How to make Jamie Oliver’s easy cheesy ham filo ‘quichy’ in 20 minutes

Jamie Oliver has long promoted the idea of healthy home cooking, done quickly. His cookbook 30-Minute Meals, released in 2010, proved that making nutritious dinners at home can be easy, fast and affordable. A couple of years later, he dialled up the pressure with 15-Minute Meals. Both books aimed to give people a repertoire of quick dishes that could feed the family well without having to fall back on pricey or unhealthy takeaway foods.

Now, the superstar British chef has found the sweet spot, with the release of 20 Minute Meals: Real Fast Food. This new collection, and its companion TV series, aim to find that balance between cooking at a relaxed pace, while being quicker and more convenient than ordering home delivery.

“I want to give people as many excuses as possible to just keep cooking,” he says. “Twenty minutes is achievable … It’s long enough to actually make progress, but short enough to be manageable.”

With increasingly busy lives, and the temptation to order in, it’s easy to think younger people may not have the time or inclination to cook at home. But Oliver insists many people want to have those skills, and can carve out the time to learn them. And with the right recipes and ingredients (including some handy pantry items), cooking from scratch can actually be more achievable than people realise.

“These are recipes that can be made in 20 minutes, at a calm, enjoyable pace, and often in our recipe testing we found people were doing them in 12, 15, 17 minutes,” he says.

“I want it to be achievable and I want people to be motivated to give more than one recipe a try, so I knew the time limit was important. If in testing, it couldn’t be done by one of our testers in 20 minutes, then the recipe didn’t make it into the book.”

Here, Oliver shares three recipes that can be on the table in 20 minutes or less, including a filo “quichy” for two, a pizza fritte duo and Thai chicken soup.

– Megan Johnston

Easy cheesy ham filo quichy

Serves 2

• 1 bunch of spring onions
• olive oil
• 1 x 300g tin of peeled new potatoes
• 200g baby spinach
• 8 large free-range eggs
• 3 teaspoons English mustard
• 100g sliced ham
• 100g Cheddar cheese
• 270g filo pastry
• red wine vinegar
• extra virgin olive oil
• 500g ripe mixed-colour tomatoes
• 1 x 570g jar or 2 x 400g tins of cannellini beans

1. Turn the oven on to 240C fan-forced (260C conventional). Place a large ovenproof frying pan on a high heat and add 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Trim, finely slice and add the spring onions, drain and crumble in the potatoes, then add the spinach and 1 tablespoon of red wine vinegar. Cook and stir until the spinach has wilted, then season to perfection with sea salt and black pepper.
2. Meanwhile, whisk the eggs and 2 teaspoons of mustard in a large bowl. Chop and add the ham, then coarsely grate and add most of the cheese. Add the contents of the frying pan and mix well to combine.
3. Off the heat, roughly layer up the filo in the frying pan (there’s no need to clean it), spritzing with oil between the layers. Push it into the edges of the pan and roughly scrunch in the overhang to make a crust. Pour in the egg mixture and cook on a high heat for 1 minute while you grate over the remaining cheese. Transfer to the oven and bake for 12 minutes, or until set and the filo is golden.
4. Put the remaining one teaspoon of mustard, 1 tablespoon of red wine vinegar and 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil into a large shallow serving bowl, chop and add the tomatoes, drain and add the beans, toss together and season to perfection. Serve with the hot filo quichy.

Veggie love: Simply ditch the ham!

Energy 566kcal; fat 29.8g; sat fat 8.9g; protein 34.6g; carbs 44.4g; sugars 4.9g; salt 1.8g; fibre 6.6g

Pizza fritte duo

Serves 2

• 150g self-raising flour, plus extra for dusting
• 80g frozen broad beans
• 1 ripe tomato (100g)
• ½ a small clove of garlic
• ½ teaspoon dried oregano
• extra virgin olive oil
• ½ a fresh red chilli
• 1 sprig of basil
• ½ a lemon
• olive oil
• ½ x 125g ball of mozzarella cheese
• 20g pecorino or Parmesan cheese

1. Boil the kettle. Put the flour into a bowl with a pinch of sea salt and make a well in the middle, then gradually add 90ml of water, stirring constantly with a fork until it becomes too hard to mix. Get your clean hands in there and bring together as a dough, then divide into 4 balls and leave to rest for a moment.
2. Cook the broad beans in boiling water for 2 minutes, then drain. Meanwhile, halve the tomato and finely grate cut side down into a bowl so you get a slurry, discarding the skin. Peel and finely grate in the garlic, then mix with the oregano and 1 teaspoon of extra virgin olive oil, and season to perfection with salt and black pepper. Finely chop the chilli. Pick the basil.
3. Place the broad beans in a small food processor or blender with 1 teaspoon of extra virgin olive oil. Finely grate and reserve the lemon zest, then squeeze the juice into the processor. Blitz to a coarse paste, loosening with a splash of water, if needed, then season to perfection.
4. Put a large frying pan on a medium-high heat with half a centimetre of olive oil and let it get hot while you roll out each dough ball on a clean floured surface into a 14cm round. Working two at a time, gently place the dough rounds in the oil and cook for 3 minutes, or until golden, puffed up and cooked through, turning halfway, then drain on kitchen paper and move to your plates.
5. Top two fritte with the broad bean smash, torn mozzarella, reserved lemon zest, chilli and basil leaves. Spoon the tomato sauce over the other two, grating over the Parmesan. Finish with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, if you like.

Energy 506kcal; fat 22.2g; sat fat 8.1g; protein 18.9g; carbs 61.5g; sugars 3.3g; salt 5.5g; fibre 1.7g

Thai hot and sour chicken soup

Serves 4

• olive oil
• 4cm piece of ginger
• 600g skinless free-range boneless chicken thighs
• 300g oyster mushrooms
• 4 heaped tablespoons Thai red curry paste
• 1 x 400ml tin of light coconut milk
• 4 nests of egg noodles (250g total)
• 180g sugar snap peas
• 160g frozen edamame beans
• 4 heaped teaspoons crunchy peanut & sesame chilli oil
• 1 lime

1. Put a large shallow casserole pan on a high heat with 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Peel, chop and add the ginger. Dice the chicken into 3cm chunks, season with a pinch of sea salt and black pepper and add to the pan with the mushrooms. Cook for 5 minutes, or until golden, stirring regularly. Boil the kettle.
2. Stir the curry paste into the pan. Pour in the coconut milk and 1 litre of boiling kettle water, then submerge the noodles and simmer on a medium heat for 6 minutes, adding the sugar snaps and frozen edamame for the last 3 minutes.
3. Stir in half the crunchy peanut and sesame chilli oil, season to perfection, then divide between warm bowls. Drizzle over the remaining chilli oil, to finish, and serve with lime wedges, for squeezing over.

Energy 614kcal; fat 36.9g; sat fat 17.9g; protein 43.1g; carbs 26.8g; sugars 5.9g; salt 0.8g; fibre 6g

20 Minute Meals: Real Fast Food by Jamie Oliver is published by Penguin Michael Joseph © Jamie Oliver Enterprises Limited (2026, 20 Minute Meals: Real Fast Food). Recipe photography: © David Loftus, 2026.