Ready meals and living alone

sixtiesgal_2

Hi, I live on my own and work full time. I keep trying to cook for myself and I do but I am often tempted to go back to just eating ready meals but the healthy ones from M&S. Do any others do this or is it really bad for you?

Martin_the_Unjust

There are no healthy ready meals compared to home cooked ones.

elsien

I don't because a) I tend to find the textures slightly odd and b) the portion sizes are too small.
Plus they are ridiculously over-priced for what they are. It's like anything,  the odd one is fine, but without checking the labels properly I'd be concerned about the amount of salt etc they chuck in those things if I was having them every day.
What's the reason you're tempted to go back to them - time, convenience, taste, effort? A combination thereof? 

Islandmaid

Hi Sixtiesgirl,

I think it depends on how much you enjoy cooking? I was a single parent of 3 kids with a full time job, so not cooking wasn’t an option, but I enjoyed it, planning meals, a weekly shop and a night ‘off’ on a Friday with a ready meal, easy meal or takeaway.
But if you are time poor and too knackered to be bothered then a good supply of decent ready realms will be a life saver, when you have a couple of days off, make yourself something yummy and pop any leftovers in the freezer.

seriously, don’t beat yourself up about not cooking, everyone is different 😊

oldernonethewiser

If you have some time it isn't generally that difficult to make a variety of meals and then portion and freeze them.  Obviously there has to be an element of planning and defrosting time involved as opposed to picking up something and heating it up.  It may well depend on what you enjoy eating but most of the time I manage with no real issues.

I find the easiest way to avoid ready meals is to read the list of ingredients. 

PrudentPeter

Me and my partner tend to make big batch meals on the weekend and freeze them.  We tend to make around 4 weeks worth each per batch. After a while you only need to cook one big batch meal at the weekend and you will always have stock in the freezer. This means that when we come home from work we always have something in the freezer we can take out, defrost and then quickly cooks some veg, pasta, rice etc to go with it. Much cheaper and healthier than ready meals!

sixtiesgal_2

Thanks for your replies. I used to live on ready meals I must admit but when I moved home a year ago I bought a new oven and got into batch cooking for myself. But now I find I am running out of ideas.

The main meals I like are chicken, fish, pasta and mince, I have a freezer but it only has three drawers so not tons of space. I have a 1.5 litre slow cooker which will make two portion of a meal so I can eat one and freeze one.

I feel my main issues are time, although batch cooking saves time in the long run. Pots - I hate washing pots and with a ready meal all you have to wash is one plate. When I reheat the meals I cook they never stay hot for long and seem to cool quickly. Buying and storing all the ingredients for receipes is a pain. I did start using the Pinch of Nom website, not that I am dieting but they do have healthy receipes but they have so many ingredients in them and I am loathed to buy a bottle of say Worcestershire sauce just to use a teaspoon full and then may not use again for ages.  I am also very paranoid about reheating chicken so I tend to eat that as I cook it. Also I run out of ideas. The main meal I am cooking and freezing at the moment is lasagne. I tend to waste food a lot with being on my own so I mainly use frozen veg.

PollyWollyDoodle

Ready meals are a very rare occurrence here, because of cost, portion size and quality. I don’t batch cook as such but I always cook once, eat twice. So if I make a dish, I’ll try make sure there’s enough left over to put a portion in the freezer. There are a lot of dishes that you can cook quickly however without much preparation; pasta with a jar of sauce if you don’t want to make your own; frozen vegetables thrown in; stirfries are quick to make as well. It’s probably still cheaper than buying ready meals, to buy preprepared stirfry ingredients if you don’t have time to chop them up yourself. 

bouicca21

I have occasionally indulged in ready prepared meals from Cook. Not cheap but way better quality than a supermarket ready meal.

elsien

I'm on my own but I'm planning a bit more at the moment. 
So I'll maybe buy a bag of peppers, either carrots/courgettes and or salad stuff, sweet potatoes which keep forever and I keep pitta/wraos/spinach in the freezer,
So as well as salads for lunch, that gives me either a chicken stir fry or wrap with the veggies, or chicken pittas with salad,  with a dip, omelette which you can chuck any leftovers with but I like with sweet potato/spinach/feta, then again rice with meat/fish/leftover veg. Liven any of these up with jerk seasoning, or harissa, or whatever. None of which take long at all and there's no waste. 
Just as an example.  

Nelski

I'm not a lover of ready meals due to the cost and ingredients but it helps that I usually enjoy cooking so effectively make my own ready meals so always plenty in the freezer for can't be bothered days. My mum lives alone too and only ever eats ready meals as she stopped all cooking 3 yrs ago when my dad died. I kind of understand that she just heats up and eats no effort at all but she has never enjoyed cooking and at 89 I get why she doesn't need the hassle. I do her shopping and is shocking how much those few meals cost and how little actual food is in them. So in answer to your question it is bad for your finances and bad for you ingredient wise  but if you're like my mum then I understand.