Quick and Easy 5-Ingredient Cookbook: 30-Minute Recipes to Get Started in the Kitchen

Love everything about this book! Found delicious recipes that were perfect for the pandemic! Things I had in my kitchen, quick, easy, affordable, delicious, and timely!

Helped me learn to cook

I like to cook and have an embarrasingly large collection of cookbooks. While I've cooked some version of most of the recipes included in this book at one time or another, there's plenty of variations and time saving tips for an old cook to learn new tricks. The recipes in this book are simple and delicious with easy to follow instructions. I'm impressed by the wide variety of dishes included, all with only 5 ingredients (one of the ingredients is often one of several multi-ingredient spice blends also included in the book). The author's many variations on tomato soup, omlets and deviled eggs are all worth a try. This book has you covered from breakfast through dinner and dessert. A perfect book for college grads, newlyweds and the kitchen phobic.

This is not a five ingredient meal cookbook as one recipe will use another recipe to complete the dish. Most recipes will use seven ingredients or more to insure the dish taste good.

I bought this as a gift for my grandson who recently moved into his first apartment. It looks to be just what he needs (although he may not know it yet!). A nice variety of recipes with good directions and pictures.

These are not actually 5 ingredient recipes - with most of them you need one of her “special” dressings or mustard - which takes 5 ingredients to make in its own but she counts it as just one ingredient in the actual recipe- don’t waste your money

Minimal ingredients with easy to follow instructions for 30 minute meals is appealing to most busy people nowadays, and there are plenty of good ideas for quick meals in Quick and Easy 5-Ingredient Cookbook: 30-Minute Recipes to Get Started in the Kitchen by food blogger, Eileen Kelly. One of the things that gives this cookbook an edge is that Kelly includes “master recipes” that cooks can use to add their own touches to, which is nice for beginning cooks who want to expand their repertoire by using their imagination; incidentally, those master recipes are great for experienced cooks, too. New ideas are always welcome, and this cookbook has some good ones. Kelly has added a few vegan and vegetarian dishes, which is nice if cooks are so inclined – I generally skip those chapters, but the dishes in this book actually sound good and may make it into my queue.

Kelly includes some good basic salad dressings, sauces, and homemade seasoning mixes, which is helpful, especially since those items can usually be made ahead and will be waiting for cooks to use them in the easy recipes. The recipes are succinct and easy-to-follow. The emphasis is on quick and easy in this cookbook, and Kelly‘s recipes deliver. The recipes are perfect for weeknights since they are all made in 30 minutes or less with about 5 ingredients.

New favorites from this cookbook include: Balsamic and Honey Glazed Salmon, Sheet Pan Sirloin Steak, Mushrooms, and Broccoli, Southern Shrimp and Grits, Warm Apple Foldovers, and Lemony Lentil Salad – all quick and easy, and all very good.

The one drawback is that there are only a few photographs; most cooks agree that photos are a must in a good cookbook, and this one doesn’t have enough. The lack of photos isn’t a lose-lose situation, and the cookbook is good in spite of this flaw.

Special thanks to NetGalley for supplying a review copy of this book.

Pros? Recipes have pretty basic ingredients. The directions are simple. There are tips and tricks included. The recipes sound good just reading them.

Meh--there is a short list of ingredients that they say don't count towards the five (nonstick cooking spray, butter, olive oil, salt, pepper, and water), and I have no problem with that but some might, so that's neither a pro nor a con.

Cons? The recipes need photos--we eat with our eyes, too, and that makes recipes look more appealing. I like to flip through a book and stop at a delicious-looking recipe. I had got this to hopefully interest my kids in cooking more, but they were bored with all words (yes I know there are kids cookbooks but I was hoping to kill two birds with one stone). I would love to see this book with a spiral binder so you could leave it open on the counter.

There are times when I like to prepare more elaborate dishes, but most of the time, my wife and I just want to prepare our meals quickly. These recipes fit that bill.

These are not one-pot meals, but rather recipes for single items. Mostly main dishes. So, to have a meat and two vegetables, you would generally need to use three recipes.

The recipes are good and tasty and easy to prepare as promised. It think it would be a good cookbook for a beginning cook. Nother too fancy.

I did miss have photos for the dishes through. It isn't necessary, but I like to see what the dish looks like.

All in all, this is a good, simple cookbook. Well worth the price.

This is a great and actually easy to use cookbook! It has an intro section for recommended products/spices/dishes to keep on hand. Each recipe is pretty simple and my favorite part is there are variations for everything! Tomato soup with variations to add additional ingredients (with page numbers showing where to find that recipe) to make taco soup for example. I love when a cookbook is actually easy to use because I’ll use it and I WILL be using this one. Thanks to Callisto/publisher for my copy to read and review.