Meal in a Mug: 80 Fast, Easy Recipes for Hungry People―All You Need Is a Mug and a Microwave

Charmingly designed and perfectly approachable, here are eighty simple recipes for delicious, healthy food that require nothing more than a mug and a microwave.

For anyone who can’t cook, won’t cook, or doesn’t have the time to cook—but still wants a fresh, delicious meal instead of takeout or packaged, processed food when they’re eating alone—here is the answer. All you need for real food, really fast, is a large mug, a microwave, a handful of ingredients, and a spoon.

Whether you’re cooking in a pocket-sized apartment, a crowded dorm, or an office kitchenette, here are quick and clever recipes for breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert, and snacks. Squeezing a home-cooked breakfast into your morning dash is no problem with Peanut Butter and Jam Porridge, Eggs Florentine with Hollandaise, or seed- and fruit-packed Breakfast Muffins. And no more sad office salad: whip up Spicy Lentil and Bacon Soup, Pea and Pesto Soup, and Shrimp Laska in the office kitchen for lunch, with a side of Honeyed Carrots or Garlicky Mushrooms! Chicken Korma, Thai Shrimp Curry, Wild Mushroom Risotto, Chili con Carne, and Sweet Potato and Chickpea Tagine make healthy, quick, and delicious dinners that easily trump overpriced takeout or preservative-laden frozen food. And mug baking is a piece of cake with Chocolate and Pistachio Brownies, White Chocolate and Lime Cheesecake, Berry Crumble, Sticky Gingerbread, and much more. Finally, don’t forget the more conventional (but no less delicious) mug treats: Ultimate Hot Chocolate, Mulled Cider with Ginger, and Vanilla Latte. Yum!

You will be in and out of the kitchen, cravings fully satisfied, in five minutes or less!

Denise Smart is a UK-based food stylist and cookbook author whose works include two bestselling children’s step-by-step cookbooks.