, and most of them require only basic kitchen equipment. Right up front she explains what pans, machinery, cutlery and other tools she recommends we buy, and although this chapter looks like the one that a lot of people will skip on their way to find a recipe for tonight’s dinner, I recommend you read it when you purchase the book. This reviewer is a Boomer, and I was thirty before I had a microwave oven. I know how to cook and am fairly good at it. Nevertheless, reading this chapter persuaded me to add one more item to my collection. Her practicality is undeniable.

The recipes that look the most tempting to me also require the largest number of dishes to be washed. That’s the way it goes, right? Chilaquiles; Apple Dutch Baby; Mushroom and Gruyere Quesadillas; yum! But she also has an entire chapter titled “Bare Minimum Cleanup” which faithfully adheres to a rule of one pot or pan, period. Because some nights we don’t care to be creative. We just want to grab the food, fix it, and get dinner out of the way so we can move forward with our evening. Helwig gets that.

The sole complaint that prevents my fifth star for jumping on board is that there are certain ingredients and flavors that appear too frequently. Not everybody loves cabbage, for example. Helwig rhapsodizes about its taste, low price, and versatility, and whereas the latter two claims are obviously true, the first is subject to the cook’s preferences. As for me, I do like cabbage once in awhile, but I don’t want it all the time. There are also a few other places where I would have preferred some more versatility.

Nevertheless, this book is a gem, and every recipe in this cookbook has more appeal than that freezer-burnt burrito you bought last March. If you are a newbie with a limited income and not much kitchen experience, you should get this book now. If you are more seasoned, you might want it anyway. And as a bonus feature, I notice that although almost every cookbook is frustrating to read digitally, this one is better than most. If you can get it in print, I still advise doing so, but if your budget only runs to digital versions, that shouldn’t stop you. Someday you’ll wonder how you got by without it.

Finally-- a cookbook of fairly healthy yet uninvolved recipes for the easily intimidated (me). I decided to flip through this book before grocery shopping and I was pleasantly surprised by how short these recipes are in both ingredients and the steps required to make them. I hope to use this book well in the future.

Yepp, just what I needed! Its a perfect cookbook for lazy nights, when you don't have much time to prepare food, or you don't have many ingredients. I like the aesthetic of the book, it have a lot of pictures, the whole book have a very fresh feeling to it. I have PCOS, so I like that these dishes have a lot of healthy, fresh, veggie ingredients, so I can build some of these recipes in my diet.

BARE MINIMUM DINNERS by Jenna Helwig is fast becoming a favorite cookbook of mine. I really like its "Recipes and Strategies for Doing Less in the Kitchen." Helwig, the food director at Real Simple and former food editor at Parents magazine, is not shy about sharing her ideas and recommendations to prepare healthy, tasteful food quickly. She readily empathizes with her busy readers and offers many suggestions, cleverly dividing this cookbook into four main non-traditional sections: Recipes with seven ingredients (or less); Dinners that come together in a single pot or pan; Recipes for the Instant Pot or Slow Cooker; and Easy Add-ons to round out dinner. I am looking forward to trying recipes like Cauliflower and Chickpea Tikka Masala (5 ingredients!), Shortcut Salmon Burgers (or perhaps Chile-Lime Salmon), and Lemony Cod and Potatoes. Saying her cooking mantra is "It's going to be fine," Helwig offers an introduction extolling the benefits of feeding our families happily and then devotes several pages to "Your Setup" (equipment, pantry, ingredient all-stars, and meal planning). She lists three non-negotiable dinner rules: there must be a vegetable; there must be enough food to satiate you; and there must be at least one part of the meal that you're really looking forward to eating. Who can argue with that? It is like having a helpful, practical friend in the kitchen. The pictures in this book are plentiful and appealing. The layout is clean and light; however, I do wish that more nutrition information was included with each recipe.

I really enjoyed this cookbook. It has so much to offer. Beautiful simple yet sophisticated recipes and accompanying photographs that make the dishes not only look inviting and delicious, but attainable as a home cook. I made a good deal of the recipes and found them easy to follow, incorporated ingredients that were either available in my cabinets or in local markets, didn’t take hours to prepare and were really delicious. This book is a wonderful addition to anyones collection, but would also make a perfect gift for any level of cook.

The recipes in this book are for dinners lacking in fussy preparations. The book starts with lots of background info on equipment, pantry, ingredients, and meal planning. Recipes are separated into chapters on "Bare Minimum" Time, Ingredients, Cleanup, Hands-On Time (Instant pot and slow cooker) and Sides. There is lots of flavor variety in here, along with veggies, vegetarian dishes, and fish. This book has a lot of good ideas, and many (but not all) of the recipes have photos along with them. This seems like a good book for anyone hoping to get a good meal on the table quickly.

This is a great cookbook for all meals. I love the blend of vegetarian and meat recipes without making the vegetarian ones seem special. There are plenty of recipes that I will be incorporating into my meals. I love the recipes are like the title bare minimum yet look all really appetizing.

This book has been an absolute lifesaver in my post-baby cooking haze. The recipes aren’t life changing, but they are great ideas for getting fast, balanced, tasty meals on the table when you have little time to cook, clean, or shop. I can’t wait to buy a copy of my own when the book is released.

This is the perfect cookbook for this moment in time. Coming with a background from Health an Real Simple, Jenna Helwig brings healthful, straightforward recipes to the table in this book. Recipes are simple and rely on ingredients that are reasonably easy to source at a well-stocked grocery store, and I appreciated the sections: minimal time, minimal ingredients, minimal cleanup. Most recipes are adaptable for vegetarians/vegans, and plenty are accessible for gluten free folks as well. I saw half a dozen recipes that I was interested in making, which is the mark of a good cookbook. This is a good addition for the home library and the public library.

What you see is what you get. Great photos + simple recipes to get dinner on the table fast. There is a lot of variety from Sweet potato and sausage hash to Chile-Lime Salmon. These recipes are simple enough to make over and over again without being too similar/carby as is so often the case with low-effort cooking

LOVE LOVE LOVE when I see cookboooks on NetGalley!
They are my fav to read, to look at all the delicious pictures, try recipes and review.
Thank you Jenna Helwig for creating some awesome, quick (under 30mins) and SUPER EASY recipes.
I've tried a few already and can't wait to try more :)

Bare Minimum Dinners is a wonderful cookbook with a huge variety of mouthwatering recipes. The focus is on cooking with real foods in a simple, quick, and healthy way.
an economical way. This would be a great resource for beginner cooks. Some of the recipes are pretty simple and standard American fare, but some recipes are more sophisticated and elaborate. Beautiful photography accompanies most of the recipes. I strongly recommend this one!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an ARC of this book.

Received free copy from NetGalley for a honest review. I was super intrigued to read this cookbook! Some recipes in there I would not of thought to cook such as cooking grilled cheese in mayo! Who would’ve thought! It’s a good easy cookbook!