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.

No, definitely not healthy or home-cooked. The problem with jars of most things is they're seed-oil based. Yours has rapeseed oil in, which is just awful. You really have to search in supermarkets to find decent sauces based in olive oil or avocado oil (Tesco finest pesto is an example). For this reason, I make my own sauces, but I always have - it's really not difficult.

I think that's fine. Probably the jar isn't that healthy but you've had a hard day and hey! we've got chicken and pasta for supper. I'd say have a glass of wine but I understand these days no alcohol is the rule if you are pregnant, so won't.

Ready made sauces in jars are not healthy home cooked meals. Using a ready made sauce or even a ready meal once a week is not going to do anyone any harm, but do it daily and you're consuming a lot of ultra processed food and that's not good for your long term health.

378 posts in, thread started over 24 hours ago, and it didn't occur to you that others might already have made your point? Also, at the risk of being accused of being the forum police again, why quote the OP? It's the one post on the thread that everybody's seen already.

I hope the OP had a better day today and is feeling more rested. Late pregnancy is an exhausting time.

Absolutely. Check ingredients. For example, M&S do a brilliant passata sauce soffritto. Not cheap at £2.80 a jar but really good. I find it’s enough to make bolognese for 750g minced beef. Enough for. 2 nights’ meals?
i finely chop onion and fry it with 2-3 grated carrot. Add the beef (maybe a teaspoon of herbs) then the passata. I make it for my grandchildren. They love it.

Agree it's not terrible. It's better than ready meals and takeaways. But it's still full of salt and sugar and additives.

Making a sauce from scratch is healthier and tastier.

I have a few jars in my cupboard if I can't be bothered cooking from scratch.

I don’t use jars as think it’s cheaper and healthier to just make sauces yourself with no added salt, sugar, sweetener, additives etc. I’m also conscious of how many veg portions kids get and it’s so easy to add in - my middle child is so fussy!

For a bolognaise sauce I roast peppers, tomatoes and mushrooms and then blitz with some passata, then cook onion and mince with grated carrot. 4 portions of veg there and no added nasty stuff. Ditto own pesto, just whizz up fresh ingredients. “Chips” are potatoes roasted in a little olive oil. And my kids love curry which is great as I throw all sorts of veg in the sauce before blitzing. Most of my meals take 10 mins to cook. Yes roasting veg takes 30 mins but 1 min to chop up then put in oven and forget about it.

I’m not a saint - we get takeaways but when I’m cooking at home it is homecooked.

This. Not all jars are the same so it totally depends.

So much sanctimony on this thread. I wonder how many of those preaching that it's so awful not to make everything from scratch have conditions or life circumstances that make it impossible to cook from scratch daily or batch cook every weekend. I'd have thought there'd be more understanding that it's hard for someone who's heavily pregnant too, given many of those who are responding will have presumably experienced this too. Sheesh, I've never been pregnant but I'm still able to understand it.

Some days I cook from scratch. Some days I use jars. I refuse to set myself targets that I will inevitably fail to meet on a regular basis. Life is hard enough.

I used a shop bought curry paste today.
I considered making my own but didn't have time (it's a weekend job really)).

Onion, ginger, garlic, tinned toms, the paste and chicken.

I regard that as a home cooked meal. I don't suppose it's much less healthy than if I had made the paste myself.

A) it won't, but you could do lots of different tomato based sauces with it. You can make a honey and mustard sauce with a jar of honey and a jar of mustard. Why do people think this takes hours?

B) by my definition it is. Canning and bottling is a pretty old method of preserving a glut fresh produce through the winter. If the only thing in the tin is tomatoes it's a scratch ingredient.

I don't know about anyone else but it takes me far longer than one minute to cut up, even roughly, the amount of veg for your bolognese sauce or enough chips for a family. I could try but they would get added finger.

I cook most things from scratch (allergies, not because I want to feel superior) but I always have a couple of pots of a decent curry sauce and some packs of micro rice in the cupboard. Along with tins of beans etc.

Because some days you need quick and tasty and everything has gotten away from you.

Not healthy. But not bad.

I could chop that in maybe 2 mins without losing a finger. But I cook most days from scratch because of allergies. You get faster the more you do it.

It's not a bad thing to fall back on and I love cooking from scratch and knowing what goes in my food.
Don't let it bother you xxx

I could try but they would get added finger.

I was peeling carrots with the potato peeler the other day and took a chunk out of my finger nail. I'd be lethal with a knife!

I’m time short and not worried about occasional short cuts. I buy the bags of ready prepared vegetables, fruit and salad - makes life much easier. Bags of chopped onions, frozen jacket potatoes and bags of grated cheese are my best friend!

it depends what’s in the jar!

This sounds a million times better then a takeaway.

And good on your for cooking when heavily pregnant whilst juggling a toddler!!!

Sorry but a Chicken Tonight jar isn't 'home cooked food'.

Yes, you've cooked it at home and it's not takeout - but it's pre prepared. Cooking from scratch is what the phrase means.

But Chicken Tonight is a tasty treat, what's the problem? It's good to have an easy meal night.

My parents made me the same meal every night for maybe a year at one point of my youth. Microwave rice, Lidl pasta sauce and bacon misshapes. I still don't know why!

Yeah it's was bit of a weird thread! The OP wanted solidarity etc and reassurance that chicken tonight is an ok meal but was also weirdly insistent it was something it wasn't, home cooked.

My parents randomly did frozen wedges, mushy peas and various beige shapes for about a year!

It’s fine! I use a jar now and again. I always add loads of egg (onions , peppers, mushroom, courgette and whatever else I fancy) which is what I’d do when making from scratch so I guess that’s not so bad is it??…

most jars are nowhere near as bad in terms of additives as in the olden days.

Same, I CBA either

I despise cooking, like hate it so much i lose appetite when i cook
I need my cooking to be fast, easy and no prep
Bring on every jar or shortcut i can get my hands on - we all still alive and rarely sick here

I would still call it home cooked. How far do you go? If the tomatoes are from a tin rather than bought and chopped by yourself is that not home cooked? What about if you use frozen mixed veg or peppers that haven't been chopped by you?

I wouldn't worry about what anyone else thinks. You know the time pressures your family faces, you are pregnant and working full time so understandably time and energy is short. Do whatever works for you.

As you asked, I use shop bought passatta in pasta (whit sauce I prefer to make myself) but otherwise I make my own marinades and make curries from scratch. I will use naan made by my dh's aunt and I make roti or rice by scratch.I work 2 days a week though, have 2 kids in school and a toddler that still naps. I do have time to cook.