Do you ever eat ready meals?

[Stevieknicks80]

Inspired by my lunch, just tucking into a weight watchers chicken lasagne that is delicious..
I rarely eat ready meals but the weight watchers range is quite tasty.
Do you eat ready meals and how often?

Not at all. I have more time than money.

We have been known to use tinned soup but haven't for a while.

No, never. It's not any harder to put together something very simple made from actual food if tired/late etc.

Once a week - Cook meals are excellent and with not going to restaurants as much as we did before Covid it's a treat.

Had m&s Thai last week and it was awful. Cook is much better.
We have a tesco lasagne frequently as its something kids actually like.

Depends what you define as a ready meal. I'd tend to class it as the full meals you stick in a microwave or oven to essentially just heat through.

But I do buy things like pizzas or have tins of soup which I guess could both be classified as such.

I used to cook everything from scratch.

I’m now so knackered I have started to eat the occasional ready meal. The taste & calorie count doesn’t compare to home cooked but I was in bed by 7pm last night after my gluten free vegetarian lasagne. Nice enough but double the calories and less veg & protein in it compared to the one I usually batch cook.

Once every few months? I like the curry takeaway style meals from supermarket so DH and I will get a box. Kids don't like curry the heathens.

We used to get them on a particularly busy night when we all needed to eat at different times. Kids would have packed teas and DH and I would have ready meals. I tended to buy the ones with fresh veg, often Chinese or thai. Also when one of us went away on business for a few days, we'd sometimes get a couple for the parent staying home and juggling all the school runs, nursery runs, after school activities and work.

Now the children are older we don't buy them.

@babybunny123

I love a Charlie Bingham now and again. The Cottage Pie and Lasagne are really nice.

Can confirm - I buy them when they are on offer for £6. The M&S Gastropub Cottage Pie is even nicer than the CB but it's £7.50 so I only ever get them if they are RTC. I probably have a ready meal once a week.

Once a month for me, teens probably have one a week plus pizzas, most of their food is home cooked from scratch but it’s hard to keep up with their appetites.

I only eat Weight Watchers ones when on a diet. Otherwise no.

Never. I can cook something much tastier and healthier in 5 minutes if I have to.

Literally never.

I like the Charlie Bingham ones but they are quite pricey. We sometimes get ready-made stuff from the butchers or local farm shop, so stir fry, macaroni cheese, etc.

Hardly ever but that’s because we eat other convenience food instead. Before I went veggie I used to like a frozen fish pie.

Once in a while in my last job, I'd have the Beef Ragu slimming world one from Food Warehouse. Don't have anything against ready meals but I prefer to batch cook and have "ready meals" that way.

At the moment most of my meals are ready meals because I'm caring for myself after a semi-serious illness and hospitalisation and I just can't manage to stand and cook for longer than the time it takes to get it from the fridge to the microwave. Also means I get a full meal (I have salad with it) without the need to think about what to buy. I'm a bit sad about it because I usually enjoy cooking and fresh food, but the important thing is I'm being fed.

No, I find them very expensive and not terribly filling.

We eat butcher sausages, and DS eats breaded frozen fish fillets but otherwise, I cook from scratch. I only do things that take less than 45 mins though. I'm no closet Nigella.

Sometimes yes. And given how many are for sale they are obviously very popular.

I keep a couple in the freezer along with some other bits of convenience food for busy days.

M&S ones are nicest.

I'm not a food snob though and tbh if DH didn't do the majority cooking or I didn't have the kids to worry about I would live off of cereal and toast.

Very occasionally a ready-made pizza. Not any of the others.

@JumperandJacket

Very occasionally a ready-made pizza. Not any of the others.

I wouldn’t say a frozen pizza was a ready meal?

All the time. I work long, strange hours and don't have time to cook every day, or space in the freezer to store batch cooked meals. They're also pretty cheap where I live and I only cook for myself, so they end up being about the same price as cooking from scratch.

But I don't tend to have lasagnas or things like that. I'll have frozen pizza, sushi, different types of potato meals that come frozen/semi-frozen, spring rolls, garlic bread, ready-to-boil filled pasta... Most of it I can store in the fridge and put it in the oven for 15 minutes whilst I finish working or doing some admin.

@SherryTBangles

Blimey... Gillian McKeith would have a field day on this post... Ready meals are satanic - full of hidden sugars, salts and fats.. EVEN THE HEALTH RANGES

I would never put something like that in my mouth... I'm always very particular about things which enter me...
Only fresh foods, like bananas and cucumbers

Fresh meat and fish...

Try hello fresh my dear... cheap and healthy

Best Wishes
Sherry Tatiana Bangles

Is this sarcastic? I can’t tell.

I don’t think a ready meal curry every now and again is an issue on the backdrop of a generally good diet.