The holy grail of meals - healthy(ish), quick and virtually no prep or clearing up - does it exist?

[ohwhattododo]

After 15 years of meal planning and trying to cook healthy meals from scratch, I am all cooked out at the moment!

For the summer holidays, I was going to try to give myself a bit of a break from cooking, but I'm struggling to come up with many ideas. If I eat rubbish, I feel rubbish, so trying to still keep up the fruit and veg etc.

The best I can come up with is something like a lentils/grain/rice pouch, a tin of mackerel or some ready-cooked chicken, and some cherry tomatoes and tinned sweetcorn! Looking for as little prep and washing up as possible. Doesn't have to be overly exciting either, just easy.

Any other ideas? Thanks.

I do this in Spain, but call it tapas!😎

Bread,olives,ham,salad,cheese,humus,tortilla de patatas...

this looks amazing. Do you think I could do it in the bbq? An hour here is a long time to have heat in the house (dominican republic)

Omelette, plenty of butter and cheese, fold it over and Bob's your uncle.

Serve with a punnet of sweet cherry tomatoes

For just one person, a 2 egg omelette with any suitable veg and some rounds of chorizo. (courgette, onion, mushroom, etc).

Other than that, the best quick meal is one you cooked earlier and froze in portions.

I find leftovers very useful. So when I can be arsed to chop - twice as much salad, or roasting 2 trays of veg. Then you've basically got something to add some protein too and your starch of choice.

Or to put in an omelette.

Stirfry made with bags from the supermarket and sauce.

Our easy dinners:

Couscous with chopped tomato, pepper, olives, feta or halloumi with some olive oil and lemon
Roast Mediterranean vegetable with a piece of salmon on top
Gnocci or pasta with gorgonzola, pear, walnuts and rocket

Bag of mixed leaves with cubed smoked mackerel, beetroot (not pickled) and cooked new potatoes. Drizzle with a mayo/horseradish/oil dressing and enjoy.
I do boiled eggs and new potatoes twice a week in summer so we can eat them straight from the fridge.
Or the same thing with tuna and boiled eggs instead of mackerel and beets.

I can't see it working on a BBQ, traybakes need to be surrounded with heat.
No AC in the house ?

I find it's the hob that makes the kitchen hot rather than the oven.

yes air in house but they are wall units and none on the main floor.. all bedrooms have air. Plus cost of electricity is NUTS here lol. I am going to try this on the bbq.. just will watch the heat levels and check alot. Sounds SO good.

Greek salad - chopped tomato, cucumber, red onion, black olives, feta cheese - I often add chopped peppers and sugar snaps too.

Steamed broccoli topped with crumbled blue cheese & spring onions

I tend to cook some marinated chicken and then have that with salad / rice / wraps for a few days.

Mozzarella with tomatoes , fresh basil and rucola . good balsamic vinegar , olive oil and fresh crusty bread .

This is very easy one pot and if you pay a premium for chicken breast pre- diced into chunks (or use boneless thighs?) and pre- chopped onion/garlic then no chopping required:

Tarragon chicken:

Chicken breast chunks
Onion and garlic chopped small
Chicken stock cube
Some tarragon (dried fine)
As much white wine as you want (splash or bottle!) or half wine/ half water
Creme Fraice

Gently sauté onion/garlic for few mins in pan
Chuck in chicken
Add all other ingredients except crème fraiche
Cook for min 30 mins to cook off the alcohol
Thicken with bit of corn flour if you can be arsed
Spoonful of crème fraiche at the end
salt/pepper to taste

Serve with microwave rice pouch or carb of choice!

Pre cooked salmon
Higgidy quiche
Ready made tortilla (the omelette kind)
Assorted cheeses
Pre cooked chicken
Good quality ham

Any of the above with

Microwaved new potatoes (the ones in a plastic thing with herb butter)

Bagged salad leaves
Cherry tomatoes
Olives
(Plus any other salad if you can be bothered to chop - I like avocado)

Part baked baguettes - 10 mins in oven

Stuffed pasta
Pesto
Bagged salad leaves
Heated baguettes / garlic bread

I hear you OP.

But I think there aren't many ways round this other than buying something like Spanish omelette, quiche, gala pie or similar from the deli counter, scotch eggs, smoked mackerel etc etc add in nice bread/pouch rice, cherry toms, carrot batons (any veg you don't have to chop), bagged salad.

My closest other meals:

Jacket potato in oven
When it's out, add tin tuna, squirt mayo, tin sweetcorn, grated cheese

M and S tortellini - no sauce needed, just olive oil, chili flakes, salt

Fresh pasta - boil. Add chopped broccoli straight to pan with water and pasta. Drain. Chop in anchovies, chili flakes, olive oil.

Sausage & Mozarella traybake. Roast sausages, slices of pepper and onions in a tin with chilli flakes & black pepper. After 20 minutes, throw in some cherry tomatoes. After another 5 minutes, tear up some Foccaccia or ciabatta and mix it through. Top with ton up Mozarella & bake for another 10 minutes. There’s minimal chopping & it tastes delicious.

Check out The Batch Lady on Facebook (and I'm sure lots of other social media) - plus she has her own website and does cookery books that are all based around really quick and easy recipes that taste nice, sometimes for the freezer or fridge or directly. Plus being able to batch a load of things and so you have plenty of stuff ready to go once you get into it...

Lots of useful tips - even silly things like if you're putting stuff into the freezer (say some spag bog mince) then rather than freeze it in a block that's difficult/slow to store and defrost, smooth it as flat as possible in the bag so that you have a really thin layer that becomes easy to defrost easily (and to break off just the amount you need) - plus if you do everything in the freezer like that it becomes much easier to store them and go through them...

the website is https://thebatchlady.com/ - Lots of useful recipes and details about batching easily, freezing, preparing and so on - including an easy section aimed at kids heading off to uni and cooking for themselves for the first time...

Believe it or not, it needs to be massaged! This is an actual thing.

so buy whole kale so you can more easily remove the stems. Then chop the kale fairly finely. Then you add some olive oil and lemon juice and massage it for a good minute or two. I know, ridiculous but I actually saw a chef talking about this on TikTok so clearly is a thing!

then, you add whatever you like. I do shaved Parmesan and flaked almonds, bit of garlic. Salt, more lemon and oil. If eating immediately, avo is nice too.

I like a traybake, does take time in the oven but usually not a lot of prep time. My favourite is chicken thighs with potatoes, lemon and basil.

i slice baby potatoes into coins, and put them in a well oiled deep baking tray (I use a full bag).

mix a chicken stock cube with half a mug of boiling water, top up with white wine and add to the potatoes

add 8-10 garlic cloves, peeling the skin on one side

cut a lemon into wedges and sit on top of the potatoes

season chicken thighs, coat in flour or polenta, and place on the lemons, so sitting above the liquid

pat the chicken skin with a bit of oil

bake 180 for 50-60 mins, take the chicken out and add chopped basil to the tray, give it a good mix to get the lemon taste spread around.

nice with salad or green beans. Very nice (even better) as a reheat.

Buy a Crimpit wrap and put healthy fillings in it.

My go to basic.
One good chicken, rub with seasoning/spices/etc if wanted
One baking potato per person
Put everything in the oven together
Go sit in the sun with a good book for one & quarter hours (this bit is important)
Get chicken out of oven, serve with veg of your choice or a salad

Packet of Quorn sausages
12 new potatoes - you will have to wash them
1 can of black beans
1 can of chopped tomatoes
Squirt of garlic from a tube

Put it all in one bowl in the oven for 2 hours at 180C
Serve.

I’d usually add some peas or broccoli to the plate for extra veg.

I'm hooked on the merchant gourmet pouches (or the pesto dupe ones from Aldi!)
I do a bit tray of roasted veg (red onion, tomatoes, courgette, peppers) then when it's nearly done add some chopped up halloumi

You can add seasoning, stir through red or green pesto or whatever you like or skip the halloumi and add feta

Any leftovers I turn into shakshouka by adding to a tin of tomatoes and cooking with eggs or just shove the leftovers in a wrap!

I sometimes cook fish with rice in a mix of water and orange juice. You can add peas and / or sweetcorn. Evan easier if you have a rice cooker.

Chicken or salmon tray bake.

Couscous with veg.

OP who are you cooking for?

Can you plan to have left overs. Eg if you do baked potatoes deliberately cook too many.

The next day scoop the potato out of the skin and mix with flour (about 50/50) and you have home made gnocchi. Just heat in boiling water and serve with butter. You might want a salad on the side.

Have a look on the 'beans on toast' thread, lots of quick meal ideas there.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5118419-to-do-beans-on-toast-once-a-week?reply=136923169

Do you have a slow cooker? This takes 5 mins to prep. This is for my small sc, for a large one double the amounts.

Pork ribs, passatta, chorizo (you can buy it already chopped) can of butter beans, boiling water.

Put the kettle on to boil.

Put the ribs in the slow cooker arranged round the edge almost like a crown.
Pour in the passata.
Drain the beans and add to the middle of the sc.
If the kettle has boiled top up the sc, otherwise twiddle thumbs while the kettle boils. Season with salt and pepper of spices / herbs.

At some point (after several hours) the collagen in the pork with break down so you need to remove the ribs, I use chopsticks for that.

Serve with crust bread.