Easy buy off the shelf meals for children

[April45]

I cook a lot from scratch and prepare ahead but I'm looking for some ideas of things I can buy from the shop with no prep like sausages/ fish fingers but still reasonably nutritious. Am a bit stuck

Fish pie?

Eggs, scrambled or poached on toast.
Frozen mash, frozen fish baked in foil with a big blob of butter.
Stirfry - bag of stirfry veg, handful of prawns or precooked chicken or tofu, some noodles.
You can get frozen falafel that are nice with hummus, wraps, cucumber and tomato.

A few places do kids pasta sauces that have hidden veg and no salt, etc.

My two love the Charlie Bingham steak and ale pies. Brilliant for when I can’t be arsed to cook. I serve with peas and the wolf it down.

Hi, Little Dish and Annabel Karmel both do little ready meals for children, nice variety. There are some nice little kids' Tilda rice packs you can get too.

If you keep frozen veg in the freezer, then you can always lob some peas/carrots/green beans/sweetcorn/cauliflower onto the plate to make it a bit healthier.

I like the BOL meals although does depend on how adventurous your kids are
When I’m stuck I grab a rotisserie chicken and serve it with couscous and some of those trays of ready to roast veg

Veggie fingers and microwave steam bag veg

If you live in south London or north surrey I've been using an amazing company called tots tastes.

They make good meals in their kitchen. Freeze them in little tubs and deliver. You just need to microwave, they are super tasty and cooked from scratch. It's basically outsourcing batch cooking.

www.totstastes.co.uk/

Cook do excellent kids frozen meals too. www.cookfood.net

Packs of gnocchi and pouches of ready made lentils/flavoured grains as well as cous-cous are all quick and will add a bit of variety to meals.

Heinz Creationz is a range of tinned prepared beans and pulses, including lentil curry, Mexican beans, chickpea tagine etc... serve with either rice, baked potato or toast!
Most supermarkets sell frozen and fresh falafel balls. Tesco do a nice sweet potato one.
I use a lot of packet couscous. Ainsley Harriett does a nice range with a lot of different flavours. It only takes about 15 minutes to soak in boiling water. We like the Mediterranean style with added cherry tomatoes and some feta cheese crumbled in. I also do the lemon and coriander one with a packet of cooked prawns or cooked chicken breast.
You can get ready-flavoured tins of tuna. In the summer I use these to quickly make a cold pasta salad or in the winter have them with jacket potatoes.
I also buy packets of flavoured microwave rice which I tip straight into deseeded red pepper halves, before topping with slices of mozzarella and popping in the oven for twenty minutes.
We eat a lot of crustless quiches from the chilled section.

Fish fingers/veggie fingers and chips are my go to quick meal.

Pasta is our other one. I cook fusili with mixed frozen veg, then fry frozen prawns for a few minutes. I mash up broccoli heads as a fake pesto mixed with olive oil.

I buy the bags of fresh filled tortellini and split them into individual portions. They freeze well and they cook brilliantly straight from frozen, six minutes or so in boiling water.
I also buy chilled pizzas and cut them up with scissors into a portion size and freeze. Much nicer than those bland individual kids pizzas you can get. When DS was smaller I'd cut one into quarters, now he'll eat half a pizza, but it still saves cooking a whole one on a day we're not eating as a family.

I also buy spring rolls, very easy to make a quick rice with mixed veg, and add a spring roll, bit of sweet chilli sauce.

Tesco sell these halluomi and tomato spring roll type things. My toddler likes them. Frozen vegetarian section tend to have good choices

Amys organic do a nice frozen mac and cheese my two dd love

Ooh also gyoza. Ocado do lovely chicken and veg ones. My super fussy 4yo loves them!

Tesco do some great veggie frozen stuff.like pies,veggie burgers.croqueetes etc
fish pies.shephard pie.
tortlini and filled pasta.
pesto pasta.
hoops beans on toast.
jackets
chiken in a bag.salad.or veg and potatos.
steak and ale pies or chicken and bacon ones.
buy a pak of ready roll pastry.shove anything you want it in.from heese and tomato,pesto chicken.salmi and peppers bacon and eggs then cook for twenty
higgidy pies
salmon fillets cook in ten serve with a jacket.
frankfurter sausages or pack of salami with a jar of dolmio stirred through pasta
stiry fry packs.
reggie reggi sauce over chicken thighs.
the packet grains and rices now are getting really good varieties.flavoured barley,buckwheat rice medleys can be really nice.
tinned mixed beans and pulses are great for making quick cook casseroles.savoury crumbles.with sausages or chicken/pork
lovely tin of white beans with crème fraiche bit of pesto and dash of cream.roast some lamb chops and cherry toms.mmmm
condense tomato soup through pasta.
cook broccoli/peas etc in with ur pasta and potatos for quicker/easier/less saucepans.
thing like sharwoods sauces are great as pour over chicken or pork/
there are some good flavour packets now for sausage casserole.casseroles etc for when you need the base powder/spice for a good meal.

Wow some fab ideas, thankyou. I'm feeling very inspired

Cook have some fab ready prepared dishes but they are expensive. Sometimes do money off deals though and negotiate in store so give it a try and they may let you stock up with 10% off or something.

Breaded chicken breasts.

Also are you remembering things that aren’t prepared as such but need no prep, like chicken legs or salmon that can just go in the oven?

Excellent, thanks so much. Dragonsandcakes the trouble I have is dh doesn't eat salmon so I end up cooking something else which adds to the time so I could tgat on a day i have more time (and brain space).

Some great ideas. What would I serve falafel with?? DS is 13months so wouldn't manage a wrap

My DS has since about that age eaten falafels as part of what he calls 'little dinner' which is falafel or lamb kofta, pitta bread toasted and cut into fingers, a blob of houmous, cucumber and carrot sticks. I sometimes mix it up a bit and substitute celery sticks, a chunk of cheese, some pickle or salami.

Heck chicken sausages are pretty good. My son has them with a roll and chips and I tend to have them on their own with couscous.

Pies, as mentioned, if decent quality.

Beans and eggs.

Frozen jacket potatoes - ok unfrozen are cheaper! But frozen ones - £2 for a pack of six or thereabouts, there at any time to do for a quick meal with beans or cheese (or both), or tuna.