Microwave only food on holiday

[Platypusdiver]

We are on holiday with a microwave and a fridge. We don't want to eat evening meals out every night. Also we don't want to eat ultraprocessed microwave meals from the local supermarket.

Can anyone suggest ideas. Thanks!

Salads, jacket potatoes, shop bought quiche, baguettes, cheese and biscuits, things from a deli.

There is not much choice is there? I have stayed away with this set up and ended up buying ready meals for three meals, eating out for a couple and then having soup heated in the microwave. Not ideal but it was only for a week. I am not a fan of heating the meal in the plastic container but I had to.
You could scramble eggs in the microwave.
My mum used to do a chicken in breadcrumbs with tomatoes from scratch in the microwave when I was a child.

Google microwave cooking. I bet there are recipes.

Salads with dried fruit, olives, cauliflower , broccoli etc. (there was a recent thread on chat)

Cous cous, just add boiling water and spices, dried fruit, olives, beans.

Rice sachets

Sachets of dal with added beans and tinned or microwaved veg.

You can cook carrots, green beans, Brussel sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower in the microwave.

Tinned lentils, tinned tomatoes, tinned beans/chickpeas, microwaved veg, spices, to make a curry.

Hummus and bread.

Tuna pasta
Couscous with tuna, cucumber, feta
Microwaved scrambled eggs
Pasta with pesto and cooked chicken slices
Bean burrito bowl-Rice, salsa, black beans, avocado
Jacket potato and cottage cheese etc

Can you buy an oven?

Supermarket rotisserie chicken with salads?

What kind of microwave is it? A lot of holiday lets have the type that grill as well as heat so you can do quite a lot with them.

Salmon fillet cooks nicely in a microwave - you could have it with salad and microwave rice or mini potatoes. Or if you didn’t want to have the plastic pots of rice/ potato then just a packet of flavoured couscous (put in a bowl and add hot water)

An air fryer might be worth it. You could probably justify the cost on the amount saved in a single restaurant meal compared with cooking in the accommodation.

But not all ready meals are ultra processed. M&S do a couple of versions that are just protein and veg, so if there's one of them nearby, that could be an option, but they are quite expensive - £6-7 each.

Sometimes you can find ready made curries that aren't mass manufactured, eg on counters in Asian supermarkets or specialist shops, but obviously area dependent, you'd not find these in rural Devon for example.

What about Cook? Their food isn't UPF and some will be microwaveable, but it will take a while to microwave individual meals for a family.

Is there a toaster? A freezer? One of my go to breakfasts (Mumsnet orthorexics look away now) is omelette, baked beans and potato waffles done in the toaster, so you could replace the omelette with microwaved scrambled eggs if there's no hob.

Have a picnic/deli meal so cold food only. Cheese, serrano ham, nice bread, olives, mariated artichokes etc.

But tbh, I think you're making life a bit hard for yourself. It's not possible to totally avoid UPF and some ready meals are quite nice even if you generally avoid ready made food. I'm thinking the nicer/more expensive ones eg Taste the Difference/Finest. Most supermarkets do a ready made paella that's quite nice, also curries and some pasta dishes. As a one off, that's what I'd buy.

Good idea. Some supermarkets (Morrisons especially) do hot food counters where you can buy cooked food ready to eat. They also do pies baked in store that you could serve with microwave mash and veg and instant gravy (another non MN meal).

Can you just get bread, cheeses, olives, salad, meats etc and have a kind of deli spread? Don't really need hot food as it's summer anyway?

Or you could put together a lovely chicken caesar salad as a full meal. With dressing, anchovies and croutons it is very filling.

But some people like hot food. Some of the suggestions on this thread like microwaved baked potatoes or cold quiche sound like punishment food to me.

This! (Also it really does depend on whether you’re on holiday in Ayr, Bournemouth or Greece…)

Sure, it's just a suggestion. OP didn't say they needed it to be hot and with just a microwave there's not a huge amount you can do.

If I wanted to avoid processed food in that situation I would just eat mainly cold food and salads tbh.

Someone upthread mentioned cous cous. You could enhance that by adding chick peas, cubed feta, tomatoes, herbs, cucumber, red onion.

Fresh soup and bread
Rice and Dahl
There are lots of pasta pouches in the supermarket - processed yes, UPF no

Similarly you could make nachos with pouches of beans - they are in the same place in the supermarket.
Baked beans and bread
Eggs - scrambled when stirred - omelette when not.
Are you away now? Another time make and freeze food at home for reheating when away - curry and chilli works well

Did you know the accommodation only had a microwave when you booked it? Seems an odd choice if you don't want to eat out every night.

An oven? They are on holiday for goodness sake, of course they are not going to buy an oven

Rice based meals are pretty good in a microwave- risotto, jambalaya etc (https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/microwave-jambalaya).

I always cook my rice in the microwave- about 200g of rice, tsp salt, 400g boiling water. Full power for 15 minutes then stand in microwave for 10 minutes. then separate the grains with a fork. You can add frozen vegetables, spices, chorizo etc. so savoury rice is easily done.

Eggs are good in the microwave so breakfast can be sorted. Scrambled eggs are easy and you can also crack an egg in a mug, pierce the yolk with a knife (to stop it exploding). Microwave in 30 second bursts and then you can serve in a bap. Bacon can be microwaved too. Shakshuka is also straightforward to prepare and you can serve with crusty bread.

I had a whole year with a microwave and fridge.
I bought a microwave steamer. Rice pouches, fillets of salmon , frozen veg with flavourings added .
Jacket potatoes
ready meals heated up

It was fine really

Nachos. Plenty of tortilla chips are UPF free and then you could top with cheese, avocado, onion, sour cream, refried beans etc.

Jacket potatoes. I would prefer them cooked in an oven but needs must.

Soup and baguette.

Lots of deli style meals......cheese, crackers, salads, sliced meat etc.

You can get microwave pouches of rice and daal that are UPF free.

Ramen style noodle bowls. Get some thin rice noodles that you just pour boiling water on to cook. Bit of miso paste, soy sauce, few drops of sesame oil, thinly sliced veg etc.

Are you there now? In the UK? I’d try and get a delivery from Field Doctor - healthy, UPF free microwave meals from frozen. Or if no freezer where you are, maybe Frive - similar thing but you store in the fridge.

Soup with crusty bread - you can choose a soup that isn't over-processed.

Pasta can be cooked in the microwave (google for timings), so pasta with your non-UPF sauce/topping of choice - cheese can just be sprinkled on, you could have tinned tomatoes or passata, or tuna out of a tin.

Lots of salad/cold meat options as pps have suggested.

We stay in a caravan which has an oven and microwave, but we don't use the oven as we want quick and easy meals, and that's the sort of thing we have. Last time we used the grill once for cheese on toast and that was it - everything else was cold or in the microwave.

Bearing in mind it's a holiday I don't think you need to feel bad if you include the odd ready-meal in your meal-planning. Last holiday we had a microwaved curry one night and ate out one night; another day we had fish and chips at lunchtime so we didn't need an evening meal as such, we just had some crackers and yoghurt for supper; the other days we did pasta or salad/cold meat options.

Things I try to avoid on holiday are multiple trips to the supermarket, wasted food or lugging loads of uneaten food back home. I find it really worthwhile doing a rough meal plan before I go, factoring in how often we plan to eat out, and making a shopping list, then we do a supermarket shop on the day we arrive and have done with it.

Many ready meals arent ultraprocessed

But in any case there is rice you can make in the microwave, mix that up with some chicken/chorizo/ham/bacon/prawns or whatever with chopped veg

Or scrambled egg

Or pasta and sauce

Or salads/picky bits, olives, fruit, crackers etc

New potatoes in sauce or salad with cooked chicken or fish

Smoked salmon etc

WTF!!!!

Op where are you? UK, Europe or farther afield? We can help you better if we know which part of the world you are in.