On weeknights it usually ends up being around an hour to an hour and a half. I've been working on getting more focused though, and doing things like ALL my prep work before I start cooking, since that's where I tend to get hung up.

I always say "oh it shouldn't take too long to make"... then of course it takes 90 minutes :) It's just the SO and me though, and he eats lunch late, so usually it's not a big deal.

Weeknight dinners usually take me between 30 minutes and 1 hour. I prep/cook/clean as I go, but its got to be quick when I've got school work to finish!

It depends. Most week nights we are satisfied with a simple protein and steamed vegetables. I can have everything prepped and cooking in 15. On the table in 30. If we have something more involved...casserole, soup, stew, etc etc. its an hour, no matter how little time I promise myself and my husband it will be.

It usually takes me 2 hours, and yes, there's often a discrepancy, I've made a few Rachael Ray 30-min. meals and they still take me 2 hours!

I've got degenerative illness, and horrible dexterity, so prep takes me longer than the average person. I also don't have kids, so I'm not worried about crazed hungry kids flying into rages.

Most of my cooking is from scratch, though we have the occasional sloppy joes and Annie's Mac & Cheese quick dinners, so I usually don't mind taking the time to put out a great meal. Cooking can be very calming and help me feel better, so as long as I don't feel stressed and/or rushed, 2 hours is OK, as long as others clean up!

Time management is one tip I like to give new cooks; when you're learning how to get your timing right, make a list of how long each item should take--and for a few weeks keep track of how long it actually takes, and you'll be fine when big-meal times like holidays roll around. On holidays my family actually looks forward to the fridge board getting filled with all of our tasks and watching the meal come together at the time I've planned.

If I need to get things done faster, like we won't be home on time, or we need to eat early, I'll try to do prep work ahead of time, cut up veggies and keep them in the fridge, wash greens and let them dry, toast nuts, make breadcrumbs, and set out the pots, pans, prep bowls, etc. I'll need so I can have everything ready to go.

I try to make things that are quick and easy on weeknights. Cooking to cleanup is usually about an hour.

I have a bunch of dishes that I can make from scratch within 30 minutes. Most nights by the time I get home it's around &;30 or 8, and both my hubby and I don't like to eat late, so I just concentrate and get dinner on the table as quick as possible. Dishes like chicken marsala, Asian stirfry, pan roasted or broiled fish, pasta with simple sauces all can be done within that time frame.

When I want to have a dish that requires longer cooking time, normally I start the night before, let it cool and put in the fridge, then finish cooking the following night or whenever I want it. Curry, ratatoille, soup, caponata are examples of this category.

What works for me: I usually stick to saute, grill or stirfry, and I tend to buy veggies that need short cooking time (butternut squash and potatoes are for weekend projects). I wash all the herbs except basil right when I come home from the store, and if time is really really short or if I need to spend more time with the main, I'll revert to salad.

Since I get home first and by a good two hours on some nights, dinner prep falls tome. Its a good night if I can go from start to finish in one hour but usually, its closer to 90 minutes. Every Sunday night, with the rare exception, I have a plan for our Monday-Thursday meals (we are much more relaxed on Fridays and we plan our meals on the spur of the moment or via texts throughout the day). Its also a good week if I can utilize leftovers from a previous meal. This week is the perfect example of that: corned beef last night will be reuben sandwiches on Tuesday and corned beef hash on Thursday.

But usually, the variance from 60-90 minutes has less to do with food prep itself and everything to do with my five-year old.

I find that, no matter what time a recipe says something will take, it takes me double that. Weeknights are usually leftovers, heat-from-frozen meals, crock pot meals, or something similar, so it doesn't take very long. Preparing the meals in the first place, though, generally takes a full weekend afternoon or more.

Weeknight meals usually take 45-60 minutes. The most important time saving factor for me is planning -- I plan our weeknight meals on Sunday night so I know what needs to happen ahead of time and so I can maximize leftovers. I always know if meat needs to be thawed overnight. Sometimes I dice 2 onions at once to use for today and tomorrow's meals, same with roasting vegetables. And on the bus ride home in the evening I game plan the prep order for that evening.

I try to do 30 minute meals during the week and save the meals with more prep time for the weekend.

It takes me 30-60 min depending on what I'm making and if I have help. We've managed to do quick stirfry's where he's frying up the tofu and other longer taking ingredients while I'm chopping up the veg in under 20 min from start to plate. I never do a new recipe (or an actual book recipe) on a weeknight unless it's only a slight variation on something I know by heart and no new cooking techniques involved. I almost always use the oven for something so that the protein or roasted veg is cooking while I prep something more labor intensive. If my husband had his way, our dinners would be mostly one pot meals, but I like variety on the table so there's always a main dish and several veg sides, plus I make salad dressing right before serving. I do make time intensive meals (roasts, stuffed peppers etc) on weeknights to serve for a couple of days on nights my husband makes "pantry quesadillas". I love cooking as it's a guaranteed creative outlet.

My weeknight meals usually take about 30 minutes or less. I do all the prep work (marinating, chopping, etc.) in advance in the morning or before my son comes home from school so that the actual cook time is just that.

For weeknight dinners, it's anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour - but I usually have a lot of things pre-prepped for those meals (i.e meats already cooked from the weekend, frozen soups/stocks, pre-cut washed veggies). If I'm cooking something totally from scratch it will be between 1-2 hours.

Because I belong to a CSA and make most meals from the ingredients in my share, I spend some time on Tuesday evenings prepping all the vegetables and fruits, usually having a very simple dinner. Then on the weekend I devote some time to using up anything I still have left. Making dinner generally takes me between 30 and 45 minutes, not counting these two prep sessions.

An hour to an hour and a half on the nights I cook which is about 4-5 times per week. The rest of the time I either eat out of have leftovers...

It usually depends on what's on the box directions. Kraft is usually pretty good about time frames.

I try to get it done in under 45 minutes. Mondays are leftover nights, so I'll run to the store after work and get that out of the way so I don't have to stop on the way home the rest of the week.

On Sundays, I usually cook a sufficient amount of chicken and/or turkey burgers, and different vegetables to take me through lunch and dinner in the following week. When I come home on a weeknight, I can heat a turkey burger or chicken thigh and vegetables or make a stirfry of either meat and cooked veggies or sometimes I'll pick up some veggies from the farmer's market during the summer. Preparing dinner on a weeknight takes less than an hour and it doesn't bother me that I am eating essentially the same thing every night (and at lunch). I make meals "from scratch" on the weekends when I have more time.

30 minutes to 1.5 hours depending on what it is. Mac and cheese can be done in half an hour whereas chili takes about 45 minutes. Salads take just about 10 minutes. Chicken noodle soup takes about 1 hour.

Between 15 and 45 minutes max, usually. 15 minutes is when I've made a stew over the weekend, or prepared a big pot of soup so all I have to do is heat it up in the evening, slice some bread & cheese and pour some wine. It's very rare I take longer than 45 minutes on weeknights. If not soup or stew I've already made, typically it's going to be very simple pasta with homemade sauce but the latter made with a can of diced tomatoes, or just a piece of fish I'm pan-frying and a bit of spinach or garlic. Fruit or yogurt for dessert and voilà.

Mostly 30-60 minutes during the week. My favorite cookbook is Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian and I think most his recipes fall into that category of time.

I usually give about an hour and a half for all cooking-related things on a weeknight: prepping food, cooking/baking, eating, dishes, packing lunches, starting the next morning's coffee and breakfast, etc. Functionally speaking, this means that I start things at 7 and by 8:30 everything is done. (Usually a half-hour or so for the food prep itself.)

Weekend dinners tend to be more leisurely, but that's because I like cooking and will do 5-course dinners for fun.

I have to get dinner on the table stat because I've got a 2nd grader who is a) hungry and b) we're on the clock on weeknights (homework, bedtime, etc.). I used to take my time, and was definitely in the camp of "we'll eat around 8" and not serving the food until 8:30 (or 9:00). No mas. I've gotten really, really good at estimating recipe times.

All of the people saying 45 minutes to an hour are making me feel much better about my timing. I so often see people say dinner only took 30 minutes or less (no thanks to Rachel Ray) and I can't even imagine that most of the time. The only meal I can make in under 15 minutes from the time I walk into the kitchen to the time I'm sitting at the table is a fried egg sandwich with whatever cheese and veggies I have in the fridge--not coincidentally my go-to dinner when I get home at 7:30 or 8.

Even salad takes me longer than 15 minutes to chop tomatoes, make dressing, etc.!

i am horrible at prepping dinner beforehand to make it more convenient for myself when i cook after a long day's work/commute/schlep. i should take note of everyone's prep style and go with it because it takes me an hour to make dinner which means we're not eating until 8:30/9pm. i can rationalize all i want about it (oh, we live in nyc, not big deal!), but i should probably cut that time in half so i have time watch more episodes of "in treatment" afterward before bedtime.

I'm cooking for two and we both work, so weeknight dinners prefered to be ready within one hour. I'm the cook and my husband is the helper and dish washer. I made up weekly menu ahead and know exactly what to serve each night. Preparing dinner together gives us a chance to catch up and exchange the daily news.

With two working parents and two little kids, it can't take more than half an hour. Most of our dinners are made, or partially made, on the weekends. Then we just have to make a salad, boil some rice, or roast some vegetables while the protein is heating (or being sauteed in a pan).

I always promise a 30 minute meal and end up in the kitchen for an hour and a half! I had one frustrating night when I spent two hours making a meal that we polished off in less than 20 minutes and realized that that wouldn't work for me. It's one thing if you're cooking for a dinner party that will sit at the table for hours, but for weekday meals, I don't want to spend more than an hour cooking. My best tips - prep before and get all your mise en place ready to be dumped in the pot or skillet, and know your sequence for cooking. If one thing will take the longest, get it going so you can prepare everything else while it's cooking. Nothing revolutionary, but it works for me!

We cook for two, and are perfectly happy eating leftovers for dinner if the meal was really good the first time around, so a typical week for us usually looks like this:

Sunday - 2 to 3 hours preparing a more complex meal (6 servings)

Monday - 45 minutes to 1.5 hours (depending on how much pre-prep got done over the weekend) prepare a slightly less complex meal (4 servings)

Tuesday - 15 minutes, putting together/heating leftovers from Sunday

Wednesday - 15 minutes, putting together/heating leftovers from Monday

Thursday - 15 minutes, putting together/heating leftovers from Sunday

Friday - 30-45 minutes, either reheating homemade meals we've frozen, heating a box of premade Indian food and serving over rice, or making something super quick, like miso soup/steamed frozen buns, or an omelette with leftover veggies.

30 minutes to 1 hour, sometimes more if I'm trying a new recipe. Some nights I anticipate that it will take less time, but unless I'm heating up leftovers or having a salad, it's usually in this time frame. I'm normally the one cooking and someone else takes over cleaning so I'm not including that in my time.

I make dinner 2-3 times on weeknights and the other nights I feast on leftovers or end up eating snacks for dinner (chips and guac, toast and cheese, etc.). It takes me 45 minutes to an hour on average (prep and cook time) when I make something. I am a very slow food chopper, though I'm getting better!

30-60 minutes, depending on how new the dish is to me. I try not to attempt new recipes during the week unless I am 100% confident that I can make it in a reasonable time. And I don't like Rachael Ray recipes because I can never make them in a reasonable time (like anything close to 30 minutes).

jeez, does this dude EVER lose the hipster headgear???

It depends on what I'm cooking. If I'm just making rice in the rice cooker and reheating Mom's leftovers in the rice cooker's steaming basket, it's about 40 minutes. If I'm following a recipie, it takes anywhere from half an hour to an hour plus, including prep time. Supposedly "quick" recipies takes me at least twice as long from start to finish. Part of it is because I'm slow at prep work and part of it is because I have an electric stove/oven which takes forever to heat anything up even on high heat :-o).

I'm the same as Chau. I make the meal plan for the week ahead of time and start everything before my BF gets home. I'm naturally slow in the kitchen but we also drag it out to have beers or wine and talk about our day. I'd say that a short weeknight dinner is about 30 minutes with him making the salad. A long one is an hour or more. But I get to work at home 2 days a week so I save long meals for those days and I prep everything during my lunch break so it's ready to go at dinner time.

Counting the time to prepare the ingredients, I would say around 1 1/2 to 2 hours based on the dish. Most of the time, there are leftovers from lunch which saves me some time on preparation. If I am making dinner from scratch, the couple of hours give me enough time to just get everything right and the table set.

Usually around an hour, but I'm a leisurely prepper. If I have the time, I like to take more time. For instance, today was my day off, so I started making soda bread around 5:30, prepped potatoes and cabbage for colcannon, and then made a gravy for the bangers (yes, belated St. patty's day in my house today) and we ate around 7:30 pm.

I like to chop vegetables (especially if I'm not ravenously hungry) and I take things slowly, so a stir fry or soup can take significantly longer than something less chopping-intensive.

Of course, then there are the days where I just reheat leftover soup, or make a "casserole" of leftovers and stick it in the oven. Those days usually take 10-20 minutes to get food on the table.

Ussually thirty minutes to buy everything, plus the time slot to pre-heat my oven. About an hour and a half.

Actual hands-on time in the kitchen during the week, I usually run 30 minutes to an hour. With a 13 and a 5 yo, it always seems like a sprint to get the kids fed, bathed and in bed in a reasonable time. The meals that are closer to 30 minutes are recipes I know or "this should all taste good together". We inch closer to the hour mark when we have a little more time or I want to make the meal a little more special.

On the weekends, the meal will hit the table at the same time, or earlier, but I have all day to get it ready if I need to. For example, yesterday (I work in a restaurant, so Monday is a weekend day to me), I threw something in the slow cooker at 8 a.m., started working on bread around 2 p.m. and sides a little later.

With having to "sprint" to make dinner so many nights, I don't mind a few shortcuts like frozen veggies or instant rice, which helps get closer to that 30 minute mark. And, I will re-iterate, this is hands-on time in the kitchen. I might spend 20 minutes looking at recipes before I start cooking. We won't even talk about how much time I might spend at a grocery store.

I don't take long to prep so that's never the issue, it's how long the dish I'm making takes that is the issue. Brown rice can take 40-45 minutes to cook, whilst white long grain rice takes a mere 20 minutes.

Often my dinners are done in less than an hour, sometimes no more than 30 minutes, but it has to do with total time from beginning to end that you have to take into account as many dishes take between 30-45 minutes to cook once prepped.

That is when I can wash dishes if need be,or work on other tasks while it bakes or whatever.

But during the week, I try to keep it simple because of when I get home, and when I want to try and eat so I can enjoy the rest of my evening.

We are rubbish at quick dinners, even reheating and cooking rice/veg seems to take us an hour.

What do people prep at the weekends in advance? I don't understand. Veggies must dry out, don't they? And what else can one do? Can pasta be reheated (but fresh only takes 4 mins anyway). I know rice isn't safe after a day or so. And I never understand what people do with a weeks worth of roasted vegetables. Sigh. I don't work so mostly I cook in the daytimes and it lasts a few days or gets frozen for quick meals or we cook in the eve and it takes probably an hour.

Weeknights, about 30-40 minutes from start to finish - it includes no prep time except if I'm using something like a protein from the weekend (like cooking a pork roast on Sunday and using it for carnitas or a ragu during the week). It's usually the rice or potatoes that we're waiting for.

i like to spend a day cooking & storing meals. so, when i'm ready to eat, i have a few healthy options ready. chopping fruit, making soup or curry bases (just add water or rice & heat). otherwise, i just walk to the corner & get food (it's asia, it's easy, healthy & often cheaper)

I normally cook a full home cook supper, from scratch in under an hour including preparation. My estimation are normally right on the money. For speed, my convection oven speeds things up (there are no micro-wave in my house and never will be). A garlic roast chicken will takes 45 minutes to cook if I split the beast in half. AlI have to do when it's in the oven is to prepare and cook the potatoes or rice and the other veggies. Washing green beans, broccoli, peeling carrots and chopping veggies hardly takes a few minutes so why bother whit frozen stuff. Most of the time I prepare a starter (veggies and hummus, tomatoes and bocconcini salad..) that takes a few minutes to whip up and while we're eating the starter, the supper gets cooked and if it take longer, nobody notices it and it leaves time for the chicken or other meat to rest.
The key (for me) resides in simplicity:
1 main ingredient that takes longer to cook. Sometimes it's a vegetable like baked potatoes or squashes, sometimes it's meat or a vegetarian or vegan product like tofu or seitan...
2 while the item that takes longer to cook is started, take care of the other stuff that is fast like fish, salad prep, veggies...and if times permits, a starter or desert.
3 other meals take more time to prepare but are quick to cook are stir-fries, quick curries...

Well that's my two cents. I should add that I was a trained chef...a long time ago and cooking holds no fear for me :-D