Is this meal ok for 4yo to have once a week? Or more if it is not "bad" in any way?

[pinktrees]

My DD loves this Little Dish microwave meal (link below). It is really convenient when we are in a hurry swimming after school etc and I would like to know if there is anything wrong with it as packaged food can get a hard time on MN. Any other suggestions of quick and easy meals (either packaged or made by me) for little kids (6 and 4) and me appreciated. I am not a natural cook but want to feed my kids as healthily as I can.

www.littledish.co.uk/our-dishes/fresh-natural-meals/chicken-butternut-squash-pie.html

I have no problem with the odd ready meal but you might find making something yourself and freezing it is a cheaper option.

Then at least you can control what's in it - amount of salt, etc. The site in your link doesn't like to make it easy to find the nutritional values, I wonder why.

I have nothing against ready meals for busy nights either. I like M&S kids range good variety of dishes and much cheaper than little dish too and probably a bit more filling.
I also do freezes separate portions in microwavable containers a lot so I'm in effect still making a quick micro meal but I know what goes in it.

Quick and easy in our house:

Pasta, pesto, peas and prawns. The peas and prawns are frozen so just throw a fistful in with the pasta in the last minute of cooking then stir pesto in.

Pasta, peas, tin of tuna.

Or make pasta sauce with things like chorizo or tuna and freeze in portions so you can zap in microwave and stir into pasta.

pasta always wins for quick fixes!

Not that there is anything wrong with the odd ready meal. Personally I wouldn't use it once a week but then we use very little ready made stuff and it would probably be cost that puts me off more!

Bake potato. Remove potato from skin and mash up with cheese, ham, grated carrot etc. (anything you like) and then put back into skins. Freeze, refrigerate or put straight in the oven to heat through again. Healthy, cheap and delicious.

I think those little dish ones are fine - they don't add salt etc and even use unsalted butter. We tend to cook from scratch. End result is my kids hate ready meals, which is actually a pain sometimes!

I think it's better to teach kids that cooking for yourself is normal.

When I cook soups, stews, bolognese etc I freeze leftovers in small portions so I can have spag bol on the table in ten minutes (microwave bolognese, cook frozen fresh pasta, serve).

Similarly casserole in microwave, chopped spud boiled then mashed, serve.

Omelettes are good food too. Chop and fry onion, pepper and mushroom and ham, add mixed eggs and then grate over cheese.

Personally, i wouldn't give it to them very often mainly because the cost. Agree though that constantly thinking of family meals, especially when you're in hurry can be hard.

We had this the other night and it literally took 10 minutes from start to finish. We did leave out the chilli though and add black pepper intead. Do you think they'd like something like that?

I give them to my 2 yr old once or twice a week. He has loads of healthy stuff apart from that. Although I would actually say the one you linked to us the least appetising one IMO. DS likes the pasta bolognese one and the pasts, peas and broccoli trees.

Don't worry - it's fine.