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?

I have meat/fish and veg all the time - it's never plain though. Meat or fish seasoned with whatever I fancy, veg done how I want (sometimes with a sauce) and I normally have some kind of grain too.

The resurgence could be because of the growing trend of going back to basics and cooking from scratch over eating all the over processed rubbish?

Exactly. It doesn't have to be rubbery lamb chop, lumpy mash, soggy sprouts and shrivelled peas to be meat, carb, two veg.

This.

Artichoke with a wonderful sauce, followed by roast leg of lamb, perhaps cooked over thinly sliced garlicky potatoes, served with braised green beans is a great winter’s Sunday main meal. With a bottle of something red for us

I am omnivorous and don’t consider my tastes old fashioned. Some foods are classics for good reason.

Yum!!!
A spoonful of salsa verde and that's pretty much heaven for me!

I could be wrong, but isn't the classic French way of eating also meat (or fish), vegetables or salad, some form of carbohydrate (most commonly bread and/or potatoes in some form)?

We have meat and 2 or 3 veg most days. I do a roast most Sundays. Pork or lamb,chicken or beef, preferably sirloin when funds allow. Plus roast potatoes, roast parsnips,frozen peas or runner beans or carrots, scrumptious! May have rice or couscous or pasta in the week with chops or mince or fish. Don't like cooked cheese so no pizza for us. Have an Indian or Chinese takeaway now and again for a treat. Otherwise, no fast food.

That's exactly my thoughts two.

But there's a kind of unspoken implication in the phrase that it must be badly cooked and tasteless! So English, not french!

It's silly because it's a formula that often forms the basis of the very best French cooking in restaurants. Things like cassoulet and casseroles tend to be a little more homely.

Meat and two veg was a standard cooked meal for the "working man" when he returned home in the evening. Protein, carbs and vegetables. Probably far healthier than a lot of the "meals" we eat today.
Nothing wrong with meat and two veg if you like it.

Slightly outdated, but my dinners usually consist of protein, carbohydrate and three types of vegetables. This can apply to anything including pasta or rice dishes.

sorry too not two 🙄

I don’t eat any processed rubbish, had enough of that growing up, but I’m absolutely not interested in going back to traditional British food 😂

Absolutely fine if that’s what others want to do though obviously.

My parents (mid 80s) literally eat meals like that every evening and have done since the beginning of time. My mother preps the veg and dutifully boils or microwaves it (carrots, broccoli etc) and serves it with a plain pork chop or piece of steak. When I eat at their house it's like looking at a plate of sadness.

I can cook with the same ingredients but marinate the pork the night before and stir fry the veg with chilli, garlic and soy sauce. My dad starts salivating like Pavlov's dog when he's at mine 😅

Steak and kidney pie, potatoes, cabbage or broccoli. It's time I made just such a pie. It's a while since I did.

But you’re doing the same as the OP. The pork chop that your mother cooks doesn’t have to result in a plate of sadness, served unseasoned with microwaved vegetables. It could be cooked to perfection with juicy meat and crispy fat, served with a cider and sage sauce and carefully prepared vegetables. It isn’t true that the only way to make it appetising is to turn it into a stir fry, the issue is that your mother is a bad cook.

I think people don’t always want to do several step recipes, unlike the OP, and have the cooking skills and the palate to appreciate something like a simple perfectly cooked and seasoned fillet of fresh fish, maybe with a few capers and some lemon juice added to the buttery juices poured over some lightly steamed fresh vegetables. Delicious and quick.

Your dish sounds wonderful. But I don’t think @YelramBob was suggesting that their stir fries (which do, too) are the only way to make food good - only that plain overcooked meat and veg are sad.

A key difference I’ve noticed between even fairly high quality English restaurants and ordinarily good ones in France and Italy concerns the side veg. In England they are often served completely plain, and often overdone or underdone compared to what you get in France or Italy. On the Continent the veg will usually be cooked as a proper recipe.

The premise of the thread is that combining ingredients in multiple step recipes automatically creates better tasting results, and that it’s questionable why everyone doesn’t invariably eat like this now. The poster whose comment you have explained to me agreed and expanded on the point with an example. I disagree that this is the case and believe that bad cooking is the issue.

Restaurants in any location will often jazz up the veg as they want to charge extra for “sides”. Actually in Italy the Contorni may well still be fairly plain grilled or otherwise simply cooked vegetables which rely on quality to be enjoyed separately.

I think this is the key. You are vegan / vegetarian so meat and two veg is never going to appeal. When I cook vegetarian meals they are more likely to be a mixture, not that I often follow recipes but if the entire meal is veg based with vegetarian protein you need to do more to make it interesting.
So risottos, stir fries, curries, lentil burritos, dahl type things.

I think we agree that eg the Contorni may be fairly simple. But to be delicious it will usually involve some kind of finishing process and careful - even if simple - seasoning.

Same with the great French braised veg, such as carrots and green beans. High quality fresh veg, cooked in a small amount of water and a bit of lemon juice or white wine with a decent amount of butter and EVOO and a small amount of carefully chosen seasoning. Very simple The trick is that the liquid should evaporate just as the veg hits a perfect texture. The veg should all be lightly coated with the fat. It looks quite ordinary but most who eat it ask me for a recipe.

I love both simple, beautiful veg and more adventurous cooking. We do seem at risk of losing the former and to some extent I think restaurants are to blame. Places that execute simple food beautifully are becoming scarce.

Also when entertaining at home people have come to equate novelty with sophistication, which I think a mistake

I’m absolutely not interested in going back to traditional British food

I'm the opposite. Today I had a roast and sticky toffee pudding and I couldn't be happier.

Sorry I didn’t explain very clearly when I said that, I was vegetarian from about 10, living on a farm I just refused any kind of meat after I fully understood. Went vegan as a teenager and remained that way until up until about three years ago. I do eat meat now or the whole thread would be utterly silly!

You might be right that it’s left over from being vegetarian though, as that’s how I learned to cook. All my food was made interesting as I got better at cooking, I got used to a lot of flavour and spice so any food that isn’t in some way ‘jazzed up’ just doesn’t appeal to me.

Makes lots of sense. I think though the way you’re talking about it eg “all my food was made interesting as I got better at cooking” - this doesn’t necessarily equate to lots of spice and complexity. Great cooking is also about letting excellent ingredients speak for themselves, knowing how to perfectly cook a piece of fish, how to marinate a piece of meat and cook it to perfection. Actually enjoying the taste of the carrots for themselves, rather than always shredding them up with a lovely Vietnamese dressing or something. There’s space for simple perfection as well as delicious complexity. No space at all for a dry pork chop though - that can get in the bin!

Yep. For our evening meal it’s usually meat (or protein) with a carb - pasta/noodles/potato and one or two vegetables as a minimum - and usually a sauce or gravy seperate if not already part of the dish (curry/pasta/stew)

What would you eat?

Most meals are a combination of protein, veg, plant based sides, its all the same

However since the dreaded 50s, while our diet has supposedly improved, obesity levels have gone through the roof. There is a lot to be said for basic food that people turn their noses up at.

Roast chicken, peas and carrots with roast and mashed potatoes and gravy.
Pork steaks broccoli and carrots with baby potatoes with skins on.
We eat other meals too like a stir-fry or a spaghetti Bolognese.