To ask what British people have for dinner usually

We eat food from all over the world. I especially enjoy curry, risotto and stir fries. I tend to eat salad a lunchtime, or soup. And we love a pot roast with asian or bbq flavours. I'm half French, so obviously have a seen better days baguette and round lettuce with vinaigrette with every meal (joke, at my mother's expense) We don't eat much meat during the week.

But when we are eating more typically British food at the weekend, and at this time of year, a meal might be:

Roast chicken with lemon and thyme, with potatoes and salad or vegetables
Roast venison with cumberland sauce, mash and red cabbage
Slow roast pork belly with plums or apples, with mash and roasted squash
Toad in the hole
A brace of pheasants with cumberland sauce, dauphinoise potatoes, hispi cabbage with bacon
Roast vegetable and goats cheese tart
Pot roast brisket with root vegetables
Goats cheese and walnut salad
Endive and stilton salad
Lamb shanks slow cooked with red wine
Smoked salmon and scrambled eggs on a muffin
Fish pie with peas
A pork crackling join with apple sauce and mash
Sausages braised with lentils and squash

For pudding, fruit crumbles with cream in winter, or cheese.

This weekend we are having:

Thai seafood massaman curry
A vast macaroni cheese and salad (teen party)
Harissa lamb shanks with garlic baby potatoes and roasted veg.
So not very British (or French!) at all.

Also yorkshire pudding with every roast these days, not just beef. 3 courses, mini ones for starter, big ones with your roast, big one filled with fruit and cream/custard for pudding.

Apple sauce with pork. somerset pork - chops cooked in an apple cider sauce served with colcannon

tbf chips go with everything, especially curry.(fusion food😁)

Also yorkshire pudding with every roast these days, not just beef.
Apple sauce with pork.
Mint sauce with lamb (really good when mixed with peas)
redcurrant jelly rather than cranberry sauce with chicken (sweeter but more british)

Lots of people like mustard or horseradish sauce with beef but I'm not a fan.

sage, onion & chestnut stuffing with most meats too.

I'm cheating just now - have been on Hello Fresh for a full year now and love it!

Their introductory boxes are reasonably priced and very easy to stop the subscription before it goes to full price. Why not give it a go to see a full range of British eating?!

Although many of the dishes are 'inspired' by a different cuisine (indian, american, indonesian, chinese) but again, this is typical in the UK.

For traditional British, you're really looking at a meat and 2 veg diet.

Meat pies
Baked beans on toast
Shepherds/cottage pie.
Sausages, toad in the hole (sausages in batter - very easy to make at home)

Peas and carrots would have been the most common veg at one time but now there's a much wider range in supermarkets.

You can't beat home made apple pie with custard/ice cream as a trad dessert.

But rhubarb crumble, jam roly poly, choc fudge cake , syrup pudding also classic.

Rice pudding (sweet milky) try Ambrosia rice pud in a tin as an alternative to home made.

We eat our evening meal 6pm

Some popular options at ours:
Steak chips and a Greek salad
Homemade curry
Shepherds pie and peas

We eat 6ish or 7ish depending on when children are home.

For evening meals
Vegetable pasta bake
Chicken and leek pie with a filo pastry topping
Cottage pie
Quiche and chips
Chicken and chorizo tray bake
Dauphinoise potatoes with salmon and asparagus.
Meat, roast pots, peas,beans

Lunch is a sort yourself out thing.
Husband has hummus on toast with chopped salad veg.
In summer I have a cheese and tomato open sandwich ( no top)
Winter is different flavours of soup. I batch cook them and put in the freezer.

...bread rolls.

Bread pudding (not bread and butter pudding) it's a stodgy fruity moist yummy cake type affair.

Fish and chips every day, obviously.

That's a heart warming dish right there. Ham Egg and Chips is another.

British food is stews, roasts, pies, crumbles, salads. All with seasonal produce, so at the moment a lot of root veg, cabbage, leafy greens, potatoes, and strong herbs like rosemary and sage. If you're lactose intolerant the British diet might not be for you (lots of butter and cheese). The Hairy Bikers are very good at British food with modern twists.

I'm British and I eat food
Think Pierce film lid, cook on high for 7 minutes.

In the UK, sandwich or snack type lunch, usually something on toast. Dinner is a hot meal, usually a larger portion. Overseas, we eat the other way around. Hot, large lunch and smaller, snack type dinner (unless the daytime temperature hits 30°+ in which case we revert to smaller lunches and larger dinners).

I live in the Frozen North, and I have lunch about one o'clock and dinner about seven to eight o'clock.

Generally, I have a light lunch, soup or sandwiches, and something cooked in the evening. I eat mainly pasta, chicken and fish dishes.

The population as a whole seems to eat a lot of curry dishes, also Mexican, Chinese, Thai and Middle Eastern cuisines are very popular, so that traditional British meals like hotpot, sausage & mash, mince & dumplings etc are not eaten all that often.
Also there are trends in flavours, at the moment everything has chilli flakes, coriander or chorizo in it!

This thread make me think of the Goodness Gracious Me sketch "Going for an English".....

When I can be bothered , liver & bacon .

Has to be with onion & red wine gravy, buttery mashed potatoes & greens.

British people don't just eat British classics the whole time. In fact very few eat classics most of the time.

I agree. As much as I enjoy a roast dinner I enjoy loads of different cuisines. There is nothing we "typically" eat because we like to try new things.

Jambalaya
Various pasta dishes
Vegetarian traybakes
Curry
Korean food
Thai food
Toad in the hole
Chinese food
Various salads
Roast dinners occasionally
Sausages and mash
Risotto
Pizza
Mexican food

We eat our main meal in the evening as we both work, so lunch is just a quick sandwich, soup or salad. On office days it is the same as we no longer have a staff canteen. We tend to eat between 6.30 and 7.30 in the evening and usually at about 12 at lunchtime.

I'd start by going to the local library and taking out any recipe books you like the look of.

Then you can flick through, try a few things, and you'll start to get an idea of both what kind of food you want to try, and what writers you like.

You might like to have a look at the Hairy Bikers, lots of more traditional british recipes.

Really? How do you do that around/ work/ school etc? That's not the norm if people are out and about surely?

We eat dinner between 6pm and 7pm. Recent dishes have included:

Chicken and prawn paella
Roast pork loin with roast potatoes, sage and onion stuffing, carrots and broccoli, with gravy
Home-made fish, chips and mushy peas
Salmon and broccoli pasta
Moussaka
Pasta bolognese bake topped with cheese
Chicken Madras and rice
Home-made pizza
Chicken thigh bake with leeks, new potatoes and peas (Nigella recipe)
Chilli with potato and sweet potato spicy wedges
Fried eggs and bacon on toast
Boston baked beans with jacket potatoes
Ribeye steak with chips, mushrooms and pepper sauce
Home-made steak and kidney pie, mashed potatoes and greens
Cottage pie, topped with cheese, with baked beans
Tagliatelle carbonara

For me it depends on seasons, spring and summer mostly salads for lunch and dinner but with fish/chicken/eggs etc. breakfast is yoghurt, fruit and homemade granola.

Once the weather cools down I switch to pasta either with bolognaise or a tomato based sauce, again with fish/chicken/bacon and vegetables. Also casseroles of various ingredients depending on my preference, sausages with mashed potatoes and broccoli/cabbage/green beans. Pork chops with boiled potatoes and vegetables
Curry, either chicken, lamb or cauliflower with boiled eggs. Roast dinner with roast potatoes and vegetables. Breakfast is often porridge or eggs.

That said, today breakfast was a croissant in a coffee shop and lunch was bacon and eggs. Dinner with be a shop bought pie with vegetables.

We eat the other way round from you... sandwich/soup/salad/pasta salad /wraps at lunch time as we are both at work, and main meal (Dinner) in the evening, normally between 7 and 8 pm. Monday we had chicken, noodles and veg stir fry, Tues was Greek - chicken and feta meatballs with lemon orzo, last night was shepherds pie with cavolo nero and carrots. Tonight we are going to have roasted beetroot and chicken tray bake with cous cous (have a load of beetroot from the allotment to use) Tomorrow will probably be salmon with baby potatoes, carrots and asparagus. Saturday is takeaway night and Sunday will be Roast Chicken. (always a roast on a Sunday unless the weather is good, then we BBQ)
Typical dinners in our house are jacket potatoes with salad, cheese and coleslaw. Sausage and mash with a veg (red cabbage, tenderstem) Salmon/tuna/other fish with either potatoes and veg or salad, or cooked with soy, ginger and served with jasmine rice and pak choi, rice dishes like Jambalaya, Chinesey things like beef or chicken with mushrooms with rice and pak choi. Tray bakes with sausages or chicken, red onion, peppers, baby potatoes and anything else i can chuck in. Chilli with rice or tipped over nachos with grated cheese on top, Bolognese, curry, Beef casserole in the slow cooker if were out all day.
Agree with others who have recommended the BBC Good Food web site.

It's made with corn beef, onions, carrots, potatoes, beef stock and has a suet lid.

Unable and squeak is potato and cabbage - left over greens from roast

mashed up ( I put in food processor, then fried in a big round fry pan

it bubbles as hot and squeaks due to the cabbage

I tend to have dinner between 6 and 7. Anything from chilli, soup, salads, pizza, curry, tacos, a fish dish.