I'd like your absolute laziest meal ideas please

[DivingBoardInGuernsey]

I have an incredibly tough week coming up, where unfortunately huge work deadlines are going to collide with looking after my elderly mum, as well as having DD at home for half-term.

I'm trying to think of ANY shortcuts to get me through it. I'm doing my Tesco order later and would love your very best lazy meal ideas please. Things that you maybe wouldn't eat long term, but will get us through this patch. (I would just order ready meals for a few days, but I have to keep one eye on the salt levels due to blood pressure). Thanks in anticipation!

Ready Cooked chicken breasts (from a packet) cut or torn with a jar of curry sauce and crushed cashews. Put with microwave rice and heated up naans or popadoms.
Also second tuna pasta bake.
Most supermarkets do a tray of 2 chicken breasts with sauce ie hunters chicken, spinach and ricotta etc
Finest or equivalent oven ready meals
Chicken fajitas with the El Paso boxes I find fairly quick
Frozen salmon encroute with chips and bagged salad

Oh man I LOVE this thread!
Cous cous takes minutes, for you couscous virgins get a mug or something and equal number of mugs to hot stock. Just use a stock cube and obviously dissolve it first before you add it. Low heat in a saucepan with a lid on for approx 3 mins and fluff it up. You can kid yourself it's healthier than other carbs (I think it might be!)
Add a pan fried salmon fillet (again minutes) or if you've got a bit more time an oven ready chicken piece or veggie thing. Add some nice tomatoes or bagged salad or something et voila.

For the slow cooker- lasagne: big mixing bowl, add frozen mince, add frozen chopped onions and crush or add frozen garlic. Add 4 tins of chopped tomatoes and some herbs and stir it all up. Layer it with a pack of lasagne sheets, empty a jar of white sauce and slice some cheese on top. It sounds gross but honestly turns out well! Will again take 10 mins to make, tops. Put it on low, all day (8-10hrs is fine for us) or high for 5. Again just add a salad

Another slow cooker- noodles: make a broth out of leftover bones, carrots, veg whatever and put it on whatever setting you want. I usually put mine on low all day, longer the better obvs. When you get in boil a kettle, boil whatever noodles you want, Chop some spring onion and coriander, add a poached egg or whatever cooked meat or tofu (that'll only take mins and you can boil it with your noodles). At this point mines usually full of chilli garlic and soy sauce.

Filled pasta of any kind with a ready made sauce and frozen peas

Tgose supermarket "fresh" soups and bread

Always followed with a pile of fruit.

Watching with interest!

Pasta, parsley, olive oil, garlic and any kind of cheese you want.

X-post Graphista couscous all the way!

Chicken fillets. Nando’s Peri Peri rub. Single cream. Cook chicken add cream and contents of peri peri packet to your taste.
Frozen microwave veg in individual packs
Nice crusty loaf to mop up sauce

Cook pasta.
Olive oil.. Chili.. Garlic in a pan. Add any veg.. I use courgettes.
Cook for a few mins.
Squuezr a lemon and grate zest. Grate 3 cloves garlic add a glug of olive oil.
Add to veg and pasta.. Stir and serve with finely chopped spinach and tomatoes.
I sometimes top with crushed pistachios but that's more time consuming

Scrambled egg on toast or eggy bread, bit of spinach or frozen peas stirred in and some cheese if you feel the need.

Other stuff on toast - beans, peanut butter and banana, cheese (or do toasties if you have a machine).

Porridge - stir in some nut butter, could also add grated apple, carrot or courgette, or berries, ground almonds, milled seeds or any combination of the above.

Filled pasta with olive oil and Parmesan plus a bag of rocket.

Fishfingers oven chips and tinned or frozen veg

fried egg with oven chips with tin of mushy peas, or do the egg with frozen hash browns and tinned tomatoes (could add sausages or the veggie version)

Fry a few bits of veg (peppers, onions, whatever’s in the fridge), could add a bit of ham or cooked chicken if you eat meat, handful frozen peas and/ or sweet corn, packet of microwave rice, crack an egg in, dash of low salt soy sauce.

Fry mushrooms (get ready sliced if you can) in garlic oil if you have it, or normal and chuck some garlic granules in with them, or indeed fresh garlic if not too much faff. Stir through either creme fraiche or cream cheese, or if you have a few mins extra one spoonful of butter, one of flour and a few splashes of milk till it makes a creamy sauce. You can add herbs or cheese (sometimes I add ground almonds which sounds weird but it works). Serve on toast or jacket spuds or with rice or pasta or couscous.

Lemon prawn orzo - cook orzo (add frozen peas for last 5 mins), whilst boiling heat garlic oil in separate pan, chuck in prawns and cook till pink, add juice of a lemon, combine with the orzo and peas.

@liveforsummer

Jacket potatoes in the slow cooker in the morning. Pasta salad or pasta with pesto, add peas or sweetcorn and tuna or mackerel to make it a bit more interesting and a bagged salad. Salmon is super quick to cook, baby potatoes take no time and steam fresh veg in the microwave

Jacket potatoes in the slow cooker?! How? Just spike them and throw them in? How long do they take? Please educate me and change my life.

Pasta, pesto and cheese

Beans on toast

Soup and crusty bread

One thing I do is an advance veg mix in a huge pan. Tin of tomatoes, Tin of chick peas, some veg stock, whatever herbs and spices you favour then loads of veg eg mushrooms, pepper, courgette, onion, celery etc Simmer for about 20 min and freeze (I use leftover takeaway plastic containers) This is then the basis for all sorts of dishes, whether pasta, pilaf, curry, stew, I add mince, ham, tuna, Quorn on the day, and veg component instantly there.

As for the slow cooker, you could stick a gammon joint in (just with water) so that would only take 2 mins.

Microwave rice as a side dish.

Chicken skewers from Iceland, different flavours, bloody gorgeous and pretty healthy, 18 mins in the oven from frozen, serve with salad and nice bread.

Enormous box of fish fingers, bung under the grill

@jesscakess I literally just throw them in. They need a good 8 hours on low but just leave them all day. Some people rub with salt and/or wrap in foil but I don't bother. There isn't the crispy skin although if you place them round the edges the bottom and sides its nicely chewy where it's touching cooker pot.

Camembert, in oven for half an hour, plus packet of breadsticks/crackers and some chopped veg. If you are really tight for time buy a packet of carrot battens 💪

@liveforsummer I shall be trying this tomorrow!

M&S "healthy" microwave meals.

Just Eat/Uber Eats/Deliveroo.

Anything else doesn't count as a "lazy" meal for me. I'd be well chuffed with myself if I made some of the meals people are suggesting.

Oh another big favourite in this house for a super quick tea is chilli nachos. I get 2 chilli ready meals with rice for the 3 of us. Piles of value salted tortilla chips microwaved with grated cheese. Avocado salad (bagged leaves) with sour cream and ready made Mexican dips

I haven’t got much to add to the suggestions (I’d be going with the fresh pasta and ready made sauce from the chilled aisle, plus takeaway), but I do love your username OP!

Buy some chicken pieces, breasts, thighs or legs, whatever you prefer and a marinade. As you're unpacking your shopping put the meat in Tupperware or ziplock bag with the marinade and into the fridge. On the day you want it just tip onto a tray, another tray with greenbeans and broccoli and roast it all together.

If you don5 like shop bought marinades you can make them up quickly.

• squeeze of honey and some mustard
• lime juice and coriander
• sundried tomatoes, olive oil and basil

I do this with big trays of chicken breasts and pork loin steaks. Bag it all up with different marinades and freeze it. Then take it out the night before to defrost in the fridge. I vary the side dish but always something that can oven roast at the same time or be microwaved in 3 minutes or less.

• microwave rice
• roast cauliflower and carrots
• microwave sweetcorn and peas
• roast corn on the cob in foil with butter and seasoning.

@RosesAndHellebores

Cooked chicken, warm from supermarket counter, coleslaw, bag of salad with chopped tomatoes, cut and shop bought dressing, microwaveable new potatoes, coleslaw.

Jumbo heritage hot dogs in rolls, oven chips, Plastic bowl of salad.

Meatballs, pot of ready made sauce, pasta, when cooked bung pasta in with hot everything else. Bag caesar salad.

Omelette, with cheese, oven chips, bowl of pre-made salad.

Sauages, micro mash, baked beans.

Chicken Kiev, oven chips, frozen peas

Steak pie, oven chips, frozen peas.

Baked spuds (start in micro-wave), cheese, beans, bag salad.

Cooked knuckle of Gammon, new potatoes, micro veg with made up parsley sauce.

Mixed grill: chipolatas, cut up pork loin chops, rasher bacon, grilled tomatoes, mushrooms and toast.

Lamb chops, Greek salad, cous cous.

In desperation: Heinze soup and cheese on toast

In greater desperation: Uber eats or pasta, pesto, and parmesan.

FFS I have been working full time for too long

I bow in the face of greatness!

Omelette
Carbonara
Stir fry
Beans/spaghetti on toast
Picky bits - sandwiches, pork pie, crisps, salad etc

Thanks to you lot, I feel like I might get through the week ahead. That's completely different to how I felt earlier, so THANK YOU.

Tragically I live outside the range of deliveroo or Uber eats. Sad. But I soldier on

It's ok to have beans on toast or cheese toasties for an evening meal occasionally just serve with some sort of salad, fruit juice and a healthy yogurt.

Omelettes are dead easy too.

Fish finger butties.

Ready made fresh soup and sandwiches.

@Tempdoodah and @De88 definitely! I'm disabled and suffer from depression so quick and easy is how I roll these days, but I'm also trying to lose weight which will help with the various health issues long term

Cous cous is super easy and filling and quick and not crazy high cal

I also make it up with stock most of the time though I don't use it for the sweet chilli dish I said

I don't even bother with a saucepan! So saves on dishes too which is another win for me as doing dishes is hard for me.

Cous cous in the bowl I'll be eating from add boiled water/stock wait 5 mins if that, fluff and eat with whatever! Usually I start the Cous cous and by the time I've sorted some veg and protein to add to it it's ready to fluff and have those things added and I'm good to go! So can take just 7-8 mins sometimes

I'm semi rural so takeaways and Uber not really a thing round here plus lockdown put a lot of our local places out of business as they were just about hanging on pre covid and that was the final straw

Tacos - ready made shells, tinned chilli, grated cheese bit of guacamole and/or sour cream - done!

As I don't have a micro (no room in my kitchen for one - don't ask!) I heat in the oven what most would do in the micro. It does take longer but I don't have to stand and monitor it so it works for me as I just pop whatever in the oven and then go and sit and do whatever I'm doing that day seated (watching tv, knitting whatever) and set a reminder on phone/Alexa (my memory is shot between age, illness and meds!) when dinner will be ready.

I live alone so only me to cook for which also hampers motivation

I have these wee enamel pie dishes that hold exactly 1 portion of chilli/beans/whatever

So I'll pop what I'm having in there with a wee foil lid, usually this is a jacket potato night so the jacket goes in too and they cook together

@DivingBoardInGuernsey - thank you . Good luck. Just remembered, for special.occasions:

High tea - ham, cheese, pickle, good bread, salami, antipasti, bag salad, cherry toms,shop bought cake; or

Smoked salmon, prawns, seafood dressing, cooked salmon fillets, good bread, bag salad, cherry toms, haagen daz ice-cream pots.

I also highly recommend Nigel Slater's five minute meals.

For very hungry teenagers after school and before dinner (lasts about three days).

1. Bag pasta cooked, flaked smoked mackerel, half bunch spring onion chopped, half cucumber diced, several dollops Herman's, combine. Fills their tummies cheaply.

1. Bag pasta cooked, combined with tomato ragu (softened onion with bacon larousse, 2 tins quality toms, basil). Bung in fridge.

1. Chicken thighs - multi packs marinaded in barbecue sauce, lemon and garlic, etc.

I often struggle to spend much time cooking in the evenings, so we often spatchcock a chicken ( get some scissors cut along the back then flatten) this means you take time off cooking if. Should cook in about 1hr. This is the base to so many easy meals.

Chicken warm with pitta bread salad and hummus

Chicken with cous cous or microwave rice or grain pouches and bag of salad

Use the chicken to fill wraps

Left over chicken can be shredded into a pesto pasta the next day

Dirty Rice
Saute garlic onion and peppers
Stir in mince and brown
add Cajun seasoning and rice
Add enough water or beef stock to cook the rice
Fluff with a fork and serve

tasty chicken and rice
Rice in bottom of casserole dish
chicken on top on rice
add a Jar of salsa over top of chicken
Add enough water over the rice to cook it
Stick in over at about 350F till cooked