With a dinner party for a few friends or just suddenly planned surprise dinner for your partner, here are 5 delicious side dishes that goes with almost every main course and are super easy and quick to make.
1. Potato Bake
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This starch dish of creamy potato goes great with roast chicken, lamb, steak or even fried rice.
Ingredients:
• Potato
• Cream
• Cheese slices
• Salt
• Pepper
• Garlic paste (optional)
• Onions (optional)
Procedure:
Cut your potatoes thinly in round shapes. Grease a baking pan with oil and line up your potatoes (half of the total quantity). On a separate pan or wok, with little oil, melt the cheese slices, stirring it. Add half of the cream here and 1 tsp of garlic paste. Stir it for around 3 to 4 minutes to make a sauce and keep aside. Pour this sauce on top of the potatoes lined up on the baking pan. Add another half of the potatoes making a second layer. You can add the onions diced on top if you like. Sprinkle some more cheese slices on top and pour in rest of the cream. Preheat your oven to 180 degrees and then get your potatoes in the pan inside the oven to let it cook for around an hour. Keep checking on it every 20mins. It might be cooked within half an hour also. When the top potatoes turn brownish, your dish is ready.
2. Spinach And Cream Cheese Salad
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Moist and creamy and just takes 6 minutes to make this salad. For all the spinach lovers, this is a haven. Goes great with almost every main dish.
Ingredients:
• Spinach
• Cream cheese
• Salt
• Pepper
• Oregano
• Parmesan
Procedure:
Boil the spinach leaves until they are blanched. Wash them with cold water and get them in a salad bowl. Add cream cheese, Parmesan, salt, pepper and a bit of oregano. Mix it all really well. Your salad is ready!
3. Fried Eggplants
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Eggplants are one of my favorite side dishes cooked this way. It is super easy to cook and tastes lovely. This spicy dish goes with rice and curry items or even steak.
Ingredients:
• Eggplants
• Turmeric powder
• Salt
• Red Chili powder
Procedure:
Cut the eggplant in round slices. Don’t make it too thin. Sprinkle turmeric powder, salt and chilli powder on each of the slices and spread the spices well on both sides of the eggplant slices. Turn on the stove with a frying pan. With sufficient oil, start to fry the eggplants around 2 to 3 minutes on each side until brown in color. Serve them on a paper towel or tissue paper to soak excess oil and dig in hot.
4. Canned Tuna Salad
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This canned tuna dish is somewhere between a salad and a stir-fry. So flavorful, yet so simple to cook. Goes with rice dishes or potato dishes well.
Ingredients:
• Canned tuna
• Onions
• Salt
• Pepper
• Bbq sauce
• Cumin Powder
• Cucumber (optional)
Procedure:
Get the onion finely diced. Heat up a pan with oil, when the oil is hot enough, add the onions first. Fry them for a while when turned translucent, add the canned tuna. Give it a good stir, then add salt(very little as canned tuna will have salt in it), pepper and 1tsp of cumin powder. Cook it for a while. The tuna will not need a lot of cooking as it is already cooked. Add the cucumber and give a good stir for about 2 to 3 minutes. Serve it hot or cold with Bbq sauce drizzled on top.
5. Tomato Scrambled Eggs
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Other than being a side dish, this is actually a perfect breakfast dish too with bread. One of my childhood favorite, that is wonderfully easy to make and tastes divine. Goes well with bread, roti or pasta.
Ingredients:
• Eggs
• Tomato finely diced
• Salt
• Pepper
• Green chili
• Onions (finely diced)
Procedure:
Fry your finely diced onions and tomatoes for a while then add the eggs. Keeping the onions and tomatoes a little aside, scramble the eggs well to finally stir them all together. Add salt and pepper. One Diced green chili will add a spicy flavor. Serve hot.