With the price of groceries and takeout, it’s always great to have something cheap and/or lazy on hand to avoid the takeout temptation. I have three levels of lazy:
- Girl dinner – fruit, cheese, whatever leftover protein I have in the house, whatever crackers/bread I can scrounge from my cabinets
- 5 minute lunch – air fried chicken nuggets on prepackaged salad mix or air fried fish stick tacos with prepackaged slaw mix tossed in greek yogurt, sriracha, and vinegar
- 20 minute dinner – protein stir fried with the same cole slaw mix I have on hand for lunches and whatever sauce I come up with over rice.
Comments
Ramen, add frozen peas and carrots and 1 scrambled egg.
Sandwiches.
Eggs and toast or veggie korean pancakes.
Frozen dumplings
I eat a lot of bagged salads with a leftover protein or one of those flavored tuna pouches.
Why are we calling a cheese board “girl dinner”? That’s an unnecessary gendered term and kinda infantilizes women.
My lazy meal hack is always having frozen soups in the freezer to grab and defrost.
Asian Rice Bowl:
Scoop of pre-made rice, scoop of pre-made chicken pieces, heated up and topped with some fried chili oil. Pre-diced green onion on top if I’m feeling fancy. Kimchi on the side if I have any.
Mexican Rice Bowl:
Scoop of pre-made rice, scoop of pre-made chicken pieces, scoop of pre-made beans, heated up and topped with salsa and shredded lettuce from a bag if I can be arsed. Sometimes I don’t do the beans due to laziness.
So basically my main starch is rice and my protein is chicken that I prepare ahead of the week and then I dress these up however to suit my taste for that meal.
Canned soup with add-ins can turn a sad meal into a happy one.
Like, you can add leftover chicken to chicken noodle soup. And add some cut up veggies and cooked quinoa. You now have a hearty stew instead of a soup. If you add a lot of stuff, you might actually have enough for two or three meals.
avocado toast
baked sweet potato with whatever veggies/tofu i have
oatmeal
stir fry random veggies
My favorite easy meal is a bagged salad kit with a protein like air fried salmon or grilled chicken.
Do you live by a trader joes? They have great frozen meals and they’re reasonably price. Their frozen asian and Indian food will totally satisfy the takeout cravings.
My current quick cheap / lazy meals:
takes a minimal amount of prep, but I’ve been loving a veggie burger as a partially homemade convenience meal this year.
I’ve been using the recipes from the book Veggie Burgers Every Which Way, and many of them just involve “throw ingredients in food processor”
and then I keep the veggie burger mix in my fridge and scoop out some of it into a pan when I want a burger, or I’ll cook a few at a time and stick the patties in the fridge and reheat on stove, with a slice of cheese over top.
at the top of the week, I’ll buy the burger ingredients, bread buns, cheese, and lettuce and that’s it – dinner or lunch for an entire week!
I also make/prep a lot of large batch soups and stews but the burger is a nice break from soupy stuff.