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

Yes, but my DC are late teens so fewer activities and they're happy to eat later.

Also most of my weeknight meals are pretty quick and easy, e.g.
Prawn pad thai
Chicken and vegetable stir fry with noodles
Salmon, broccoli, new potatoes all cooked in the steamer
Tagliatelle with steak and mushroom sauce, salad
Prawn and chilli linguine, salad
Pan fried Sea bass with roasted veg

We have a dishwasher so once you stack everything away it's just a quick wipe down of surfaces and it's job done.

I do my best to cook fresh but sometimes it's chicken + jar of sauce and some kind of carb.

@Ginmonkeyagain there is absolutely nothing 'wrong' with dried pasta or bakery bread. But it's not cooking from scratch, they are ready made ingredients. Pretty much everyone on here cooks home made meals but no one realistically cooks from scratch.

Oh, my pasta is dried. Does this really not count as cooking from scratch?

How about noodles for stir fry?

I do but I don't cook from the beginning every time. My approach is to cook once and eat twice or 3 times if possible. A lot of midweek meals are one pan affairs served with a bag of salad.

A typical meal plan might be Sunday roast chicken, Monday cold chicken, salad, coleslaw & jacket potatoes. Tuesday vegan curry from the freezer, Wednesday salmon & frozen Mediterranean veg with couscous or rice (you can get plain microwave rice without uPF), "shepherds pie" made with tins of black & kidney beans & frozen sweet potato chunks, (make double & freeze) Friday, breadcrumbed fish & potato wedges, Saturday meatball pasta, + cook extra for the freezer,

Gousto & simply cook are good for quick recipe ideas then I use bbc good food for the method.

Yes but if I cba to faff I'll make a roasted veg and halloumi traybake or something simple like that.

Lone parent working full time. I don't cook a meal from scratch every night but I always have a "proper" dinner. Either something from the freezer like chilli or bolognese that can just be reheated, salmon with veg, chicken with potato wedges, pasta.

Mostly yes, 1 night is frozen pizza though.

Weekdays are fairly simple meals though.

Chilli with leftovers for on top of jacket spuds the next night
Omelette with salad and either wedges or nice bread and butter.
Stir fry
Cheese and veg pannini with onion rings
Sausage traybake

Both my DDs had allergies when they were younger so cooking from scratch was easier and it has remained the norm.
I work in the office two days a week and DH and I each have an evening commitment on one of those nights; he goes out shortly after I come home on one night and I am home long enough to change before I go out to volunteer on the other night. Meals for those nights are prepared in advance and boxed in individual portions in the fridge for everyone to reheat their own. On the days when I WFH, I put something in the slow cooker, we reheat something from the freezer or we have something quick like a stir-fry.
I spend an afternoon every few weekends batch cooking (bolognese, chilli, curry, pasta sauce, soup, etc) and they go in the freezer.

Edited to add that meal planning is key to us.

Two young children here and between us we work 8 days per week. Lots of throw in the oven pizza / ready meals, lots of fish fingers and chips. Today the children had peanut butter toast and strawberries for tea.

It's not just the cooking, it's the planning and clearing up that's a faff. Chopping up veg at the weekend to freeze or whatever, whilst a good idea, just sounds like another job to add to the never-ending list...

On the days I work in the office we have easy meals from the freezer - something I've made another night that just needs reheating.

I make double portions of everything and use it the next week or so so still have enough room in the freezer.

It's not just the cooking, it's the planning and clearing up that's a faff. Chopping up veg at the weekend to freeze or whatever, whilst a good idea, just sounds like another job to add to the never-ending list...

Frozen prepared vegetables are a life saver; no work and no waste.

I wfh most of the time so I try and use my spare minutes to prep something - I've been really busy the past couple of weeks though so we've had quite a lot of quick pasta dishes.

I tend to go for either one-pot/one-pan dishes like chicken thighs so I can lob everything in together or pasta with something, we're liking the garlic and herb Philadelphia with bacon at the mo.

For me, it's not the cooking, it's the tidying up. It's supposed to be the kids' job but to be frank, they're shit at it.

6/7 nights yes. DCs club on Thurs finishes at 8pm so generally an oven meal then but otherwise from scratch every night. Both full time. 4DC. Home around 7pm each night but primary DC eat dinner earlier at childminder's so only cooking for 2 adults and 2 teens.

However, I love cooking so don't find it a chore.

Cleaning on the other hand...

We bought a deep freezer when DC3 was almost born because we knew we’ll need to be more organised. We also use the freezer of the fridge to freeze raw meat and similar.
Both work full time but one Saturday a month, we have a batch cooking and food prep day which has worked for us so far.
We batch cook loads, pasta sauce lasagna and, curry sauce, diff pie filling, and similar and in the week, we simply just defrost and cook the pasta, rice, potato etc or just arrange the pie and bake, so it’s easy.
We prep chicken , pork chops and similar by adding different spices and put them in bags so we just defrost a bag and cook at dinner time. Vegetables like pepper are all sliced and frozen, we also buy lots of frozen easy cook vegetables as well so even though I cook everyday, the one Saturday a month is when I make the most effort and it makes such a difference.

Do we heck! We use a lot of ready meals and ready prepared ingredients. I hate cooking and will do anything to make it easier.

Yes. It really doesnt take any longer and its a wind down aftervwork

We bulk cook and then refrigerate. We eat mostly plant-based so don't have to worry about food spoiling as fast. Sun/Mon evening one of us will cook enough for 3 lunches and dinners, then on Wed/Thurs someone will cover the next 3 days. Veg all tends to be the same, so cutting up double the amount isn't a big effort. It's just the sauce, flavourings, or arrangement that changes. We have a double-drawer air fryer and an instant pot along with the hob and oven so plenty of multitasking going on, but it means no more cooking until the weekend for me.

Nope.

Ready cut veg or frozen veg.
Meat is easy to cook either steaks or joints.
Sauce is generally shop bought but 'fresh' tomato, pesto etc.

I do but I do a lot of curries and risotto type stuff that doesn't take too long.
Decide what we are having the night before so I get appropriate meat or fish out.
Chuck it all in the pan and clean up while it's simmering.

I cook from scratch every day, but there are lots of things that can be done v quickly. Stir fries, fish, couscous, quick pastas, omelettes. I recommend extending your repertoire in dishes that can be done in 20/30 mins.

On Monday, I wfh, so bung something in to slow cook. I cook double portions at weekends and have these in the freezer.

It just takes a bit of organisation. With that, it's not that hard.

The slow cooker comes out at least once a week. Something made with leftovers from weekend (e.g. pasta bake), and we take turns to cook (I tend to do more but that’s preference, I like cooking). We are also not uptight about a ‘time’ to eat. It gets done when it gets done! And no alternatives either. We meal plan a few days ahead and everyone can suggest but only 1 meal will be prepared per day.

Always cook no matter what.

Below is a typical week and all these meals take about 15’ preparation and 30’-60’ cooking time

1. chickensoup with veggies
2. baked fish and steamed kale
3. lentils casserole with veggies
4. baked omelette with veggies
5. pasta bolognese
6. meatballs with rice
7. Steak with potato purée

I tend to do all the weekday cooking as I WFH and most meals are made from scratch. Tonight we had chicken pie with mash and veg as I had more time but Thursday I’ll be busy so will prep a slow cooker meal tomorrow night and then turn it on Thursday morning. Sometimes I have to go out for meetings and my partner is home first and he’ll make a pasta or curry, still home made. But we do also like a fajita kit, Tesco finest fish cakes and in the summer are partial to shop bought quiche and salad bits as I hate cooking in the heat!