Is it still good home cooked food if you use a jar?

[Hsundbfhdi]

We've had a pretty rubbish day here, I'm heavily pregnant and feeling rough and my husband is working crazy hours. Our childcare fell through so we've been trying to juggle a toddler too.

It's time to get dinner ready and I've popped open a jar of honey and mustard chicken tonight. Poured it over some chicken thighs. Will make pasta and peas to go with it.

Curious to know where people stand on how unhealthy it is to use jars? I've never really cared before, but now we've got a little one, I'm more conscious of the food I'm making. Growing up, my mum would use jars quite regularly e.g dolmio, curry, chicken tonight etc she'd also make amazing Mediterranean food from scratch too. It was a real mix.

Anyway, would you still consider this a healthy, home cooked meal? Do you think it's still better than a takeaway (I do)? I've started trying to make my own sauces when I've got time, but my husband and I both work full time, long hours, and trying to get something together after work and before baby bedtime is a real mission! So I'm still partial to a jar here and there.

Just curious for thoughts.

😂Brilliant!

I find a lot of her recipes very quick and easy. I found her when I had young kids and used to whip up her stir fries or other Chinese dishes in around 10-15 minutes. Another great thing about her recipes are that they often use short cuts such as chuck everything in a pot and chuck in the oven or using frozen chopped veg. She has a super quick gravy recipe using just stock cubes, butter and flour.

Of course it's still a home cooked meal. It's fine in my book, OP. I made a chicken pasta bake yesterday using a jarred sauce, tasted great if I do say so myself.

I think some jarred sauces are nicer than others, but I don't really understand the snobbery around jarred sauces/culinary shortcuts generally on MN. We don't all have the time and energy to cook from absolute scratch, especially on a weekday.

If it's cooked at home, it's home cooked!

Unless you're one of those influencers who literally grow their own veg, make their own cheese and bread every day, squeeze their own olive oil, bake all the kids snacks etc, you don't "cook from scratch" and have no place to be acting all snobby about jars!

There seems to be a lot of confusion about processed vs ultra processed food.

Tinned tomatoes, coconut milk, canned beans etc - these are processed foods and (correct me if I'm wrong) are staple ingredients when cooking from scratch. Sometimes they can actually be more nutritious than their fresh equivalents (isn't there something beginning with L in tinned tomatoes?)

Packet mixes, jars of sauces, ready meals etc - these are usually (although not always) UPF.

I personally never use jars. Curries, pasta sauces etc etc. Home made is more wholesome and tasty.

HOWEVER. If I was stressed, too busy, short on time, I would have no problem with it.

I think it’s fine occasionally. But I kind of think the jar is unnecessary. Chicken and veggies are a good meal. So I personally wouldn’t bother with the jar. I’d just drizzle some honey/mustard combo over it if that’s what you fancy. Doesn’t take any more time. Might not taste quite as nice but if you are in a rush. Then that would be a home cooked meal. I don’t agree with people saying it’s not nutritious- the jar doesn’t negate the nutrition, but you are adding unnecessary ultra processed ingredients.

I think we are all coming to realise unfortunately how much crap is in these sauces. Or at least how bad emulsifiers/ thickeners/ rapeseed oil can be for us over time if eaten frequently.

I try and avoid as much as possible but often it’s hard. There are a few good jars out there - Crosta & Mollica are a good company. They do a tomato and basil sauce which has olive oil and no rubbish. But ££. Their wraps are also one of the least processed in the market.

Depends what's in the jar, surely?

Do you read the labels?

If it's full of sugar, refined carbs, fillers, (emulsifiers), lots of salt etc, then no it's not good.

If it's only got ingredients that you have in your kitchen then it may be okay.

Yes - lycopene in cooked and tinned tomatoes.

Yes tins of beans (without additives), pasta, tinned veggies etc are just processed- these are fine.

UPF are those with all the emulsifiers and additives in. Usually a big long list of ingredients.

(a) Why did you quote the OP? We can all see it. It's at the top of the thread.
(b) Why didn't you look to see if the OP had updated the thread? She had, as it happens, with exactly what you wanted to know.

As per the label...

Modified maize starch is an ultra processed filler made in vast amounts in a factory and not good. It's a cheap way of making the sauce thick.

Xanthan gum has been linked in some studies to diabetes and a change in gut microbiome (not for the good) if eaten in large amounts.

So no, it's not healthy.

i'm confused is it a jar of "honey-mustard" mix or a jar of honey and a jar of mustard?
because honey mustard sauce from scratch is pretty much this and i would consider that healthy BUT as my dh is a bee keeper i have a massive supply of excellent quality honey.
if it's a jarred mix, i would speculate it's not honey.

Oh do find another way to spend your evening instead of being the forum police, FGS. Do you love 'telling people off'?

It's food and it's (hopefully) provided some nutrition for a small child and their parents on a stressful day. Job done, no need to beat yourself up about it.

Jars aren't ideal, but we can't all be perfect all the time (anyone claiming to be an A* grade parent 100% of the time is either delusional or telling a bit of a fib). The odd less-than-healthy meal isn't a disaster.

In solidarity with @Hsundbfhdi , I will admit that a jar-based sauce was used as part of tonight's dinner in our house too. Hopefully one day my child will forgive me for this heinous crime that led to an acceptable dinner after a busy day.

DT’s were weaned on jars and pouches - the ingredients were fine. Made life easy when you’ve been at work all day and then do the nursery collection and get twins home on the Tube.

Why would you describe chopped tomatoes, occonuts and ready-cooked beans as cheats? Who's being cheated? Tinned tomatoes are usually better than out of season fresh tomatoes, as well as being cheaper. Next to nobody in the UK uses fresh coconut rather than tins of coconut milk or a block of creamed coconut. Soaking dried beans and cooking them is time-consuming and uses a lot of energy, so most of us don't do that either. Nobody is being cheated by using these sensible time-saving measures.

It’s not as bad as a takeaway, and once a week or so there’s no issue. Also there are jars and there are jars, ones with ingredients you recognise and could buy, and ones that are a strange collection of lab chemicals- the one you’ve used doesn’t look too bad.
for quick dinners we do pasta- with bacon, red onion, or courgette and creme fraiche, sausage broccoli and chilli, or salmon, lemon, peas and cream
traybake - fish, new potatoes, med veg and olives, or chicken, new potatoes and root veg, or pork chops with chorizo, pepper aka cherry tomatoes, serves with greens and crusty bread
jacket sweet potato- look on good food for filling ideas
30 minutes roasting tin book is amazing

Imo a jar over something is still home cooked food. Despite prudent MNetters it is in the name "food cooked at home".

I cannot be bothered to spend ages cooking so it is a mix of bulk coooking every three (?) weeks and shortcuts.
Bulk cooking:

1. 6 meals

500 precut onions, 2kg mince brown it. Add 500g red split lentil and some water and salt, cook 20min. I'd take half and freeze it and just roll in tortillas with salad or do tortilla platters, sometimws just dump it in burger bun with mayo and letuce or on flatdread as kebabish thing. Add two packs of passata to the rest and cook for ten min. Spageti bol. We eat them weekly.

1. 6 meals

While this is up, I'd dump 3kg of chicken tights and whites in oven with some salt. Finished when defrosted in a pan as: Chicken in cooking cream, peas and corn Chicken with ready mild curry powder, chickpeas and yogurt Chicken with canellini beans and pesto Chicken with honey and mustard

1. 4 meals

Homemade chicken soup of 1kg white chicken, 1kg of frozen vege and small bag of pasta.

For quick meals:
White fish, cream and tomato with pasta
White fish stirfry noodles
And I do frozen pizza evenings and tuna can salads.
Above is ok for like 20+ meals depending how often you can afford white fish and frozen food.

To be fair it is really annoying and clogs up threads!

sorry if this is repeating, i haven't rtft

you ask about health. For better digestive and metabolic health I would bake the chicken thighs skin on for the fat rather than the fat from the jar with some herbs on them for taste - arguably easier and quicker than using a jar? 1/4 of the jar contains equiv of 3 teaspoons of sugar (according to their website 12.2 g) and it contains xanthan gum which can cause digestive upset for some. I don't know if your toddler is having some of this too but I definitely wouldn't want to be training them to be accustomed to extra sugar in the savoury part of the meal. I would have my pasta half wholemeal, half white. I would add some more veg using frozen veg, e.g.a veg mix and a little oil or butter on the veg (fat with veg can help to extract the nutrients, especially carrots). Vinegar can help to lower possible glucose spikes from the pasta so I'd have some mustard on the side that contains vinegar rather than the jar sauce. The jar is also a bit high in salt (1/4 of the jar is 1/4 of your recommended salt amount) depending on what else you have eaten in the day.

My goodness, you've got a nerve telling me off for being the forum police when you (now you've finally got round to looking at the OP's label) are putting the fear of god into a heavily pregnant woman who's taken a short cut so she can put a quick meal on the table for her toddler, her partner in the middle of a busy period at work, and herself, also working full-time and knackered after a difficult day.

We can all see that the food industry is doing us no favours by producing cheap over-processed food bulked out with oil, starch, salt and sugar. However, the OP is one woman on one evening and she can't sort this out herself. For goodness' sake give her a break and start a separate thread about UPFs.

there is no medal for chopping your own tomatoes

I think @BestZebbie is right. Most of us need some level of convenience, but we can have that convenience while also mitigating the impact of industrial food on our families.

For eg, pick the jar with the least ingredients you don't have at home. Avoid preservatives, emulsifiers, antioxidants, thickeners in ready meals.
Don't buy supermarket bread, or even most 'bakery' bread. Anything with more than flour, yeast, salt, water is bollocks.
Wraps are almost universally shite (apart from Crosta and Mollica and some from 'ethnic' bakeries if you live in a multicultural area).

And there are still loads of other ways to save time:

Frozen garlic cubes (Asian section of Tesco etc), frozen onion, frozen chilli - don't bother with other frozen herbs. Passata. Most spice pastes for curries/mexican/mediterranean food. Spice mixes in packets. Pouches of grains and rice with flavourings - almost all with no additives. 'Ethnic' sauces but check the ingredients list - it's totally random which companies choose to add crap to (for example) soy sauce.

Generally organic tins and jars are slightly more expensive but completely fine in terms of UPFs - I'm on a tight budget and weirdly I've found that if we make one more tinned rather than 'from scratch' meal per week it evens out the extra cost of organic, if that makes sense.

If you ever fry onions, fry double or triple the amount and freeze.
Have herbs in the freezer.
Have a mini food processsor on the counter all the time to chop garlic, chillis and herbs.

If you're vegan stick to Vivera ready prepped 'meat' (so cheap! So good!).

Even if you're not vegan, following a few vegan cooks on IG is really helpful in making you realise that actually, a lot of v tasty meals are so bloody easy once you've got a few 'exotic' ingredients in.

Again, for non-vegans - I want to tell you how delicious this is: put pasta on to boil, cook frozen cube of garlic and red chilli on low in olive oil for 7 mins, then add prawns and parmesan. Drain pasta, mix, serve.

Organic bottled lemon and lime juice - we get through one of each every couple of weeks - the salt/lemon combo makes almost anything from scratch taste better.
Miso - makes everything taste better.

And as I said earlier - learning how to make sauces without looking at the recipe changes everythign. So for eg: a chinese stir fry sauce, a vietnamese or thai stir fry sauce, a curry sauce, a pesto, an italian tomato sauce.

Home cooked yes
Home made no
But honestly it’s not something to stress about.

I made this tonight. I bought frozen chopped garlic so all I had to do was cut up an onion and a red and green pepper. I didn't add the beans or chillies and served it with homemade pita, grated cheese and coriander.

This isn't aimed at you OP. I'm just perplexed by the sneering at batch cooking. Unless you have all the time in the world, it is impossible to make things like lasagne, cottage pie, curries etc. fast after work. Pre-making meals is the only way a lot of us can have completely homemade meals. It's fine if you decide that you have better things to do at the weekend or whenever, but that is your choice. Don't act like you have no other option other than to eat ready meals or whatever. The occasional jar wont hurt anyone, but it shouldn't be a regular source of food for children. Learning good habits in childhood makes things much easier when you're an adult. I say this as someone raised on chips and Findus Crispy Pancakes. It took me a long time to realise what healthy food and cooking actually are and I still struggle with some unhealthy habits to this day.