What do you cook when you can't be bothered to cook?

[theneverendinglaundry]

I need a few easy dinners ideas with little or no preparation. I am so fed up with meal planning, shopping for meals, cooking meals, cleaning up after meals....I cook almost every night and would just love a few freezer/cupboard/packet things to make life easier some nights.

Am thinking of having the freezer stocked up with mash and other variants of potato. Jacket potatoes are mindless enough to make and also very cheap, so they're on my list too.

What do you cook when you can't be bothered to cook?

Crab and sweetcorn soup.

Cook frozen sweetcorn in stock then blend until smooth. Put back on heat with more sweetcorn and cook, add spicy sauce for extra zing. Near the end of cooking open a tin of crab meat, add the lot and warm though. Season to taste. All in under 15 minutes.

Teriyaki chicken burgers
Chuck some teriyaki sauce on chicken breast to marinade then cook it and serve with buns and salad.
Chicken marinaded in store bought Italian or French dressing. Then cooked and served with buns and salad.
With either of these if I know I won’t have much time to cook in the evening I pop the chicken in the marinade the night before or in the morning

Plus a lot of the stuff everyone else has said

Have a look at the Batch Lady.

I have a freezer full of home made ready meals now.

Bacon and eggs. Basically a cooked breakfast for dinner.
Soup and a sandwich.
French style savory pancakes (galettes) with ham and cheese
Pizza
Meat pie and veg from the freezer
Stir fry with quick rice
Fried rice
Spanish omelette
Chicken fillets in barbecue sauce
Hamburgers without a bun, or pork chops, with oven or microwave chips (Or even just some plain crisps)
Salmon and frozen veg done in the microwave
Side salad from a bag with dressing from a bottle
Fruit for afters

Last night, when I really couldn't be bothered, I found some mini garlic and coriander naans and topped with pasta sauce, grated cheese and peppers. They went down really well with salad, coleslaw and a few oven chips.

Another one to make a crap oven meal more exciting is my crappy coleslaw. Grate an apple, 2 carrots and an onion, cover with whatever salad dressing is lurking in the fridge. It's really nice and like you actually made an effort.

I'd go for doubling up quantities when you can be bothered cooking, then you will have a well stocked freezer for when you can't. We usually have bolognese, chilli, soup, curry, stew etc. in the freezer. Maybe some meatballs (either homemade or shop bought). Cheese sauce also freezes well. I also have a few different frozen veg - bags of peas, sweetcorn, broccoli from the supermarket. Other leftover veg too - mash, chopped raw peppers that you can just throw in a stir-fry etc.
I love a freezer roulette meal 😂

@theneverendinglaundry it's basically warm or cold pasta, with any spare veg (roasted), and a few chopped nuts (any), basil leaves and olives. Non vegan vegetarians can add cheese eg feta. It's dressed with olive oil.

@flowerycurtain sadly my freezer just isnt big enough. I have the usual supplies of sausages, chips, nuggets, etc and can usually squeeze in one or two containers of leftovers, but batch cooking just won't work for me.

Every time I have tried batch cooking the people present ate it all before I could get it in the freezer.

Pasta with green veg and pesto. Cook broccoli/peas/green beans/ spring greens in with the pasta. Add some sundried tomatoes/olives/pine nuts when you add the pesto and it almost feels fancy!

@QueSera - pasta, peanut butter, soya sauce and cucumber must be an acquired taste?!

@snowqu33n - I dish out portions then put the rest in the freezer before I call them to the table. Otherwise the same would happen here!

• @dogperson05 pasta, peanut butter, soya sauce and cucumber must be an acquired taste?!*

I don't know, if it is, I've acquired it! I think noodles, peanut/satay sauce and vegetables is quite a normal dish?
Examples of what I mean:
www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/cold-sesame-noodles-with-cucumber
www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/rotelle-with-broccoli-and-spicy-peanut-sauce-11875

Smoked salmon, cream cheese bagels with bagged salad.

Decent Indian sauce with cubed chicken or tofu and nam bread with microwave rice.

Frozen mini Yorkshire puddings, cocktail sausages, bisto gravy and peas.

Filled tortellini and fresh pesto.

Home made frozen ready meals, omelette and salad, or my favourite: instant noodles without the flavour sachet, in a bowl with lots of thinly sliced veg, cashew nuts, a slice of fresh ginger, squashed clove of garlic, soy sauce and a bit of water. Cover and microwave for 2 mins. Delicious.

@partofyoupoursoutofme

Do you not find the flavour sachets add some, erm, extra flavour?

Tuna pasta bake.
Sausage casserole.
Curry.
Picky teas: sandwiches, pasta, chicken, salad.
Jacket potatoes.
Leftovers out the freezer depending on what I've been cooking.
Beige dinner: so freezer food like nuggets, fish fingers, turkey dinosaurs, pizza etc with beans and chips.

@KatherineJaneway I really don't like them! As a student I used to just have soy sauce instead of the sachet, and it's developed over the years to have some healthier stuff in.

@partofyoupoursoutofme

Interesting. I use the sachet as part of the base flavours but maybe I should leave it out!

Micro chips
Toasties
Jacket potatoes
Microwave rice, frozen veg & leftover cooked chicken or other leftover meat in small pieces. Add them all to a pan, add stock or cuppa soup - voila, paella / fried rice / whatever you need to call it to get the kids to eat it.

I couldn't be bothered to cook today, so I boiled pasta, and made a sauce of reduced fat creme fraiche (left over from weekend) to garlic, onion, fried courgettes and lemon juice. Topped with prawns from freezer and Parmesan.

Actually not that calorific, as long as you serve with a side salad (bag of leaves today in our case). I only used a tablespoon of oil for frying the veg, for several portions.

Quick meals: frittata, omelette, wraps with whatever cooked meat and salad you have, freezer curry (I always make double what I need when I make it as it is so time consuming, so a quick meal another time!) pizza, spaghetti Bolognese (again when I make a smooth tomato/veg sauce for the kids I double and freeze the sauce). Also love the slow cooker as you can throw it all in and have it later with crusty bread or rice/pasta.

Another thing I make for lunch a lot, especially at the moment as we've got a big crop of courgettes to pick: cook linguine, drain it and add grated courgettes, crushed garlic, juice of a lemon, mix together then add grated Parmesan and basil leaves. Delicious!

Pasta with a sauce made from passata, mushrooms and some herbs, takes 10 mins and it's better for you than jar sauces.

Stir fry with tinned salmon, teriyaki sauce and some veg (peppers and broccoli works). Chuck it all in a wok/pan and add ready to wok noodles or an instant rice pouch.

Omelettes or soup and sandwiches are my go to when I can't be arsed.