The 20-Minute Table
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Decide once · shop once

Pick My Meals
for a Week

Say how many dinners you want, how many you are feeding, and what the house eats. This picks that many out of the fifty lunches and dinners in the book, spreads the protein, the pan and the part of the world they come from, and adds every ingredient into one list in the order a shop is walked. Swap any night you do not fancy and the list follows.

A week is already picked below. Nothing is stored: the week you are looking at is in the address bar, so you can bookmark it or send it to whoever is going to the shop. Straight to the list

Dinners

Most weeks are not seven dinners. Pick the number you will actually cook. Picked from the fifty lunches and dinners; breakfasts, puddings and the sides stay where they are.

Breakfasts

Twenty breakfasts in the book, most of them eggs, oats or yoghurt and all of them under twenty minutes. Leave it at nought if breakfast is not a thing you plan.

Afterwards

Fifteen puddings, from a bowl of skyr and berries to cardamom kheer. They go on the same shopping list.

Serves

Every recipe in the book is written for four. Another number scales the shopping list — whole things and tins round up, since you cannot buy two thirds of a tin, and weights round to the nearest sensible figure. The recipe pages still read for four, so halve or double as you cook.

On the table

Untick anything nobody in the house eats; it governs breakfast and pudding too. The numbers are how many of the fifty dinners contain each thing, and they add up to more than fifty because some dishes are on two lists — a chicken stir-fry seasoned with fish sauce is chicken and fish, and unticking either one drops it. Anchovies melted into oil until they have vanished still count; eight of the fifty carry fish only as a seasoning. It is a filter on what the recipes list, not an allergen check — a jar of kimchi or a shop-bought curry paste can carry shrimp without the recipe saying so — so read the ingredients if it matters.

The pan

Half the dinners in the book are one pan and only four need no heat at all, so unticking is quick work — the counts say how much of the book each one is. Leave them all on unless the air fryer is in use or the hob is not.

85 of the 85 dinners match. Enough for five.

Picking again replaces every night. To change one night, swap it.

The 20-Minute Table — five dinners for four

5Dinners
86Minutes, all in
41 gProtein a serving, average
10 gFibre a serving, average
4Serves

The weekFive nights

  1. First 01
    Harissa Chickpea & Cauliflower Crunch

    Vegetarian

    Air Fryer Tunisian / North African 36 g protein a serving

    19min
  2. Second 16
    Pad Krapow — Thai Basil Chicken

    Chickenalso fish

    One Pan Thai 43 g protein a serving

    18min
  3. Third 18
    Ginger-Garlic Prawn & Broccoli Stir-Fry

    Prawns

    Wok Chinese 49 g protein a serving

    15min
  4. Fourth 24
    Egg & Spinach Bhurji

    Vegetarian

    One Pan Indian 31 g protein a serving

    15min
  5. Fifth 36
    Lomo Saltado

    Beef

    Wok Peruvian 48 g protein a serving

    19min

Every dinner, breakfast and pudding in the book, by name, cuisine, pan or anything in the ingredient list — type anchovy or Peruvian and see. Two letters is enough. Picking one puts it on the end of the week and the list follows. Everything that matches is offered, including things your ticks above would not have picked, because choosing one by hand is your business and not the filter’s.

Every one of these ends with a note on feeding a toddler. Most lift a small portion out of the same pan before the salt and before the chilli; a few say plainly that theirs is easier cooked alongside. The note is at the foot of each recipe.

What is in this week

The figures are the estimates printed in each recipe, for a quarter of the finished dish. They describe the dinner alone — not what you put beside it, and not the rest of the day — and they are not dietary advice.

The shop

One list for the whole week, aisle by aisle, with the amounts added up and scaled to the number you are feeding. Ticks last while this page is open. Staples are at the foot — check the Fast Pantry before you buy them twice.

The first is the shopping list and then every recipe in full, laid out to print — about seven sheets of paper, and the week is on the fridge door. The second is the list on its own.

Open source

Take it, cook it, change it

Every recipe, the typesetter that turns them into the book, and this website are on GitHub. The code is MIT, the recipes are CC BY 4.0. Fork it, add the dinners your family actually eats, translate it, print it for the inside of a cupboard door. Nobody should have to choose between eating well and having twenty minutes.

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