Donal Skehan’s quick-fix dinners you can get onto the table in just 30 minutes (2024)

Plans need to be made in order to get it to the table before complete meltdowns take place — the children, of course, not me! This week I have three recipes that come together in that fraught 30-minute window of arriving home and dinner time.

The first, although it sounds sophisticated, is a simple and elegant assembly job supper. For the hot smoked salmon & potato salad, just boil some potatoes, flake the hot smoked salmon (try Connemara Smokehouse’s selection) and you have the building blocks for a filling meal.

Pile up with easy additions such as salty capers from a jar, freshly snipped chives, a tumble of watercress, thinly sliced red onion, or keep it more simple for younger eaters with soft boiled eggs, split to expose their oozing interiors.

The next offering is my honey & thyme pan-fried chicken with shaved fennel & Parmesan salad. More often than not, the simple recipes are the ones we make time and time again. This very easy recipe is precisely one of those. It takes its inspiration from Maura O’Connell Foley’s roast chicken version from her timeless cookbook, My Wild Atlantic Kitchen, which creates a honey & thyme jus with Noilly Prat to serve over the roasted bird — a dreamy Sunday dinner dish.

In this simplified pan-fried version, the honey and thyme along with white wine vinegar is used to create a sweet and sticky sauce for chicken breasts. Serve it with a salad of dressed leaves, crunchy fennel slaw or veggie crudites for the kiddos.

Lastly a quick take on fried rice — my five spice pork version is a particularly handy one for using up leftovers. Even during the colder months, I still love to use my BBQ — grilled pork chops or any meat with a little fat will be the ideal, flavourful addition to the rice. It is worth noting that the very best fried rice is made with cold rice as it doesn’t clump together and overcook.

Hot Smoked Salmon & Potato Salad with Lemon Creme Fraiche Dressing

Serves: 4

Time: 30 mins

​Ingredients

• 500g baby potatoes
• 200g hot smoked salmon, roughly torn
• 6 spring onions, finely sliced
• 1 cucumber, finely sliced
• Small handful of dill, leaves picked
• Sea salt & freshly ground black pepper

For the dressing:

• 200g of creme fraiche
• Juice of ½ lemon
• 1 tsp Dijon mustard

Method

1. Place the potatoes in a pot of cold, heavily salted water and bring to the boil over a high heat. Simmer gently for 15 minutes or until the potatoes are tender when pierced with a fork. Drain and allow to cool before slicing in half.

2. For the dressing, whisk all the ingredients in a small bowl and season to taste with salt and pepper.

3. Assemble the potatoes in serving dishes, topping with hot smoked salmon, spring onions, cucumber slices and dill fronds.

4. Spoon generous dollops of the dressing over each plate and serve.

Honey & Thyme Pan-Fried Chicken with Shaved Fennel & Parmesan Salad

Serves: 4

Time: 30 mins

• Ingredients
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 4 small free-range chicken breasts
• 75g butter
• A good handful of thyme sprigs
• 3 tbsp white wine vinegar
• 2 tbsp honey
• 1 heaped tsp wholegrain mustard
• Sea salt and ground black pepper

For the shaved fennel slaw:

• 2 bulbs of fennel, finely sliced on a mandolin
• Extra-virgin olive oil
• Juice of ½ lemon
• 50g Parmesan cheese
• 50g pine nuts, toasted

Method

1. For the fennel slaw, add the thin fennel slices to a high-sided serving dish, drizzle with extra-virgin olive oil and lemon juice and toss to combine. Season generously to taste before using a vegetable peeler to shave the Parmesan cheese over the top. Toss it altogether with the toasted pine nuts and set aside.

2. Place a large frying pan on a high heat and add the olive oil. Season the chicken breasts generously with sea salt and ground black pepper and place on the pan to fry. Lower the heat to medium high and continue to cook until the chicken is thoroughly browned and almost half cooked through (around 4 minutes).

3. Flip the chicken and add the butter and thyme to the pan and, using a tablespoon, continue to baste the chicken until cooked almost fully.

4. Just before the chicken is cooked, add the white wine vinegar and allow to bubble for 30 seconds or so before adding the honey and wholegrain mustard. Shuffle the pan to bring the sauce together and to allow the chicken to get completely coated in the sauce that forms. Once the sauce has come to a simmer and become slightly thickened, remove from the heat and slice the chicken into 2cm pieces on the diagonal.

6. Serve to the table on a platter with the remaining pan juices spooned over the top. Enjoy alongside the fennel salad.

Five Spice Pork Fried Rice

Serves: 2

Time: 30 mins

​Ingredients

• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 white onion, chopped
• 150g green beans, chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, finely sliced
• 3 spring onions, chopped
• 200g leftover barbecued pork chop
• (or whatever leftover meat you have)
• 1 tsp Chinese five spice
• 2 tsp sesame oil
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 2 large eggs
• 150g leftover rice
• Chilli crisp oil, to serve
• Sea salt and ground black pepper

​Method

1. Heat the oil in a large frying pan over a medium high heat and stir-fry the onions with a pinch of sea salt for 1 minute. Add the green beans, garlic, spring onions and any leftover meat you’d like to use and stir-fry for a further 3 minutes. Stir through the Chinese five spice, half of the sesame oil and half of the soy sauce and cook for a few more minutes. Remove the stir-fried vegetables and meat from the pan and set aside.

2. Beat 1 of the eggs in a jug and pour into the same pan. Tilt the pan ever so slightly from one side to another to allow the egg to cover the surface of the pan. Allow to cook for a minute or so until the egg has set. Remove from the pan, roll up like a pancake and chop thinly.

3. Add the rice to the pan and fry for 1 minute. Stir through the remaining sesame oil and soy sauce to the rice along with the chopped omelette and let it cook for a few more minutes.

4. In a separate small frying pan, fry the remaining egg until the white has set and the yoke is still running.

5. Serve the fried rice topped with the stir fry mix, the fried egg and a dash of chilli oil to taste.