- 2 months ago
Chef and author Zoe Barrie shares three easy dinner recipes for when you want something delicious without the effort. Learn how to make a creamy one-pan tomato pasta, a comforting rotisserie chicken and gnocchi skillet, and fresh Caprese tortellini salad. Using smart grocery store shortcuts, simple techniques, and minimal cleanup, Zoe turns low-effort weeknight dinners into meals you’ll actually look forward to eating.
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00:00Today I'm making three dishes
00:01for when I want something easy, but not depressing.
00:03You want a grocery item that does all the heavy lifting,
00:05rotisserie chicken and dumplings.
00:07You don't want to take out all the pans,
00:08we got a one pan wonder.
00:09Don't want to turn all the burners on,
00:11we got a tortellini caprese salad.
00:13These are dishes that solve common lazy problems.
00:16Let's start with the one pan wonder.
00:18This is generally how I always start.
00:20Anything delicious, a shallot and a few garlic cloves.
00:23I think we all deal with a mental barrier
00:25when you have to start dicing onion.
00:27We're gonna take that step out by just slicing it up.
00:29Uniform pieces, if you have larger pieces
00:31and you know, small cloves of garlic,
00:33things might start to cook a little bit unevenly.
00:35Push that to the side.
00:37For garlic, I found that when you crush it,
00:39you don't have to deal with any loose garlic
00:41that might fly from under you.
00:43You start with a crushed clove
00:44and now you have minced garlic
00:46and a matter of one to two passes.
00:49This is the easiest way to get our cherry tomatoes halved.
00:52So you'll place your top lid on your cherry tomatoes.
00:56You don't want to put too much pressure
00:57because we're not trying to crush them.
00:58We simply hold them still so that they don't run away
01:01because they have a tendency to do so.
01:03If you really are looking for some sort of perfectly halved tomato,
01:06this might not be the best trick,
01:08but since we're cooking them,
01:09they don't need to be perfectly halved.
01:10We're not in a Michelin star kitchen here.
01:12Let's take it over to the stove.
01:14We really just want to start off with a medium heat.
01:16A lot of times you want to get things done quickly
01:18and it's easy to want to turn it on to a high heat,
01:20but that will burn our shallots.
01:22So we want to take things nice and easy.
01:23A couple tablespoons of olive oil.
01:26We're not necessarily using anything like a neutral oil here.
01:28We really want to rely and lean on the extra virgin olive oil taste.
01:32And you can tell when the olive oil is getting nice and hot,
01:34it'll run a little bit like water,
01:36just enough to get our shallots nice and sweat down.
01:40That's the sound we want to hear.
01:41One of the basic things you learn in culinary school
01:43is bring out the water from any sort of onion or shallot,
01:48break it down with some salt.
01:49All we're really looking for is that purple hue to disappear on the outside of the shallot.
01:54It's a really common problem to add our garlic a little prematurely.
01:58When doing so, the garlic will fry up in the pan and it does become a bit of a strong
02:04taste.
02:04So we're going to avoid that by adding it and cooking it just for a sparse 20 seconds.
02:09When you're cooking any sort of allium and you add something extremely acidic,
02:13the cooking process does start to slow down.
02:15So you want to make sure that you get yourself to the point before adding our tomatoes.
02:20Slowly pour in about three cups of water.
02:22Bring that up to simmer.
02:24If we were to cook it with the shallots and the garlic,
02:27it might have cooked down into something that was a little bit more saucy
02:29and that's just not what this is because we want those tomatoes to still hold their shape
02:33in the final plating.
02:34The angel here is going to cook a lot quicker than anything like a thick spaghetti or rigatoni.
02:39Cooking it in the water, you get all those starches to release from the pasta
02:43and in turn you get a thick, creamy, luscious sauce.
02:46More stirring, more starch.
02:48It will cook in about eight to nine minutes.
02:51This specific dish is only using half of a box, so it might not look like a whole lot
02:55when you're adding it to the pan, but once it starts to fully cook up,
02:58that three cups of water will go pretty rapidly.
03:01When the water starts to look mostly absorbed, you'll want to cut the heat right there.
03:06Let the residual heat do its job.
03:09Once all that water is basically gone and it starts to look glossy and you can sort of
03:15pull your spatula through the pasta and not have water run through that empty opening,
03:20it's time to add the cheese.
03:21We're adding this off heat because we want to make sure that the cheese emulsifies into the pasta,
03:25forming a sauce that doesn't break or split.
03:28I'm just using grated Parmigiano-Reggiano.
03:31If you've ever added cheese to a pasta and all of a sudden it just looks sort of like gloppy
03:35clumps of
03:36cheese, chances are you are adding it to something a little bit too hot.
03:40We're just keeping things a little bit lighter here with Parmesan, olive oil, and water.
03:45No butter, no heavy cream.
03:46Basil just to fold in and get fresh taste all throughout.
03:50Just stir that in, melt into the pasta.
03:53I'm going to actually taste.
03:57It's actually perfect.
03:59Wow.
04:00By the way, if you want to like customize this and make it your own,
04:03when frying up the shallots and the garlic you could totally add a little bit of crushed red
04:07chili flakes and you get sort of like a spicy pomodoro and if you're into that.
04:11You don't need to act like it was a one-pot meal by eating it out of the pan.
04:15Make them feel elevated really with presentation.
04:17Create little mountains with swirls of pasta.
04:21Save the cherry tomatoes for last just so you can sort of highlight them.
04:24I like to go in with a little bit of fresh ricotta.
04:27It's this unsuspecting garnish.
04:29Can really bring that additional creaminess that you might be looking for.
04:33More of that grated Parmesan.
04:35And of course, some fresh basil.
04:38Fan those out just to make things look nice and elevated.
04:41We can also really take it over the top by adding some drizzles of olive oil.
04:45And that is the finished dish.
04:48All right, time to taste.
04:54I mean, it's like really good.
04:57The fresh pasta on the bottom and then that ricotta comes in and just carries everything to the finish
05:02line.
05:02Sort of a cheat code I think with pasta is adding a little bit of ricotta on top just because
05:06it makes
05:06it feel a little bit more elevated.
05:08It's a simple dish that doesn't require much and it tastes delicious in the end and we're only
05:12dirtying one pot.
05:14If you don't have a dishwasher or you don't want to take out all the pans for one single dish,
05:18this is your one-pan meal.
05:22We're taking a store-bought classic rotisserie chicken and we're letting this do all of the
05:27heavy lifting in a rotisserie chicken and dumpling skillet.
05:31We're using the rotisserie chicken in a couple of different ways in this specific dish.
05:34Starting with the skin, which I'm going to take right off of the chicken to create
05:38what I like to call chicken crispies.
05:41If it's cold, it might be a little bit harder, but when it's hot, it'll slide right off.
05:44I take all of the skin that I can, lay it flat on a sheet tray with a little bit
05:48of parchment,
05:49crisps up pretty easily.
05:51The oven's currently set at 375 degrees Fahrenheit.
05:54That should bake for about 25 minutes.
05:56We're now going to shred our chicken meat.
05:58I love to use the breast for this.
06:00It adds a nice textural contrast to the gnocchi, although thigh is really flavorful,
06:04so of course add that if you want.
06:06Sometimes I like to take a couple of forks and just shred it open.
06:09It's so unnecessary though.
06:11Just go in like a ravenous bear and tear it up with your fingers.
06:17Who needs forks?
06:18When you're craving a dish that soothes the soul,
06:21I have found that a mirepoix is usually the answer.
06:24Celery, carrots, and onion, a very classic mirepoix.
06:27This is dinner on a whim, and dinner on a whim does not require fancy knife cuts.
06:32A simple dice for all of these vegetables.
06:34You want everything to be a similar size,
06:35just because you want to make sure that it's all cooking at a similar rate.
06:38Just lay them on the cutting board, and that's my vague measurement, if you will.
06:44Because a mirepoix is a classic two parts onion, one part celery, one part carrot,
06:48it's an easy way to visualize that.
06:51There are two ways to go about cutting an onion.
06:53The way that I was instructed in cooking school, follow the line of the onion.
07:01So every onion, when you cut it in half, you'll see these natural lines.
07:05With this method, if you do it correctly, it should, in theory, dice pretty cleanly,
07:10so that you get nicely diced onion.
07:13The other method, which is what most people will show you, placing your palm on top,
07:18slice towards you, and then make your knife cuts down,
07:23and then right across.
07:24I found that this usually yields less nice.
07:28It's not as nice this way, which is why I don't do it this way.
07:31A few celery stalks will usually get you there.
07:34One large carrot and one smaller yellow onion.
07:38Our chicken skin is ready to pulse up.
07:42While this cools down, we're going to start sweating our aromatics.
07:45Start with my onion until it gets pretty soft before going in with
07:51the remaining two-thirds of the mirepoix.
07:53We're seasoning in layers celery and our carrots, a little bit of salt.
07:58And as that cooks, we're taking that crispy chicken skin, placing it in the blender.
08:09Once it's mostly pulsed, go in with panko.
08:12And I don't want to pulse it too much because I still want the panko to be bread crummy and
08:17not
08:19completely ground.
08:20We're basically just pulsing the chicken skins with the panko until that chicken skin is about
08:24the same size as the breadcrumbs.
08:26Taking some Better Than Bouillon paste, placing it in, we're mixing it with oil to create
08:31what I like to call chicken crispies.
08:34This right here is going to take what feels like a really easy dish and
08:36bring it to life.
08:38Now that that's done, we're going to go back over here,
08:40push the vegetables to the side and create a little bit of an opening.
08:43We're going to add a little bit of butter to the skillet.
08:45I'll let that melt down.
08:47To the butter, I'm going to add about a tablespoon of flour.
08:50And once it is cooked, chicken stock.
08:56And this right here will thicken up once you mix it all together.
08:59All of that roux gets mixed into the stock because we don't want lumps.
09:04And once our stock has thickened up quite a bit, you almost see it in the way that it bubbles,
09:08we'll go in with bouillon paste. Not too much because we have been seasoning with salt as we've been
09:13going. I'm going to finish it off with dried rosemary and then a little bit of heavy cream.
09:18Store-bought gnocchi, I think, gets a bad rap, especially when compared to like a homemade gnocchi.
09:23I think it tastes delicious. Cooking it in the sauce is going to sort of prevent it from getting
09:27like waterlogged and then cooked more. When cooked in something like this and used as sort of like a
09:33dumpling, it's sort of like a fun little surprise. And they're pillowy and delicious.
09:37Starches that come off of the gnocchi will help thicken the sauce even more. The finish line and
09:41getting that sauce where we want it, which is like luscious, thick, and creamy.
09:45And add our chicken right into the pot. I'm going to cut the heat because this doesn't need to cook
09:48any longer.
09:50Reminiscent of a chicken pot pie filling, cover that with our chicken crispies.
09:56This is going to go into the oven at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for about 10 minutes,
10:00just until the breadcrumbs are nice and crispy.
10:04It should be bubbling around the edges. That's what we're looking for.
10:07We also want to make sure that those chicken crispies are golden brown.
10:11And this is going to come over here so we can get to serving.
10:15Brighten things up with a little bit of chopped parsley, just as a nice garnish.
10:20Freshly chopped herbs can really take a dish to the next level.
10:23We're also going to add freshly ground black pepper.
10:28I mean, it does not get much better than that.
10:33We get a bite of everything, a little bit of chicken, a little bit of gnocchi.
10:36These pillowy clouds of potato gnocchi with that rotisserie chicken that does all of the heavy lifting,
10:42both inside of the skillet and on top, acting as a chicken crispy.
10:49I mean, it's just one of those dishes that tastes extremely nostalgic.
10:52Classic chicken pot pie that maybe you're used to with a cross between chicken and dumplings
10:57and just comforting in a bowl.
10:59It's comfort in a bowl.
11:02Boom.
11:05It's a caprese tortellini salad.
11:08The star of the show here is tomatoes.
11:10Making that into a cooked vinaigrette with a little bit of red wine vinegar.
11:14That sort of brings that tomato flavor to life.
11:16Really simple.
11:17Again, easy, not depressing.
11:19All right, let's go.
11:21First thing we're doing, quickly chopping some garlic cloves.
11:24I'm going to give it a good mince.
11:25Adding a little bit of salt on top,
11:28help break down that garlic, creating a nice paste.
11:31When a tomato is fresh and not cooked in peak summer months, it's delicious.
11:36You can use whatever tomato you want to grate, like aroma, beefsteak, heirloom,
11:41anything that is somewhat substantial and will give you enough juice.
11:45Basically, grating it with a box grater into a bowl.
11:49Looking for something that will sort of melt into a vinaigrette,
11:53versus like create a glossy pasta sauce.
11:57We have grape tomatoes and cherry-sized mozzarella.
11:59You can get cherry tomatoes, grape tomatoes, whatever is round and small,
12:04and perfectly bite-sized to match the size of the tortellini.
12:07Just having these so that they go a little bit further in the salad.
12:12Once those are half, we're just going to place them right into the bowl.
12:14These I'm just going to cut into smaller pieces.
12:17You don't want to fight for mozzarella.
12:19You want everyone to enjoy equal parts of mozzarella.
12:22I believe they do sell these in like little pearl sizes, but I think it's sometimes fun to have different
12:29shapes of things so not everything is just like round.
12:33Once that mozzarella is halved, get to chop in some basil.
12:37Basil or any herb for that matter, you kind of measure with your heart.
12:41Stack them, roll them up.
12:44Smoke it.
12:45I'm just kidding.
12:46Just get a thinly slice.
12:48Nice little chiffonade.
12:49Basil is one of those herbs that the more you chop, the more brown and bruised it gets.
12:53So go through just one time and be done with it.
12:57This is all going to happen really quickly.
12:58Going in with enough oil to coat the bottom of a pan, add our garlic in.
13:03All we're looking to do is cook out the raw garlic taste.
13:07We want to add our tomato before it starts to fry up quickly in with our tomato.
13:13It's like a flash fry.
13:14A little bit of salt, some freshly ground black pepper.
13:17I think store-bought tortellini is like the unsung hero of the grocery store.
13:22It's packaged, ready to go.
13:25It generally tastes really delicious.
13:27Cheese, specifically cheese.
13:28Once that water is seasoned, we're just going to go in
13:32and gently place our cheese tortellini in there.
13:40Run this under cold water.
13:41We don't need those starches from that pasta.
13:44We don't want it to be hot.
13:45Don't want it to be cold.
13:47Just warm enough to where when we add the mozzarella,
13:49the mozzarella isn't going to melt.
13:51Time to assemble our tomato vinaigrette.
13:54Some olive oil.
13:56A little bit of red wine vinegar, just to brighten things up.
14:00Looking for like a silky smooth dressing, if you will.
14:04Just like an emulsified sauce.
14:07Smooth and silky.
14:09And we're making this in the bowl so that now we can just add everything.
14:13Basically just stirring until all of the tortellini is coated.
14:16And all of those mozzarella balls are coated.
14:18And those fresh tomatoes.
14:21It's asking me to taste it.
14:25One of those dishes that is easy to throw together.
14:29We're going to add our fresh basil in.
14:30Just bring it to that next level.
14:36I'm going to go for the bottom of the bowl because that's where all the flavor is at.
14:43I mean, it's delicious.
14:45And as time goes on and all those juices at the bottom soak into the tortellini,
14:51it's only going to get better.
14:53We got a one-pan pasta, an easy rotisserie chicken dish,
14:57and a minimal heat tortellini caprese salad.
14:59All simple, easy, delicious dinners that you can make at home.
15:03Go try them.