to ask for easy meals to make when you hate cooking

[crochetmonkey74]

I live alone, can't be arsed. What really easy meals do you do?

I am at a beans on toast, frozen pizza level of effort and arsedness.

Help me!

Stirfry veg (pack ready chopped) and salmon fillet.
Nice fish cakes & tenderstem broccoli

I’d get an airfryer if you can.

Baked potato + filling.
Omelette and filling
Pasta and sauce.

It sounds like a stress (or depression?) problem rather than a cooking problem. I would suggest coming up with a routine to take the decision making element out of it as that's where you're getting stuck. So something like Monday meal from the shop, Tues and Weds something like a stir fry or fried rice (use the pre-cooked stuff in pouches) with ingredients you have already bought, Thurs is a batch-cooked meal from the freezer, Fri is takeout, Sat is a cold meal from the deli section etc. This combined with basic meal planning for the days when you cook and the occasional weekend batch cook will save you getting stuck on not feeling like anything in particular. It's the decision making and choice that is unmanageable in this situation (I have found)

Dead simple: Tortellini with pesto. Eat with salad or stir peas through.

Pretty simple: Chop and fry an onion, add a tin of mackerel fillets, and a stock cube dissolved in some boiling water. Serve with Orzo pasta that you cook at the same time.

Dead simple but needs a couple of hours in oven to cook at 180C: put into a Pyrex bowl a tin of black eye beans, tin of tomatoes, 6 sausages, a squeeze of garlic purée, and however many Charlotte potatoes you would eat in 2 or 3 meals.

All in one tray bakes are my go to when I'm busy and just can't be arsed.

Roasting tin - packet of sausages, peppers/onions/mushrooms (whatever they have pre-prepped in the supermarket fresh veg), some cherry tomatoes, drizzle of oil, salt and pepper. Oven for 30-40 mins

On a baking tray - pork loin steaks or chicken breasts, with whatever seasoning/jar sauce you like. On another tray broccoli, cauliflower, green beans (All taste amazing if you drizzle with garlic oil). Oven for 20-30 mins

In a frying pan on the hob - beef strips, pack of pre-prepped stir fry veg and jar/sachet of sauce.

And of course the ever easy pasta and jar of dolmio (alternative brands accepted). On the really really can't be arsed and want my child to think I'm wonderful days I ditch the dolmio and just put a big heap of butter and cheese on the cooked pasta. DD would happily give up any luxury dinner you can think of for a bowl of pasta with butter and cheese.