Meat and Two Veg?

[theclassroom]

Completely random thing to post I know, so I hope it’s in the right place. Who, in 2025, still eats ‘meat and two veg’? It’s something I haven’t heard of in a very long time and when I did hear it growing up it was always from elderly people (or a joke about men’s private parts…)

I know it was a traditional way to eat in the past but I can’t imagine ever choosing to making it. I don’t love traditionally British food of any kind, besides fish and chips and maybe mashed potatoes, so I’m probably not the target audience but I’m hearing it around again.

I don’t like a Sunday roast either but it seems much better than a dinner of meat and two veg. I don’t know, the name and the food itself depresses me. 😩

So if you still eat it, what makes you choose it over the many cuisines and dishes available I guess?

My parents are obsessed with this. It’s not a ‘proper’ dinner if it’s not meat and two veg. They are mid sixties but very old fashioned. Was never allowed to eat spaghetti bolognaise or pasta as a child as its wasn’t ’proper’. Now get judged constantly about the meals I cook DC 😂 I would rather look at fruit / veg / protein intake over the day than individual meals

So your question is not about “meat and two veg”. It’s about badly cooked unseasoned food. Which very few people like.

So your question is not about “meat and two veg”. It’s about badly cooked unseasoned food. Which very few people like.

This is exactly what I've been thinking but wasn't sure how to put it.

I grew up in the meat-and-2-veg 50s before pasta, rice, traybakes etc were even a thought. Now, for our main meal, we'll have a carb (potato based, rice or pasta), a protein (chicken, beef, sausages, fish or eggs) and at least a couple of veg components. Do these meals count as meat and 2 veg? I think they do but, apart from a roast, they rarely resemble my mum's meals.

Salmon with Brocoli and new potatoes
Steak with chips and peas
Chicken breast with sautéed potato's and Brocoli
Mince beef with mash and Carrots

What are you eating?

I’m surprised at how many people don’t seem to know that traditionally “meat and two veg” included potatoes as one of the vegetables.

The whole “potatoes aren’t a vegetable” thing has been a relatively recent phenomenon, after messaging around eating portions of fruit and veg excluded potatoes as a source of nutrients within that context.

So yes, when thinking of a traditional “meat and two veg” meal, it could include steak, chips and broccoli or sausages, mash and peas for example.

I suppose the butter chicken with spinach i make it technically meat and 2 veg if you include the onions.
I make quite a lot of traybakeks and if I put meat in then those are also meat and 2 (or even 3) veg

This is a good point, my mother rejected anything traditionally British, or motherly, and I didn’t experience/eat a lot of ‘British things’ until getting with my DH but now he never wants those things either.

Bless her, that’s very old school and cute 🥰

I made a list up the thread somewhere of common meals in my house, essentially they're specific recipes with multiple steps, usually combining the food into something. We rarely eat a protein with vegetables on the side, none of us like meat that much I think- I never want a whole slab of it.

No that’s just why I’m biased against Sunday lunch! We don’t really eat any protein with vegetables on the side, they’re always in a recipe.

It’s actually not at all, I was just curious about what other people are eating and why I was hearing it. There’s no need to look too much into it.

I regularly eat meat/fish and vegetables. It just means that I don't have to put much thought into cooking after a long day at work, as it can be left to cook/boil on its own while I shower! I also grew up on that kind of diet, so it is my version of normal.

Even if I have cottage pie or pizzas, it always includes meat and more than one type of vegetable.

I am usually, however, guilty of eating more than two vegetables at a time. If I'm using my slow cooker, it's usually one kind of meat and 7+ types of vegetables (healthy eating, y'know... and it is a 6.5 litre slow cooker, so it's a good way to top it up!)

That’s so lovely, especially that you still do it when she’s home. ❤️

You've reminded me of examples of things I’ve never eaten and forgotten about like fish pie, scampi, ham egg and chips- I remember people eating these growing up but not me. I did have a Shepard's pie/cottage pie a few times at a friend’s house.

My friends dad used to make kedgeree, I’m not sure how traditional that is, I’ve only just remembered it existed, but it was my favourite.

My grandparents were like this, and my DM the same. Still sort of is.

She's very well travelled though, and what always confuses me is when she's in ie Italy and sees an entire nation eating things like pasta with sauces, fish and salad etc does she just think everyone isn't eating 'proper' food. She's never been able to give me a proper answer

But you did say:

I’m very picky with a roast but there’s definitely a way to do it, my Grandmother’s roasts were lovely. My DH’s (absolutely lovely and wonderful) family ruined them for me I think. When we lived there it was a roast every Sunday consisting of boiled vegetables and undercooked roast potatoes. I could happily never look at a tub of Bisto gravy ever again honestly so I may not be a fair judge.

So, you weren't biased against a properly cooked roast only against ones containing things like undercooked roast potatoes and Bisto gravy.

So if you still eat it, what makes you choose it over the many cuisines and dishes available I guess?
To answer your original question, personally I don't choose it over the many cuisines and dishes available, I cook it as well. This Sunday we're having steak and kidney pie, last Sunday I did various Indian dishes with puris (I'm quite proud of my puffy puris).
I enjoyed cooking lots of different things so wouldn't take any one particular thing/style out of my repertoire.

Kedgeree is a British version of the kind of food they saw when they went out to India in the days of the Raj. I believe in India the dish they were copying would have been rice, lentils or beans, onions and spices. Back in the UK (and probably in the houses of the British while they were in India) that got turned into a dish of onions fried in butter with a little mild curry powder and then mixed with cooked rice, chopped parsley, hard-boiled eggs, flaked cooked smoked fish, a squeeze of lemon and (often) a little cream. In a stately home it might have been served for breakfast. In more recent times it became an evening meal dish in its own right. Not sure how popular it is now, but I love it. I make it with smoked haddock and would probably add mushrooms to fry with the onions.

I'm with you OP and this is exactly us. Other than steak (which we never cook at home as to us that's a firm 'restaurant' order) or a salmon fillet we rarely have a slab of meat with plain veggies on the side. I can't think of anything worse than dry pork or lamb chops with no sauce. We have a lot of slow cooker type meals, Pasta with sauces, curries and rice etc. I don't mind a good roast every now and then but wouldn't enjoy it every week.

No, I think the spuds are just assumed - chips, mash, roasters, baked spud, dauphois, boiled new potatoes, warm potato salad with salsa verde, that sort of stuff.

Pie, mash, peas and broccoli are one of my 19yo' favourite comfort dinners. Pork escalopes, chicken wrapped in sage and pancetta, any of a hundred ways to cook beef in a rich sauce or gravy to serve with gratin potatoes and green veg - all things DH has quite regularly.

I don't eat meat, so mine is either fish or something I cook for both of us that he has accompanied by meat.

We do a roast every Sunday

We have 6 kids between us - 2 left at home. We do the big roast to get everyone round the table.

we don’t each as much meat as we did when the kids were young and eat a lot more beans/lentils but meat and 2 veg was v much how we ate 20 years ago!

Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g

Not sure how popular it is now, but I love it

I make kedgeree reasonably often (once every six weeks maybe) as DH is particularly fond of it.

It's basically the only way I can feed my eldest without resorting to beige. I am pescatarian and cook a lot of veggie/vegan food for me but my eldest has a lot of sensory aversions with food so I basically do:

Salmon, broccoli and mash, with cherry tomatoes
Grilled chicken, sweetcorn and rice, with cherry tomatoes
Decent quality burgers with potato wedges, sweetcorn and tomatoes, cucumbers
Sausage, mash, baked beans and tomatoes.
Casserole (all onions and texture blended) with beef, potatoes and carrots.

It would bore me (and I dont eat most of this, being pesc) but I've decided it's fine if she's happy. The alternative would be freezer food or pizza for her, which we do use sometimes, but for a fussy/sensory averse child i think there are worse ways to eat and she also eats a lot of fruit. She's 14 and younger sibling is 11 and is a lot more culinary adventurous, so it is quite particular to her

Try steak with fries and roasted green peppers, you'll change your mind!

Im irish and we would have the traditional meat and veg many times a week..

I agree.

I never understand how people seem to consume so much upf and I think it's because we still work broadly on a meat. carb and at least two vegetable system for meals.

To me that's just how a balanced meal is put together.

We do eat meals like lasagne or curries a night or two a week, but mostly we would have a meal like one or two fish fillets (one of, say, salmon, but two of small sea bass fillets), steamed new potatoes with a knob of butter, then steamed broccoli and asparagus with chopped almonds and lemon juice, maybe some steamed baby carrots.

Or pesto stuffed chicken fillets with roasted mediterranean vegetables, including olive oil roasted potato chunks, roast cherry tomatoes, aubergine, onion and peppers.

Those are both meat, carb, 2 + veg structured meals and we eat like that more nights than not each week.

Last night I was out for dinner and ordered venison loin which came with a lovely jus (so not far off a gravy of a meat, carb two veg "classic"), a small square of potato gratin, savoy cabbage and baby carrots.

Again, meat, carb two veg.

Just because they might not be plonked "not touching" on the plate (the venison was served on a bed of savoy with the jus drizzled over) doesn't mean that's not fundamentally a meat, carb, two veg meal.

Well tonight I am having sausages, carrots, mash and green beans, and I have just made a red onion gravy so meat and two veg is alive in my home.