7 Busy Parents Share Their Quickest Go-To Dinners

Brigid Ransome Washington’s chicken and kale Hatch chile bowl gets two kinds of protein and a green on the table in 20 minutes.Credit...Ryan Liebe for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Monica Pierini. Prop Stylist: Megan Hedgpeth.7 Busy Parents Share Their Quickest Go-To DinnersEnd-of-school year chaos has arrived. These 20-minute (or less) meals will get you cooking through it.End-of-school year chaos has arrived. These 20-minute (or less) meals will get you cooking through it.By Margaux LaskeyPublished May 7, 2026 Updated May 7, 2026Ah, May.To kids, the month is a thrilling wind-in-the-hair downhill race toward summer, freedom and possibility. For parents, it’s also a race, but the gasping, out-of-breath kind, toward a finish line that feels like it keeps moving farther and farther out of reach.Every commitment that seemed like a great idea in September culminates, making our Google calendars look like someone scattered confetti all over them: school concerts, sports banquets, dances, recitals, tournaments, graduation ceremonies, shopping for teacher gifts, not to mention summer child care and vacation planning. All are worth celebrating — but when concentrated into a single month, it’s a lot.The Holderness Family, known for their online parodies, even produced a video about the month, calling it Maycember, because its festive mayhem can rival that of December. “But without all the fun cookies and twinkle lights,” the song goes. It went viral.And then there’s dinner. How can you meal plan, shop and cook when time and energy levels are abysmally low, when you’re, well, dunzo? For that, there’s what I call the dunzo dinner, a.k.a. a dead-simple meal for when things pile up.I asked seven parents, recipe developers, a reporter and a photo editor, what they make for their families when they are absolutely dunzo, but still want to get something cheap, delicious and mostly nutritious on the table. They delivered seven delightfully speedy, real-life recipes you can turn t...