To think cooking a roast every weekend is completely unnecessary

[ChristmasAlone]

Stems from a conversation I just had, I'm cooking a roast at the moment and mentioned it was the first one I've cooked this year. I love a roast, but just think cooking one every weekend (I know it's Monday) just feels completely unnecessary and takes away from its beauty if you're having every Sunday.

I think what I don’t like about a Sunday roast (in some cases, I’m not trying to generalise) is when it’s insisted that all the family come round with no regard for the fact that maybe one weekend they might want to do something else.

I do a big roast every Sunday. Best day of the week 😜

Always a winner in my household with the kids and husband.

We have a roast every Sunday. It's a sure fire winner with everyone and you can vary it by rotating the choice of meat.

I love a roast. Love love love.

@CuriousaboutSamphire

A man getting his just reward from his woman... says a non roast eating man!!??!!

Oddly many women found their way out if the 1950s. As others have said DH makes a good roast, so the more erm, misogynistic view or a Sunday roast isn't ubiquitous!

And yes, I do cook on the bbq! 😁

I grew up in a house where my father expected sunday roast, and my mother cooked it because housewives feed their husbands! My mother - incidentally - gave up vegetarianism after getting married to save herself having to cook two meals. Obviously my dad eating vegetarian food or cooking for himself were not even vaguely realistic alternatives.

Roast dinners aren't as hard to make as they first appear to many, but they are a faff and I think a big reason for their weekly appearance is that they are a tradition that persists that is rooted in the "good old days" of well-behaved housewives, and that a big part of the reason that the tradition has lasted (like men being the ones to drive the family in the car) is that eating meat and operating machinery are the sorts of things inherent in an old-fashioned approach to what makes a man.

We enjoy roasts on Sundays except in summer when we usually bbq or something else like pulled pork and salads. Essentially Sunday lunch is a bit of an occasion that we all enjoy as a family and DCs have always looked forward to this growing up especially if there's homemade pudding too If it doesn't work because we are busy out then it's no big deal. What I don't get is people who absolutely must have a roast even if it's 30 degrees outside. Typically this is being dictated by a man who doesn't actually have to do any of the cooking himself.

I find the washing up a faff.My dishwasher goes on loads of times on a Sunday.

I love this thread - at the heart of it is that we are imagining something different when we hear the word 'roast'!

For me a roast dinner is any main meal where the main protein is a piece of roasted meat (and I will stretch that to a whole chicken grilled on the BBQ as the meat result is pretty much the same)

For me it comes with 2-3 veg (can be simpleroasted veg, or steamed veg) and a starch - usually potatoes either simple roasts or mash, but boiled new potatoes in Spring meet the cut. And occasionally if out of potatoes rice works for us too.

We rarely eat beef but if we did I might do Yorkshires as a special treat.

(we usually have a salad with every meal here but that's just to get extra veg in us and not what I think of as a core component of the roast)

I don't think of my weekly roast meals as the same as the BIG roast dinners of Christmas / New Year / Easter etc - where I do the proper, faffy roast potatoes, fancy roasted veg like honeyed parsnips, or roast brussels with bacon and chesnuts etc, little sausages wrapped in bacon. Now those meals take a while to prep for, and clean up after.

Simple roasts for every week do not take long at all and use hardly any pans.

We do usually have a roast,don’t normally cook anything else on a Sunday but every few weeks we might go out for dinner/ take away

We sometimes have a "roast" chicken mid week . Roasted, in that it is an entire bird, roasted in the oven, but it usually isn't the classic, as we will have mixed roasted veg with it, maybe a baked potato. That's just a normal mid week meal for us, easy peasy. Only very occasionally will we have a "proper" roast, usually beef, on a Sunday, with standard roast potatoes, many veg, and gravy. I like it, but not enough to do it often. Again, with roast lamb, it is usually just served with mini roast potatoes, and roasted veg, not always with gravy. Roasts are really easy, and not terribly special tbh.

I think that in the UK - a country famous for only having come up with one edible meal in it's entire history - fish and chips - people eat disgusting food and have a weird obsession with having the most disgusting of their disgusting food every single week, probably because that fits very nicely with man getting his proper reward from his woman for doing all the hard work all week.

I hate when people seem to think that they are the only person in the country who is sophisticated enough to eat anything better than the rest of the population who eat such ‘disgusting’ food.

Of course it isnt necessary, i think perhaps you mean expected? We only have a roast probably every other week, and often midweek

I don't do them every week but depending on what you have its hardly a big stress. Roast chicken or lamb is super easy. I use frozen potatoes although sometimes do roasted veg instead. Always make a stuffing with chicken. Chicken is my main roast, sometimes lamb, rarely pork or beef. Once or twice gammon. I suppose I do it at least once or twice a month but I like variety. I often do a big meal but not a roast. I might roast chicken thighs as well and serve that with all the trimmings.

A roast does me for at least 2 meals.

Why is this AIBU?

So if you hate them so much why have one on Christmas Day? Liberate yourself

Because somebody else has taken the time and effort to cook it. It's only once a year so not worth making a fuss about. I believe it's what's known as being polite.

I like having a roast on a Sunday in colder weather as Sunday is probably the only day I'm at home most of the day. We like it. Saying that pre covid and when my Grandma was alive we used to eat out with my family most Sundays and I would have a variety of things.

On hot Sundays we might stick the bbq on and be in the garden all afternoon or have a salad.

If people love them though then I can't see it as unnecessary, surely everyone just have what they like.

I have wine every Saturday and I know a lot of Mumsnetters think that is shocking and totally unnecessary but I'd say do what ever you want.

I work with a women who couldn’t understand that I don’t cook a roast on a Sunday. I don’t mean surprised, she genuinely couldn’t understand it. When she found out I didn’t cook a Sunday roast then the only thing she could think was that we go out for one. When I told her that we usually either go out for breakfast so don’t eat again until tea time or we eat something that isn’t a roast she just couldn’t understand.

I grew up never having a Sunday roast. My mother’s very reasoned argument was that everyone else has the day off so why shouldn’t she. Also no one has done anything to warrant such a big meal. And with a family of just 3 it really wasn’t worth doing.

I live in a country where lot of families have roast on sunday, but we do not have gravy with a roast, just meat, roast potatoes, broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, onions. I'll have to try and make a gravy once, and yorkshire puddings, they look amazing.

I do one probably every couple of weeks, but I'm always surprised at people complaining it's a 'faff'. A bit like Christmas dinner.

I would generally say it's probably one of the simplest things to do - you literally just shove things in the oven and roast them. It's an awful lot less faffy than a great many 'ordinary' meals.

I'm looking at you, lasagna...

We have one most weeks but change the meat & veg, so a roast chicken is served with different veg than beef for instance. Always have gravy and mostly Yorkshire puds though.

I also agree it doesn't take that long, well not my version of a Sunday Roast.

We have a roast most weeks unless its really hot. DC love a roast and would probably start a riot if there wasn't one. I hate the aftermath of a roast on a MOnday morning though.

@Mellonsprite

We have one most weeks but change the meat & veg, so a roast chicken is served with different veg than beef for instance. Always have gravy and mostly Yorkshire puds though.

Yes, if we don't have one on a Sunday I do one midweek. Good way to get the Husband and Teenager to eat lots of veg 🙂

A roast is probably the easiest meal I cook. Not much preparation involved, then it's just a matter of timing.

And I don't have to think about what to cook, delve into recipe books etc.

I would happily eat one every Sunday, but not if I was expected to cook it.