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?

I live on my own too & have a freezer drawer full of bags of pre-chopped veg. If I’m cooking for guests I’ll buy fresh, but when it’s just me & I want to do something quick & simple, throwing in handfuls of veg from the freezer is so much easier, plus no concerns about waste.

There's no harm in mixing them into your weekly routine. When I lived alone I had ready meals from Cook for dinner three nights a week (they are amazing and no crap in them!). Then another three nights a week I'd have food that was quick and easy for one. Jacket potatoes, mushrooms on toast, omelette, spicy noodles with veg, hummus falafel and pitta bread etc. Normally I'd do a bigger batch cook like a casserole or a chilli on a Sunday and freeze the excess so I had homemade ready meals for another day.

Tinned chicken in white sauce or ratatouille plus sweetcorn/carrots with pasta/rice/potato. Back in the day, these were my favourite quick meals when I lived in a house share post graduation. Jacket potatoes (in the microwave) were the quickest - with a variety of fillings including tinned curries/stews. I used to have half a tin a time. I also had plenty of stir fries beacuse it's easy/quick & healthy.

They're not very healthy, because they are highly processed. I think if I lived on my own, I would eat lots of basic, simple things rather than ready meals. Omelettes, salads, pasta, jacket potatoes. I'd probably batch cook things like soup & chilli too, and freeze in single portions.

I’m slightly different but clicked on this thread to read with interest. I have 5 people to prepare food for (inc me)and am a single working parent. Everyone including me has different medical needs (and simply preferences) so I have to do 5 different dinners (some people have a variation of some others so there can be some overlap) and have recently totally lost the energy for all the cooking and washing up.

I have started to use ready meals more and more and am wondering if it’s OK.

It depends which ones you buy (and the cost). The ones from Cook are not highly processed at all.

Whether or not they are healthy depends on the meal. I love their pies but I wouldn’t eat them for every meal! However, the same would apply if I baked a pie from scratch.

No, cook once, eat half and freeze a half. Cooking was so much easier for one, now I have to accommodate 4 different tastes!

DH was out last night so I had one. Even though I appreciated the lack of preparation and mess in the kitchen, I always feel a bit ripped off after.
I had a pasta thing from Sainsbury’s and it was very bland and made me very thirsty.

It's fine to get some healthy ones. You can also batch cook

My DP works abroad quite a lot and I am on my own then. I do a bit of a mix, but definitely average three ready meals per week. We always have the Birds Eye steam veg bags in the freezer, so I tend to add one of those or frozen peas. I’m a good cook and enjoy cooking, but when it’s just for me I can’t be arsed!

A typical “home alone” week for me would look along the lines of:

Veggie stir fry with noodles
Pan fried gnocchi with peas or spinach and pesto
Ready meal from M&S and veg on the side
Jacket potato with tuna and cheese, salad
M&S fish and chips, frozen peas
Go out for lunch so dinner would be a sandwich or something like scrambled eggs on toast
Garlic mushroom pasta in a creamy sauce (takes five minutes and is super tasty)

At this time of year I always make a batch of soup on a Sunday regardless of whether I’m on my own or we’re both here. That can be a useful lazy tea if you add some nice bread or a sandwich on the side.

Some shops do home made ready meals. I've bought them from the local butchers and farm shop.
I can understand the lack of motivation cooking for one.

I live alone and aim to do one or two batch cooking day each month. I do a big shop and make 4-6 portions of everything. On rotation. Then it's just a case of pulling out home prepared meals 2-3 days per week.

I also buy veg and chop and freeze as much as I can. Or I buy frozen veggies.

But it's still a slog. I eat beans on toast way too much because anything else is too much effort!

I don't live on my own but we all just cook for ourselves at separate times. I hate all ready meals. They just taste the same and bland and sloppy. I know the Charlie Bigham ones are ok but they cost a fortune. I don't cook complicated meals but just cook from scratch and enough to do a couple of nights and reheat leftovers and add fresh salad each night. Much tastier.

Yes they are easier. Cooking for one is depressing 😂

I like the M&S healthy ones and have some more veg (usually broc and peas!) on the side.

Cook! meals are really nice too but not so easily available.

Best chicken curry one I’ve found (if that’s your thing) is the Co-op one (better than M&S even!)

M&S ready meals (provided they're not the free from/ vegan variety etc) don't have anything artificial in them, they are prepared only with ingredients you'd have at home. (Some of these are a bit of a push - milk powder, pork extract etc - but you see what I mean.)

As an aside, that's why Asda can make their recent claim that they have food that in taste tests, is the same as M and S. It probably is (I don't know, I haven't tried it) but they use artificial colours, flavours, e numbers etc so it probably is possible to recreate the taste artificially. But it is a false recreation.

Whether they are healthy or not depends what is in them. Lots of them aren’t and I find they all taste the same.

I agree. I find supermarket own to be lacking in taste and I would assume high in salt based on how thirsty I tend to be after eating them.

This.
I know a couple of households that eat ready meals (a couple who buy the M&S meals & single bloke who buys Iceland ready meals), they all have high cholesterol.
The M&S couple insist it must be familial hypercholesterolaemia for both of them, rather than the ready meals, because they only buy the ones from M&S and choose the ‘healthy ones’.

I cook only for myself and don't use ready meals at all. Very occasionally I'd get a takeaway or eat out.

I don't understand about breaded chicken in particular - chicken schnitzel is very simple and easy to make. Get a chicken breast, beat it down (I have a meat tenderiser, which everybody in my country has, but if you don't the classic replacements are rolling pin (better) or wine bottle (more dangerous)), (season it), put it in a bowl of beaten egg, put it in breadcrumbs, fry in oil (I guess your air fryer would be okay, probably the consistency is a bit different, I've no experience with that). I don't get why anyone gets ready-made breaded chicken; the process takes 5 minutes.

I think I've bought one ready meal for myself in my life and I've eaten a couple of others at other people's houses and I've not been impressed with any. I'm able to make things that I like much better. I find it fine to stick to fairly simple recipes or if something is more time-consuming, if at least it can be left for a while and made in portions that reheat well.

I'm guessing your attitude is all in your user name 😂.

Op just cooking for one, you have a DH. Have a heart.

Ready Meals are ok occasionally for a quick meal. Like others, cook one eve, freeze for another day.

Reheated pasta is actually good for you according to Michael Mosley!

Actually someone mentioned the air fryer and I agree its a game changer for a single person. You an bung in a bit of chicken or steak and it pings an you have real food without pans and dishes or mess.

I occasionally get Gousto boxes, and freeze the second portion. Means I then have a "ready meal" that's less processed than regular ready meals. And I keep the recipe cards to buy my own ingredients for other weeks which works out cheaper.

Rest of the time I will do easy "freezer to air fryer" meals especially if I'm really busy with work.

Pre-marriage, I'd eat a lot of cereals for dinner when I couldn't be bothered cooking and I'm determined not to fall back into that habit.

I'll preface this by saying I don't live alone, but DP who I do live with is not often here because of work and we eat quite a different diet anyway so I am usually cooking for myself (he is a vegan, I am not).

Some of the M&S ready meals are ok infrequently I find but not something I'd want to have every day. I maybe have one a week - two if I'm tired or unwell (I'm chronically ill). The rest is a mixture of prepared things. I tend to cook up some bits on a sunday then repurpose them - eg I'll cook or roast up some meat or fish, roast lots of veggies then use that for the next few days either in hot or cold dishes - stir fries, wraps, curries, casseroles, salads, whatever I fancy on the day. If I cook a specific dish I aim to make enough for it to do a couple of servings and then I'll freeze a serving or two but no more than that as I struggle to get through it and do get bored. The only thing I genuinely like as a ready meal is a curry, again the M&S ones are lovely and it's far easier than cooking a decent one.

I opened a big tin of tuna the other day, half I mixed with some mayo, spring onions, sweetcorn had a tuna jacket potato and salad. The next day it went in a sandwich ( I keep bread in the freezer and take out a few slices at a time). The rest of it I kept plain and it'll be made into some tuna fritters - nice as a snack with sweet chilli dipping sauce or hot with mash and a sauce if I want a meal.

I buy frozen pastries and cookie dough which work brilliantly for single serve portions if I want something like that. If I make something like a loaf cake I just slice it, portion off and freeze and it will last ages.

It's all very minimal effort and deliberately choosing fairly plain base ingredients that can be repurposed or seasoned into a variety of meals.

Even though I don't live on my own we all eat at different times so I'm often cooking just for me

I like a stir fry with chicken and veg

Or I like to butterfly a chicken breast abd fry it with seasoning and then after I take it out of the pan I fry cabbage or courgettes or mushrooms or beans etc