If it says chicken in the label...

[Pickleypickles]

Chicken should be a main part of the dish!!
Just had a ready meal chicken and bacon pasta bake and it had ONE small piece of chicken in.
I feel ripped off 🙁

I make all my meals from scratch so knows what is in them - pasta bakes are so easy and you can make sure it is chicken

Ready meals are also great if you have a four month old baby, it's 8pm and you realise you haven't eaten yet today....but thanks for the insight.

Order a takeaway next time !

Yanbu. I bought a bag of 4 donuts and it had 3 donuts. It was at a petrol station so I was never going back.
This was around Christmas and I'm still smarting hate being ripped off.

Nah don't bother cooking from scratch...just buy two ready meals then you'd get two pieces of chicken.

And it was probably chicken that had been boiled in brine first to bulk it out and alter the texture, before being chopped up. Ready meals with chicken in are usually grim.

OP. YANBU some ready meals are dreadful for that - lots of filler. I try to look at the back and see the percentage of the ingredients.

Senior I'd love to be capable of making all my meals but we can't all do it for all sorts of reasons. Your comment just makes me feel inadequate.

That's rubbish. Where was it from? You should complain.

Since it said 'chicken' you got one piece. Otherwise it would have said 'chickens'.

Reminds me of the time I ordered a spicy seafood pasta in a restaurant. A huge mound of overcooked dried pasta doused liberally with a spicy tomato sauce and 3 miniscule shrimps on the top. They were maybe 1% of the dish but were given equal weighting in the title.

I once bought a posh garlic baguette, got it home to find it was just a baguette. Still upset 2 years later.

Like a cheeseburger 🍔 with no cheese ☹

Ooh! I saw a daytime tv programme about this. The one with Gloria Hunniford and the other golden girls. Or was is super savvy shoppers? Anyway, the % of meat that they are allowed to put in and still call it chicken is scandalous.

Iceland do ready meals with meat in as far as I recall

I love that the first post was basically telling you off. I'm surprised someone else hasn't made a sneery comment about the fat content in ready made meals or whatever. Typical MN.

Anyway, YANBU. I hate it when this happens, such a let down. I find that ready meals are really stingy with their meat.

Why are people sneering about the ready meal?

The OP didn't say she lives on them (but none of your business anyway if she does!).

Maybe she hasn't had time to cook, worked long hours, whatever.

YANBU OP that's annoying.

I cook everything from scratch... except for the first six months of dd's life when I was caring for her 24/7 alone. If it hadn't been for ready meals I would have starved. So less of the judgemental comments! And YANBU, one piece of chicken does not justify it advertising itself as a chicken dish. Unless it was a very large piece.

Who was sneering at the ready meal? My comment about the chicken being grim anyway was meant to make the OP feel that she hadn't missed out. Btw most ready meals are pretty low in fat these days. A supermarket ready meal curry is much lower in fat than a takeaway one for example.

That's rubbish OP, I would be super pissed off. Ignore the sneery comments, ready meals all the time isn't great but it isn't going to kill you ffs. DP and I lived off takeaways or ready meals for the first 6 month after having dd or so, cooking with a not very good sleeping baby is just too much. I had HG so couldn't cook without vomiting from the smell so doing the mumsnet tip of cooking loads of freezer meals in late pregnancy was impossible for me and DP had nowhere to put anything he could cook as we were living at my parents there was no space!

I find that the finest/taste the different or whatever range tend to be more generous with the meat content. Or just supplement with some pre cooked slices of chicken, I had those around for shoving in a wrap with some spinach for quick easy protein you can eat with one hand.

YANBU it's something I hate about ready meals. I'd write a letter to the brand. There's usually an address on the packaging as they want to know if your unsatisfied. Well they say they want to know...

As for that first comment about cooking your own meals. Sure in an ideal world we would all have time. We don't. Shove your selfrighteousness up your are and let it stay there.

OP I lived on takeaways and ready meals with DD1 for a variety reasons. They're not great but you do what you can. You are definitely NBU to be anniyed at rhe lack of chicken.

Beans on toast would be more nutritious, cheaper and just as ray as a ready meal.

*easy

Ah yes AndNow, but baked beans are fucking disgusting...

OP I'd also feel aggrieved! I just ate a ready meal (Morrisons ones are actually pretty delicious surprisingly!) and was pleasently suprised at the amount of chicken! One piece would thoroughly piss me off!

Maybe grab a rotisserie chicken and make sandwiches with that. Add some coleslaw and it's positively healthy .

It's even worse when you end up disappointed with a meal when it's one of the few downtime bits of the day.

The only ready meal I recall really enjoying was a Tesco green curry or similar that had lots of peanuts, but it was pretty pricey.

YANBU.

Could you write/email the shop where you got it from? Won't help you at the time but you might get a voucher for the shop to make up for the lack of chicken.