6 Yummy Recipes To Try During Quarantine

I have been cooking up a storm during quarantine life! I love that right after I’m done working, I can go straight into my evening activities, which includes trying a recipe! Here are 6 yummy recipes to try during quarantine.

Prior to quarantine life, I commuted about an hour each way for work. When I got home, I was pretty tired and we always felt so bad for leaving the pups all day. So we would play with all three pups, go on a walk, and then I wouldn’t be able to start cooking until 6 or 7pm. A lot of times we end up getting take out. But without the long commute, I feel like I have so much more time to experiment in the kitchen! Some of these recipes I’m sharing below are ones that I’ve used over and over while some are brand new to me, but came out delicious! Here are 6 yummy recipes to try during quarantine.

Vietnamese Caramelized Pork Belly and Eggs

I have been using The Ravenous Couple’s’ recipe for Vietnamese caramelized pork belly and eggs. It’s so simple to make and you only need 7 ingredients. Just let it simmer for 1.5 hours and it’s the perfect Vietnamese comfort dish. My mom always made this for me growing up!

What I did differently with the recipe:

• Instead of white granulated sugar, I throw in one crystal rock sugar.
• For pork belly, I like to buy a mix of pork shoulder and pork belly. Pork shoulder is meatier so it balances out all of the fat on the pork belly.
• I like to use one can of Coco Rico instead of coconut juice. This is what my mom and many other Vietnamese parents do as well!
• It looks like they recently updated their recipe to add peppercorn and cook the eggs separately. I omitted peppercorn and cooked the eggs together with the pork, which is how it’s traditionally done.

Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup

My Taiwanese friend sent me this Taiwanese Beef Noodle Soup recipe. It was my first time trying it and it was tasty and warmed my belly! The beef was super tender, and the broth was sweet and flavorful with beef and tomatoes! I’ve never had beef noodle soup with tomatoes before, but apparently it’s the more expensive kind in Taiwan. You can also use the InstaPot and cut the cooking time to only 30 minutes (versus 1.5 hours). The recipe is written in Chinese but you can use Google Chrome to translate it to English on the recipe page.

Here’s what I did differently with the recipe:

• I added an extra tomato just because I had three on hand.
• I doubled the amount of water to 6 cups, doubled the amount of spicy bean curd sauce. We were able to get about 4-5 bowls out of this.

Vietnamese Lemongrass Pork Chop

Another classic Vietnamese dish – Lemongrass Pork Chop. I used this recipe from Danang Cuisine who is better known as Helen’s Recipes on YouTube. She is my go-to YouTuber for authentic Vietnamese dishes! The marinade is simple, but is packed with flavor. I didn’t have lemongrass on hand and it still came out delicious! On the second day of eating this dish, we also topped it off with a fried sunny-side-up egg, so good!

Chicken Tacos

Taking a break from Asian recipes, I made Chicken Tacos using Damn Delicious’ recipe. The spice rub was very easy to make and you can cook the chicken directly on your skillet or grill it. No changes were needed! I also made fresh pico de gallo for the tacos and it was the most refreshing topping!

Shaking Beef

Have you ever had Shaking Beef, which is called bo luc lac in Vietnamese? It’s seared cubes of steak and super tender and yummy if made right. I tried out Vicky Pham’s recipe and it was pretty authentic like my mom’s! I love eating the beef on a bed of fresh veggies like lettuce and grape tomatoes and a side of rice. I unfortunately forgot to take a photo, though!

Banana Bread

Are you even in quarantine if you didn’t make banana bread? LOL I feel like everyone has made banana bread at some point while staying home. I tried this Banana Bread recipe for the first time and really liked how moist it was on the inside and crispy it was on the outside! It was one of the first things I made during quarantine so unfortunately I didn’t take any photos either!

I hope these 6 recipes provide you with some fresh dinner ideas during quarantine! I know I’m always looking for new ones to try. If you have any recipes that you love, please share them below so I can try to make them too :). Happy cooking!