Are ready meals easier when you live on your own?

[pussinboots61]

I know ready meals are supposed to be unhealthy, even the 'healthy' ones. I live on my own, I work full time and have very little motivation to cook when I get home. I'll be the same when I retire as I will be out all the time.

I try to do quick healthy meals with short cuts, like breaded chicken in the air fryer and veg in the microwave and meals like that. I also batch cook and freeze but then I get fed up of all the pots once I've done the batch cooking and don't always fancy what I've made once its been frozen.

I see plenty of people stocking up on ready meals when I go to M&S and I am so tempted to just give in and have them most of the time, just ping in the microwave and one plate to wash up.

Anyone live alone and feel the same?

Yes, there are quite good ones these days, I would add them to the mix..,

I don't like them 🙈 They always look like there'll be nice... but they never are. I just make myself something I like to eat and freeze half of it to have another day...

Well I imagine they’re easier if you live on your own OR you live with others.
I wouldn’t want to eat them regardless.
Both dh and I work full time too and yet manage to have a proper home cooked meal on the table every night.
what are you looking for from this? You don’t need permission or validation to eat ready meals. If you want them, buy them 🤷‍♀️

I have one now and again. They're undoubtedly a quick and easy option when you live on your own. Yes, I do batch cook but I don't always fancy it when it's in the freezer. Otherwise I might cook stuff that goes in the air fryer, or pasta, or stir fry.

I think people are sometimes rather rude about people choosing them occasionally.

@TheChosenTwo ,the title referenced people who live on their own, so why is it relevant that you and your husband get a proper home cooked meal on the table every night? ETA I know you said they might be easier whether you live alone or not, but catering for yourself as a single person is simply different, both in execution and in motivation.

My elderly mum uses ready meals. She says it's been a revelation after years of cooking for herself and now deceased husband. She adds a steamed mixed veg pack to each meal to bulk it out / add interest.

I am just asking if people find them healthy or not or for ideas about what to cook for myself.

Some nights - definitely though I usually supplement with veg/salad.

I try and do one big cook a week like a big chilli/curry/bolognaise so I freeze about 5 portions and have these other weeks. Another night I'll cook double and have the rest the next day. Things like baked beans on wholemeal toast with poached/fried eggs are also substantial and nutritious and don't feel so onerous...

Moderation...

I reckon most people knew what you were asking and it's a perfectly reasonable question. I imagine they aren't particularly healthy but anything in reasonable moderation is fine. You do feel uninspired sometimes if you're catering for one all the time.

My quick go tos are

Pasta with peas, broccoli and philadephia cheese

Fish fingers with vegetables

Chicken and vegetable stir fry with noodles

Leeks with ham and cheese

Omelette

Jacket potato with cheese, beans or coleslaw

But tonight I had a ready meal with some extra vegetables for a change.

My experience is no. It’s an easy way to become unhealthy and put on weight. Much better to make your own meals and actually control what goes in your food. It’s hard because I feel a lot of fresh food goes off quickly when you live alone, but it’s good to get into a routine for cooking that works for you.

Dunno really, don’t know how or why it’s an inconvenience to cook properly for one or for five and I can’t really understand the point of the op.
OP says they will be equally lacking in motivation to cook even when retired as will be out all the time. So if they are too busy to cook what are the other options? Eat a ready meal. Or cook something. Or order in. Or eat out. Or eat at someone else’s house.
No meal is inherently healthy or unhealthy; the meals we cook at home are a mixture. Healthy or unhealthy is a long term picture, not just one snapshot meal. Plenty of meals we cook at home wouldn’t be healthy overall if we ate them every night.

@TheChosenTwo I have lived in a combination of households: with family, with friends at uni, alone after graduating, and with a partner. Living alone and constantly sorting your own meals out is different than when it’s a shared household task.

There’s also lack of oversight & input, it’s convenient to eat whatever, whenever as it’s always your schedule and motivation. Whether that’s under eating or over eating, eating too much of one thing like constant ready meals. It’s like eating is a basic task, just needing to be done in the fastest way. When you live alone, it’s hard to use a range of groceries eg I found fresh fruit & veg would go off before I had a chance to use them up so my options were more limited than you might assume. It is so different living with a partner.

Exactly. I find it hard to see why some people don't have the imagination to understand that catering for one day in day out is very different to living with other people.

I spend many evenings on my own and have 2 or 3 favourite ping meals from M&S that I like. Or I'll have scrambled eggs or a jacket potato. Tonight I had camembert on oat cakes/biscuits with a tomato and onion salad. I love not having to cook or fret about what to cook on these evenings so, if you've found some ready meals that you like, go for it!

OP I had a thread asking people for ready meal suggestions & had some really good ones- I’ll try to link it! As my username suggests I like the Charlie Bigham ones (though they are expensive) & they do them for one person or two.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/4951138-whats-your-favourite-ready-meal?page=1

My favourite thing to cook when I was on my own was tomatoey olive pasta. Chop garlic & black olives & fry with oregano/ basil. Add tinned toms & simmer for a while. Lovely!

I don't use it, so not recommending it, but busy friends use Hello Fresh. It might be worth ordering it for 2 people portions so that you can use another night. I also live alone some of the time and it is hard. Freeze fresh fish and defrost on the day to have with air fry potatoes and salad. Pasta parcels also a quick meal. I batch cook curry- tastes much nicer after freezing. I also love the microwave rice pouches.

Have you got access to fresh ready meals. Ones from a nice deli or take-out from a cafe / restaurant. If you work or live in a city & can call in for one on the way home. That’s what I did. No more expensive than supermarket ready meals. TBH, I would find pinging one of those to be just too grim a prospect. Even the M&S ones aren’t as good as they were…

I think ready meals are ok if you choose carefully and don't have them too often. Also serve with veg or salad on the side

No meal is inherently healthy or unhealthy

This needs saying more often.

OP, the M&S ready meals are pretty good and so are many other supermarket brands. Read the packets! Ready meals from the big frozen food brands are mainly disgusting, but oven chips & frozen fish fillets is quite good (with veg/salad, obvs).

I'm using a lot of tinned curry & microwave rice lately. The curries provide enough protein (I have a can to myself) and taste OK. I often add a few extras, and it's still all done in less than ten minutes.

I do do cook from scratch quite a bit, too. I'm a self-appointed wizard of the one pot meal, and usually cook enough to freeze one or two extra portions - home made ready meals 😄

There's also Hello Fresh, Gousto and the like. All the hard work's done, and they mostly take around half an hour to make.

I think they’re assuming it must be the same as sorting yourself out for one night when you live with others the majority of the time? It really is different.

I’d only do a proper shop if I were entertaining people because things would go out of date before I’d be able to use them. Single use serving sizes were easier to fit in the week, because fresh fruit/veg would go off before I’d have the chance to use it all up!

So then it turns into, there’s no point buying a punnet of strawberries because I can’t finish them all by myself in 2-3 days. At one point I was living off Tesco meal deals because it was convenient and I had no one to say, that’s not normal, let’s cook this instead. Meal prep takes more discipline and willpower to fit things in before it goes off & food shopping is weirdly more expensive and restrictive. EG sizes of fresh produce is geared to serve 2+ so I’d need to commit to eating the same thing until it’s used up, then buy something different the next food shop.

I have a friend who lives alone and always buys ready meals! I have a family and do lots of cooking and I often give her some of what we're having...and she can't have enough lol. Homemade always is a comfort food ❤️
You should do a mixture of homemade and ready meals so you don't miss out on the comfort. Do a few dishes that you can freeze so you have a variety and don't get bored of same old.

Garlic's Lazy Dinner:

Empty can into trusty 1 litre Pyrex casserole. Add 4 balls of frozen spinach and cover with frozen chopped peppers. Optional, dependent on mood: Add assorted spices, frozen chopped onions, frozen minced garlic, chopped tomatoes.

Nuke for 2½ minutes with the lid on. Remove from microwave, smash up the spinach balls, mix everything. Nuke for 3 minutes with lid off.

See if curry feels hot enough. If not, mix again and nuke another 2 minutes.
Repeat if needed.

Remove, put lid on, put rice in microwave. Nuke for 1½ minutes.

If curry still isn't hot enough, tip the rice over it, put lid on, and nuke again.

Congratulate self on reasonably balanced, tasty meal with only 1 dish and 1 can to rinse out 🤗

Absolutely. It became a bit easier for me when I started sharing shopping orders with a friend. I get some items for her with my fortnightly delivery as it takes me over the minimum order price and she gives me half portions of fruit and veg that she and her husband aren't going to use up quickly. It's a good way for me of getting hold of two carrots, a single baking potato, half a melon etc.

The ones with fresh veg seem pretty good to me. The ingredient lists look very similar to what I'd cook with, and the salt levels are much lower than they used to be.

They do tend to be smaller than what I'd eat when I cook myself, but that's probably one of their biggest selling points! I do think I might get bored quite quickly though.