If both adults work full time, do you cook your evening meal from scratch every day?

[lowlevelanxious]

DH usually makes a pasta with homemade sauce once a week, and I usually do a curry.
Then we try and switch it up for the remaining nights taking turns and make risotto, lasagne, chilli, fajitas, things like that. I am finding it incredibly time consuming to be honest, less the cooking and more the washing up and cleaning the kitchen after. It takes time that I don’t feel I have! Do you cook fresh every night?

We’ve only got a small freezer with 3 drawers so can’t do loads of batch cooking. Trying to avoid UPFs and mainly a veggie household anyway.

YABU - we cook even when we’ve both been out the house working a long day

YANBU - those days we have quicker meals from the freezer, jacket potatoes etc and don’t feel bad about it

Mostly yes - although sometimes I’ll do a lasagne that does six portions and heat that up. If you are looking for easy veggie meals, I really recommend the Green Roasting Tin cookbook - everything in one roasting tin, loads of recipes ranging from quick to a bit long.

I work part time and DH full time and I can't manage to cook from scratch every night 😂. Work finishes too close to the after-school clubs and my own evening activities, so we have leftovers at least once a week and ready made chilled soup one night for a quick dinner.

We do Gusto boxes and click on the ‘under 15 mins’ option. I also bung everything in a dishwasher after and get my teens to wipe down the surfaces and clean the table with me. It’s a group effort. I also have a few quick meal ideas that I know I can throw together quickly.

I do hate doing it though. Sometimes I can’t be arsed but if I didn’t we would eat crap and get tubby.

We cook the majority from scratch we also tend to make 4 portions worth for most meals. However, we do have less intensive meals for times when we are both stacked so like jackets or slow cooker meals. We both work majority from home though and alternate doing bedtime as we only have one child at the minute so the evenings aren't too hectic. I think give yourself a break if you're both out the house and tired, a couple of easy meals a week isn't the end of the world.

Yes we basically do
Do make double portions of things so some nights it’s totally home made bu just needs defrosted

On a normal week one of us usually does a soup or veggie stew which does a couple of days.
One night is frozen pizza or frozen quorn type stuff with frozen veg, the other nights are usually something like eggs,avocado and fake sausages or a lentil/chickpeas halloumi salad concoction.

Yes but some of our meals are very simple eg grilled meat and some steamed veg or a chicken with Mediterranean veg tray bake

We do most days. I chop all our veggies at the weekend and pop them in Tupperware pots so it’s super easy to grab. I also make up a couple of pots with the spices we use regularly, chilli, curry etc so agin quick to grab. Often make extra too, tonight I made chilli, wedges and salad and there’s enough to do the chilli with rice tomorrow.

We always did, yes. But fairly simple stuff that could be knocked up in about 30 minutes and with a minimum of pans. Lots of one pot bakes. Put it to soak in hot water the minute you've dished up. Everything else bunged in the dishwasher.

We often do, but we make quick, simple meals like stir frys and salads that don't take long to make or clean up but are still healthy. If we make a curry, we will do it on Sunday and eat it Monday and Tuesday night.

I think the answers to your post will depend quite a lot on whether people have children or not and their ages / how fussy they are. Between school pickups, after school clubs, fussy eaters and bath-time duties etc, cooking full meals from scratch is time consuming and the meals often get rejected in favour of cheesy toast! If we were childfree however and were free when we finished work at 5.30 / 6 then I’m sure we would put a lot more effort in as we would have more time. Currently still sat with my daughter at nearly 9pm..

I do but I’m really quick with cooking from scratch. I can usually get something out in 20-30 min, faster than a take away.

There aren’t two adults here - the one adult who lives her and works full time (me - single parent of two) always cooks from scratch. Unless I’m defrosting something I previously made from scratch.

The best thing I started to do was to meal plan before going shopping. So now we sit down every Thursday evening, plan the meals for the next 7 days and take into account our workloads etc. we have a list of meals we both enjoy, which includes quick and easy or from scratch meals. We only have 2 days where we have easy freezer meals, 1 day when we eat at different times so that’s something like pizza (DH) or soup (me), 1 day when we have a take away of some sort and the rest are scratch meals. The rule is, whoever doesn’t do the cooking does the tidying up. I do, however, prep 3 meals from scratch at the weekend ready for the week ahead, so all the messy stuff is done in 1 go, the prepped meal just needs cooking (think lasagne or cottage pie)

We both work full time, husband cooks from scratch Monday/Wednesday/Thursday/Friday, I cook Saturday/Sunday and we have something quick and easy (ready meal or something leftovers from the freezer) on Tuesday. We did Gusto a few times and it shows us how quick and easy it can be to cook from scratch. He uses every pot and pan available, I use as little as possible and wash up as I go and then everything else goes in the dishwasher

We dont but i still home cook, just tactically.
So I will do a massive tomato soup with lentils in, enough for 5 ppl for 2.5 meals.
Dy 1=soup plus bread, day 2=soup plus cheese day 3 leftover soup as a sauce for pasta with extra frozen veg thrown in plus defrosted frozen meat.
Remaining 2 days
1-sandwiches and quick salad for tea (as we have tons of clubs so r in and out all eve so it's all out on table and ppl come and go)
2-leftover salad plus 2x supermarket posh pizzas for the Friday treat.

Next week, same but a different soup.

I invested in a giant instant pot and really recommend them, they r everything in one pot, so u xan fry, then pressure cook or slowcook. So I can chop up a soup and set it to cook within ten mins then get on with my life.

I wouldn't have time to cook from scratch each day it needs to b on the table within 15mins.

Puddings we do fresh fruit and yogurt, sometimes with honey and a crumbled up biscuit in, sometimes fruit with pa ket custard and sometimes just ice-cream.

Yes, every day. I love cooking so I don’t mind. I’m out of the house from 7:45-6:00 every day and cooking dinner is my wind down time. I make pasta with a protein and veg, chicken and rice, quick curries (like Thai, that doesn’t need too long cooking) or steak/chops with veg.

Tonight, is chicken breasts with a creamy mustard sauce (from scratch) and steamed broccoli and new potatoes. Takes about 40 mins to make, DP and teens clean up while I have my bath!

I like a lot of variety in my food, I wouldn’t want to eat the same dish twice in one week. Food is one of my main pleasures in life!

We batch cook for the week, have done for years and even though I am retired we still do. Cook a chicken, it can we eaten hot, cold with jacket potato, chips, salad. Chucked into a curry sauce. Curry can be severed with different side. We tend to do 2 days per dish so Monday, weds chicken, stew or whatever. Tues, Friday something else. Thursday out for a meal or take away.

Everything is cooked from scratch, but often we make enough to do two lots of meals, so we have leftovers the next day.

We also had a small fridge freezer only 3 xomoarments but purchased a separate freezer and it livea in the Garage. We batch cook. I mean I batch cook once every 3 weeks. I make loads of veggie options. Mainly home made sauces, curry bases and even soups etc. I make a 3 pies and 2 lasagnes and always have enough. I even freeze my home made Pizza doughs. After having DC1 this is what we had to do to survive.

We take turns to make a meal that lasts 2. Nights and just have the same 2 nights in a row. I can’t be arsed with cooking everyday!

Weekend meals have to produce an extra round of leftovers, which gets us through the two really sticky days of clubs/sport/etc. Then it’s a series of speedy regulars for the rest of the week. Occasionally something more imaginative if one of us finishes early.

Most days but I will spend some time prepping on a Sunday so I can shove things in the slow cooker or make a double batch of bolognese so it needs heating up. We went through a period of time where we ate crap every night and I got fed up with it!

Yep, I cook every meal from scratch but enough to last two days. I also mostly cook one pot meals so no real clean up apart from the knife and chopping board

Things like risotto are quick especially if you use frozen diced onion, frozen spinach and frozen peas. I top mine with a fried egg!