No cook dinners

[Imperfectpolly]

Does anyone ever do no cook dinners and if so, what do you do?

My time is really limited today. We don't have a microwave.

Would it be bad to give DC cold chicken and salad wraps for dinner as a once off? They have had a hot dinner at school for lunch.

Sounds fine. I don't think people need two proper hot dinners every day.

What would be wrong with that, what do you think will happen?!

Totally fine.

Sounds fine.
Dds favourite no cook meal is chopped pre cooked chicken and cous cous (so just need to use a kettle).

we sometimes have continental style bread, almost ploughman style

DD has a cold supper after a hot meal at school and a snack at wraparound. She’s a big fan of sandwich or wrap and salad.

She also has pasta salads, hummus and crudites.

Technically it is cooking. I'm favouring jacket potato in the airfryer currently. Change up toppings and salad.

That's fine.

I quite like Spanish tortilla/omelettes you can buy. Slice them and serve with some cold cuts/hummus/salads

Or buy a tub of potato salad and some sausage rolls

Of course!

cold meats and salads
or fish platter
ploughmans
cous cous or rice salad
sometimes I just have a sandwich.

You are describing almost the whole country of Germany who traditionally have 'evening bread' as their evening meal and would consider it strange to eat 'warm' more than once per day

If you're concerned that she'll not eat a cold dinner, can you pop some fries in the oven to go with the wrap? Makes it feel more like a warm meal and will take less than 20 minutes from bunging them in until serving.

Of course that will be ok! Especially as they’ve had a hot lunch at school!
When mine were school age, sometimes they had pasta surprise on a Monday, which was basically pasta, pesto/pasta sauce and whatever left over veg or meat from the Sunday. They loved it!
My DD is early 20’s now and still says she loved the days when they had beans on toast with grated cheese on top! They’d had a decent school lunch, so it’s absolutely fine!

Thanks all, they are new to having hot school dinners and I have always cooked every evening. Perhaps I need to take more evenings off cooking 😊

Some nice ideas here, I might have to do this more often. It would certainly make life easier!

DD has a plate of 'bits' any combination of

cold boiled egg
Left over chicken goujons
Vegetable crisps
Cucumber
Apple/peach/grapes
Sliced cucumber
Cherry tomatoes
Hummus
Cheese string/baby bel
Chicken Satay sticks
Buttered toast with marmite/cheese
Rolled sliced cheese in a slice of ham
Left over rice with grated carrot, tomato, cheese and plain yogurt mixed in.
Plain cold pasta
Quiche
Marinated anchovies
Salmon maki (sushi)

Works with whatever you have in the fridge basically. I always include at least 2 veg/fruit and a protein the rest is flexible.

Mostly in the summer I live on non cooked stuff

Salads with cheeses, meats. You could add breads, crackers, new potatoes in the tin (Im not keen on those but OH loves them), use dressings, things in jars and tins, bean salads etc.

Ive had some really substantial meals and then though, wow I didnt actually cook any of this. I use a lot of pastes in jars like pepper paste, pestos etc.

My kid’s favourite dinner is “bits” and I have fond memories of it when I was a kid too.

Its basically a big plate with lots of little picky bits on it.

The ingredients change depending on what I’ve got in but stuff like cherry toms, cucumber, pepper, cut up fruit, cheese, ham, cold chicken, crisps, nuts, quiche, leftovers, olives, gurkins, crackers, pitta bread, toast etc etc.

Food doesn't automatically have more nutritional value from being hot. You could live very healthily off cold food all the time, provided you included a wide range of ingredients. Chicken and salad wraps is no different really than, say, a hot chicken fajita wrap. Probably better in fact because cooking veg can degrade nutritional value somewhat.

My no cooking dinner
Is cooked chicken from a supermarket, crusty bread, bag/box of salad, coleslaw, olives and a bag of nice crisps
One of my faves to be honest. Haha

Yes, it's fine. I do a mixture of hot and cold dinners. Over the holidays we frequently cooked at lunchtime. Mine just had sandwiches, babybels and fruit tonight. They had a hot lunch, one that I know they like and will have eaten. If I know it's a day when they're not keen on the lunch options I will make sure I cook something more substantial for dinner.

We have “pick and mix” often. Simply just our name for a mix of salads, hummus, cold meats/pate, tortilla, cheese, nice bread etc

Goes down a treat as everyone gets to “pick” what they like. I just have to shop for it and lay it out on platters. Often incorporate things from previous days like couscous, new potatoes or leftover chicken that I pimp up a bit eg make potato salad or coronation chicken. Any leftovers are for lunch the next day.

Have this through the year but in winter might also add a warm jacket potato with cheese.

Im going to do one of my little salads tomorrow which is a tin of beans (I happen to have butter beans but you can use whatever), chopped onion, red and green peppers, chopped sundried tomatoes, pumpkin seeds, pine nuts, olives etc. Olive oil and spices or you can add in pepper pastes or pesto or whatever, havent decided yet

While that sits overnight all the flavours meld together, then you can have that with a big fat burrata, or chicken, prawns, tuna etc

If you eat bread have bread with it, also big green salad with avocado or buy some ready smashed up.

I like the little bags of Asda grated carrot and mix that with some herbs and oil and tinned sweetcorn, I like nuts crushed over it.

Put all the bowls on the table together

Absolutely no effort whatsoever and really tasty.

I am South African so I'm always interested in this view that a hot dinner is necessary. Personally, I love a hot meal and definitely prefer it, but in the summer, a cold meal is a perfectly normal thing for me. I think that perhaps it because often cold meals are less substantial/less nutritious but they really don't have to be. They ARE if you're having a cheese sandwich with nothing but a bit of pickle - but a range of salads, high quality carbs, and a cold protein is great.

Cold chicken (leftovers or bought cooked from the supermarket) with salad and bread or maybe new potates was pretty much a standard meal for us growing up and I do it in the summer quite a lot. Ditto we used to have ham or leftover meat from a Sunday roast, again with salads and bread often. I often do tuna pasta salad served cold in the summer as it's a good one to make earlier in the day and everyone just eats as and when they're ready. And of course, my (english) dad considers a pork pie, with some pickle and salad to be one of life's greatest meals!

we also do a fair bit of large salads in the summer - our favourite being chicken salad with avocado and pine nuts and feta although I serve that with garlic bread , or a thai style steak and noodle salad.