Best value ready meals?

Mojisola

antrobus wrote: »

Then you would have a good chance of being wrong.:)

Certainly it's the case that expensive ready meals are often less healthy than cheaper ones. Because they're the ones with the more fat laden upmarket ingredients.

That's only if you believe that eating good quality fat is bad for you.

It's the sugars I check - and the lower fat meals usually have higher sugar levels.

jorok

I am tired of the constant use of "Healthy". If you eat anything to excess it is "unhealthy", but the occasional high calorie ready meal will do no harm.
Our favourite is one of the higher fat shepherds pies containing vegetables and which has much more flavour than the "healthy" ones and feeds 2 of us for under £1 each.

chocgirl_2

Another vote for Sainsburys ready meals! They are quite low calorie though so some might not find them filling enough, but they are tasty and surprisingly have quite a lot of meat/fish in them. I have them for lunch at work quite a lot.

Standout reason for this vote is the ingredients because there is next to no rubbish in there!

I have just noticed though that they have indeed discontinued the salmon cottage pie which was the best of the bunch :-( - gutted as that was the one I had more often than not!!

Teacher2

Waitrose preprepared meals are not cheap but they are made from proper ingredients, taste nice and don't have additives. If you can get them knocked down in price with a yellow sticker, all the better. They do save money if you would have had to have bought all the spices, herbs and ingredients for something fancy.

System

Quorn cottage pies. They are nice, don't taste 'veggie' and sometimes £1 in Asda for individual one. Plus got longish dates. I've bought them with a date three weeks later.

The other week I bought about four in the reduced for 35p each in the Co-op.

Serendipitious

And yet another vote for Sainsbury Basics ready meals.

At 80p they are ideal for a quick solo lunch in winter when you want something hot in a hurry. More filling than soup, and cheaper than a prepacked sandwich. And if you find one reduced it's an even bigger bargain.

But for main meals I prefer to cook properly. However, I must admit their Chinese chicken curry and rice (approx £3 from the chiller cabinet) is really nice and tastes like a takeaway but at half the price.

relaxtwotribes

Lidl has 12 cans of Butchers dog food available for only £4.99. Now that's what I call a ready meal bargain - and I get shiny hair and a wet nose too into the bargain.

mandragora_2

A banana? (About 12p each)

An apple? (About 25p each, roughly)

An egg? (Anything from about 10p each)

Any of those is an ideal snack, at the very least!

jillmarie

Sainsbury's chilled low cal. are great. I used them all the time when I first started with Weight Watchers (5 stone lost). They where quick easy and tasted great just add a bit of green veg. I found it very helpful as I live alone, it's not so easy to make salmon and broccoli or cottage pie for one.

tangowithcash

And another vote for the Sainsburys Value ready meals!

Cost 80p. Taste good. Seem to be made of 'real' ingredients and not stuffed with preservatives and colours. Low calorie - most are sub 300 calories so very useful for me doing the 5:2 diet.

And yes I am also mourning the passing ofthe Salmon Cottage Pie. Maybe we can get a petition together?!


Aldis ready meals for around £1.50 are also good, both the chilled Chinese/Indian/Classic British and the frozen 'steamer' types


I agree about the Charlie Binghams, ONLY when half price, and making them serve two :-)