Easy Western Meals To Make When You’re Not A Good Cook, Like Me

I’m not a good cook. My food is, at best, edible. Here are some easy Western meals to make if you suck at cooking like me! Yay!

This is a super noob edition, neither fancy nor authentic haha.

1. Pasta Alfredo

Ingredients

• Pasta
• Chicken (optional)
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Italian herb mix
• 2 cloves minced garlic
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese

Instructions

1. Cook whatever pasta you want, drain, and keep some of the water.
2. Chop up chicken and season with salt, pepper, and that Italian herbs pre mix you find in the supermarket
3. Fry the chicken in some oil until browned but not fully cooked through
4. Dump garlic and a crapload of butter on top (I used like half a stick). Stir stir stir until fragrant.
5. Add cream, parmesan, salt, and pepper. If you like it runny, add more pasta water, less runny, less pasta water.
6. Add the cooked pasta into the pot and mix it all up with the saucey goodness

Serve and eat asap. Otherwise it gets really thick and gummy and not nice.

Super fast to make. Like 20 minutes tops. Mine ended up being really thick and not saucey at all. Sulaiman, Ibrahim, Mr Ninja, and I loved it. Ayub, not so much. But whatever. Still a win for me haha. I’ll make it less cheesy and more saucey next time.

2. Fluffy pancakes

I already wrote this one out, you go see the recipe here.

3. Chicken chop

Ingredients

• Chicken chop
• Egg
• Flour
• Panko crumbs
• Salt and pepper
• Whatever side dishes you want

For the gravy:

• 2 tablespoons of butter
• 1 small onion
• Sliced mushrooms
• 4 tablespoons of tomato ketchup
• Chicken stock cube
• 1 tablespoon of brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon of corn starch mixed with 2 tablespoons of water

Instructions

1. Season your chicken chops with salt and pepper. Then coat lightly in flour, followed by dipping in egg, and finally cover in panko crumbs.
2. Fry on low heat until golden and cooked through.
3. Make the gravy: melt butter and add sliced onion and mushrooms. Saute until soft and translucent.
4. Add ketchup, chicken stock cube, brown sugar, and corn starch. Top up with water.
5. Bring to the boil and stir constantly. It will thicken in a few seconds… and done.

Timing is everything. Also I suck at frying coated chicken. I always end up burning the outside and leaving the inside raw lol. So Mr Ninja is the one deep-frying duty. Although I think you can just pan fry the chicken. Mr Ninja is big on deep-frying everything.

We double fried some potatoes for yummy fries and blanched sweet corn and okra as sides. That’s all. So good.

4. Cheese Burgers

Ingredients

• Ground/minced beef
• Salt and pepper
• Worchestershire sauce
• Crappy cheese
• Sliced tomatoes
• Buns
• Butter
• Mayonaise and ketchup

Instructions

1. This is like a non-recipe. Mix your ground beef with salt, pepper, and Worchestershire sauce. Roll into balls. Fry.
2. Butter your buns. Fry.
3. Mix mayo and ketchup. Slather on bottom bun.
4. Build your burger.
5. Eat.

Burgers are the best. You can do whatever you want. It’s so so simple. Next time I’ll add caramelized onions mmmmm… Or crispy onion rings! Or mushrooms. Omg. So many things. Mmmmm. Burgers.

5. Apple Coleslaw

This was just a side dish with another chicken burger night we had but it was so yums. Haha. Am proud of it.

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup mayonnaise
• 2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• Apples, cabbage, carrots (cut into fine sticks i.e. julienned)

Instructions

1. Dump everything into a container.
2. Cover and chill in the fridge.
3. Literally that’s all.

Most of my meals are white rice and lauk

From the top clockwise: ayam kunyit bermalas because I didn’t bother goreng-ing the ayam first haha (was super tender and yummy tho), bittergourd and fried eggs (my favourite!), kailan garlic, and sambal tempeh kentang (no ok, this is my favourite).

Ooo look at my fried bayam! This is my real favourite.

I LOVE LAUK ok bye