To ask the most useless "convenience" food you've ever purchased

[EveryDayIsADuvetDay]

I recently added oven chips to an online shop, not realising they weren't pre-coated with oil.
Given that I prefer skin-on fries why do they always cost more? I'd effectively bought a bag of expensive sliced up potato.
On the plus side, it has made me realise that buying oven chips is a total waste of time, particularly as I have very limited freezer space.
What's the daftest "convenience" food have you purchased before realising it's a total waste of money?

I’m a huge fan of anything which saves time and always buy grated cheese, prepared vegetables and fruit, pancake and cake mix (love these), pasta sauces, packet rice. The more like this supermarkets provide, I’ll buy them!

@BarbaraofSeville

I've never own a deep fat fryer. I just take a couple of potatoes and cut them up into chips. Put them in the oven on parchment paper with a little oil, salt and pepper. Best with garlic mayo 😋

This thread has me going out to get potatoes today!

At the end of a long day when I have rushed home from work, picked the DC up at the last possible minute from after school club and have generally lost the will live, 100% I am not chopping a potato and breading my own chicken goujons when I can throw oven chips and nuggets in the oven.

Most days I will cook something nourishing from scratch that the DC will complain about, but in the ‘fuck it’ days it’s oven chips all the way.

Grated cheese is actually useful because you can freeze it if you are buying in bulk.. which I discovered when I was isolating due to covid and there were no supermarkets with delivery slots.. had to turn to catering company deliveries. But the items they sold were in very large quantities so bought the cheeses pre grated so I could just chuck some of it in the freezer in its bag when it arrived.

I think theres a time and a place for convenience things, the issue is when convenience foods become the only foods someone consumes.

I work 12 -10 pm Tuesday to Saturday in a supermarket. Most days I get a 30 min tea break at about 4.30pm and a 15 min break at about 7pm.
I tend to eat a late breakfast and a quick snack before work so I like to have a hot meal at tea time. Some days I just cba to faff with pre-preparing things so I chuck a frozen potato, small tin of beans and ziplock bag with a bit of cheese; a pouch of micro rice and tin of chilli orsome other convenience food into my lunch bag and call it a day. It takes a couple of minutes in the microwave at work and I get a hot meal.

Additionally for those days where it's been too busy to get a full tea break in one go and and so I just grab a sandwich on one of my 10 minute breaks, having frozen jacket potatoes means I can get in from work and have something hot made in less than 5 minutes from walking in the door.

I love frozen spinach. Dead useful to shove in a sauce and an easy way to add some green veg to tortellini.

Carrot batons are the worst. They are always the most insipid carrots and the cut surface goes all horrible. If I don't have a knife handy I'd much rather eat a carrot whole.

Quick cook rice cooks in 9 minutes.

Same package non quick cook rice was cheaper and cooks in 8 minutes

I like the frozen baked potatoes as I love the skin really crispy and it saves them going off if we don’t get round to eating them (happens a few weeks ago). The worst thing is hatred tomato sauces for pasta, so sickly sweet and really full of sugars and salt. I make my own and freeze it. Tastes much better.

@Unicant

Frozen spinach. Just breaks up and slips thru the holes in the steamer or collinder.. and somehow has even less quantity than cooked fresh spinach... its like anti matter

I love adding frozen spinach to a curry at the end of the cooking. You're right in that is disappears to nothing, but it's all in the curry so don't lose the vitamins or flavour. I wouldn't use it as I would fresh spinach.

Frozen soup. Tried it once it took forever to cook in the microwave and tasted no different from tinned. I could chop vegetables and make real soup quicker.

Also don't understand pancake or cake mix especially when you have to add an egg and/or oil. As said upthread it's just flour and sugar.

I do buy ready chopped frozen onions though.

Pre grated cheese tastes horrible due to being rolled in flour.

Frozen sprouts,broccoli and spinach,and ready made mashed potato, all tasteless and rubbish.

@bonbonours - some of the pancake and cake mix only need water to be added so really easy and taste great. I rarely have flour and sugar so the mix is perfect.

I used to think that a lot of stuff was just a waste of time. Then my disabled son moved into his own place and a lot of those things really help him. Even simple things like making a sandwich are hard for him.

Oh I also really hate tinned soup. They all taste terrible. The one glorious exception to this is Heinz cream of tomato.

I only ever use jar sauces, pre chopped veg and fruit, oven chips, microwave rice, grated cheese and ready meals. If I want pie, pizza, cake or pancakes I buy them ready made so have no need to have flour or other cooking ingredients in my house. I’d be lost without convenience foods as I have arthritis in my hands and can’t grip knives or lift saucepans.

Every convenience food sold is essential to someone, otherwise they wouldn’t bother making it!

Definitely the pancake mix. My brother and I raced one year and mine from scratch took 8 seconds longer than his.

I am NEVER that short of time.

I love tinned soup!!

I swear to god that microwave breakfast is not convenient nor essential to anyone anywhere... it doesnt resemble a real cooked breakfast in the slightest.. the 'bacon' can only be described as plasticy limp ham... I think its a cruel joke
Only bought by very drunk people once and never again
Its not even cheap
You can get much cheaper ready meals which aren't an insult to human existence

Obviously decent microwave ready meals are essential for people who are disabled or have other issues meaning cooking with an oven or hob is not doable for them

I don't really understand the point of frozen baked potatoes for the microwave when you can just use a microwave to cook a potato from raw. Am I missing something?!

We find the quality is less of a hit or a miss. The bigger potatoes for baking often ended up soggy or hard in the middle. Apart from one bad bag, we’ve had fluffy, perfect potatoes from frozen every time.

I've never bought them, but I see some dreadful things in childrens' lunchboxes at work every day and truly despair. No amount of

Processed self-assembly crap wrapped in plastic, sticky sweet crap purporting to be healthy because it's got fruit in it, salty crap that is apparently a healthy choice because it's 'baked not fried', yoghurts stiff with added crap in bizarre plastic packs so there's no need to bother packing a spoon.

One benefit of pre-grated cheese is the starch it's coated in (usually corn or potato starch) makes melted cheese sauces like béchamel and mac & cheese smoother. Just heat it gently so it doesn't get clumpy. The grated mozzarella/mozzarella and cheddar blends are also good on homemade pizza, because the mozzarella has a lower water content, so if you're going for a thin & crispy pizza it doesn't make the base soggy.

My brother and I raced one year and mine from scratch took 8 seconds longer than his.

Including getting everything out and measuring ingredients? I find that hard to believe. Sure it’s not going to take hours, but 8 seconds seems unlikely.

Most of these convenience options work better for DD with her disability. I’m glad they exist for her.

Ah I love frozen fruit!!! Although I don't ever have it just as is and don;t think that's the point. I make smoothies with it (acts like fruit and ice all in one to make a nice frapuccino style drink) or have it in porridge (it defrosts in the microwave with the porridge adn then the mushy gooeyness is nice).

I also use a lot fo pre-chopped frozen veg but that's just because its easier for me to then buy in bulk, pre-chop myself (I don't buy them pre-chopped) and freeze in sandwich bags. Then when I'm making something, or an omelette or something i can just grab a handful of chopped onion, chopped mushroom and chopped peppers- they cook just as quick once you put them in the pan. and it keeps them as fresh as the day I bought them! Otherwise I feel I'd spend my life shopping!

Sorry but frozen vegetables are amazing, and sometimes give you a higher concentration of nutrients than fresh. Aldi’s frozen broccoli tastes delicious.

Things like breakfast in a can, convenient maybe, disgusting, yes. Also those ready made burgers yuck.

If I’m baking I do it from scratch as I enjoy it but if it’s baking with the dc I get packet mix because it’s easier & less messy but they still enjoy it (only 3yrs old)