tolerable microwave meals

Me and MrsD will soon spend about 3 weeks with no kitchen. We’ll eat a lot of takeout and are cooking some stews to freeze and reheat later etc, but are there any microwave meals worth eating?

M&S, perhaps?

Is there one of these near to you? https://www.cookfood.net/

Generally taste more homemade than M&S but still, as with all, some dishes are better than others. E.g our kids rejected the kids meals from Cook, and probably with good reason. They were either too bland or peppery/spicy, e.g. the sausage stew… but other than that the meals have been good

I actually like a lot of this stuff

https://www.cookfood.net/

Oh, beaten to it by a few seconds.

This might be a daft suggestion but you could likely learn to cook in a microwave between now and then without it being utterly disastrous.

Most vegetables range from ok to very good cooked in the microwave, pasta rice etc are all easy. I wouldn’t try steak.

I bought a wee plug in 2 ring electric job,bworked a treat when we bought our previous house and owner had taken kitchen with them.

Can you get a camping stove or two? Expands your kitchen-less cooking horizons massively (and I speak from experience)

Really rate the Thai versions of these…

https://lomalinda.co.uk

Or you could just have beans on toast every day. Never gets old.

Father in-law is quite fussy but loves the Charlie Bingham meals from Sainsbury’s. They look good and smell good, have never tried one though.

We’re also a fan of M&S Thai Green curry, they used to have a bigger Thai selection but sadly reduce it seems. Not a fan of their curries but I think I just don’t like microwave curry…

Baked potatoes work also, especially if it’s a fancy microwave with a grill/oven setting for crisping skin.

I don’t think anyone makes healthy, affordable and filling microwave meals.

If I was going without a kitchen for 3 weeks I’d live happily with just a multicooker set up outside with roast & airfry settings. Can do pretty much everything you can with hob, grill and oven and often better.

We keep a stock of these in the freezer: https://allplants.com/

Not the cheapest but you can normally find an offer online. Feel like they’re quite healthy.

salmon cooks well in the microwave (don’t overcook it), and veg and rice/potatoes also cook well.

if you have a combi version then jacket potatoes etc all pretty good.

Get a cheap plug in single or twin induction hob, then you can just crack on as before

EDIT – our local village shop has a load of the Cook range in the freezer, it looks excellent!

Not gonna lie, I eat vegetable chile out of a tin fairly often, I’m sure that could microwaved once dispensed from the tin. I also eat that microwave rice that comes in packets sometimes 😬

If your freezer is full could you borrow another couple for the duration?
Nothing wrong witha microwave as a method of cooking but warmed up home cooked food will be so much better than supermarket ready meals. Also, camping gas stove

I find a lot of supermarket microwave curries are pretty reasonable these days. Just check the ingredients list and if it’s got lots of spices and not much mystery ingredients it will probably be grand.

The Charlie Bingham stuff is generally decent IMO. Yorkshire Provender soups aren’t bad either.

I’m known as a foodie ponce by most people FWIW. :)

Co-op curries are pretty good IMO. Reasonable flavour and you can add some nice side dishes.

Tefal (and probably others) do a one ring induction plate. We picked one up for £50 at John Lewis for our holiday place while we do work and its great. Easily as good as the gas at home. One ring is enough for a one pot meal. Chile, curry, stew, etc. You can always add some microwave rice or veg. Also, having tried to buy one on ebay before hitting John Lewis, you’ll easily get most of your money back if you sell it after

Not a fan of their curries but I think I just don’t like microwave curry…

Generally I rather dislike them too*, that said we had a lidl vegan sweet potato one on Saturday and it was pretty good.

*often as they insist on using “chicken” which is bloody awful microwaved regardless of what it’s in or where the meal is from

Look What We Found pouches are pretty good – available in Booths and Waitrose so proper posh!

There’s lots of good microwave meals now available. I buy the vegetarian healthy eating range from Sainsburys and find them good. The secret is to look at the ingredients and the traffic light labels. It’s very easy to go high on the bad stuff (salt, fat, sugar) for the same type of meal.

Another tip for brocolli: 2 portions in a pyrex bowl and cover with clingfilm. Pour on 2-3cm of boiling water. Micro for 3 minutes. break the seal on the clingfilm but then reseal (this stops it getting squashed when the steam cools) and leave for 4 minutes. Perfectly cooked.

: 2 portions in a pyrex bowl and cover with clingfilm. Pour on 2-3cm of boiling water.

I’m not sure what this adds beyond scalding your toes?

FWIW I wouldn’t put any water in with any veg in a microwave, preference though I suppose.

@binners, Loving your work here sir.

Fresh pasta is very easy to cook in a micro, boiling water, cover, a few minutes and drain.

you can do omelette in the microwave using a pyrex dish lid and whisk the eggs first

Having had no kitchen for a while we used a camping stove and it was very useful, for stuff like pasta and rice and the like – do a sh1tload of batch cooking of tomato sauce and freeze it into small portions now before the oven goes so you can defrost to make pasta/chilli etc.

I quite like the aldi one pot meals – mexican bean, african peanut curry and I think there is a thai red curry There are meat options but I focus on the veggie)

Well done to binners for keeping it real. The food snobbery on here is absolutely laughable!

Lidls do microwavable ribs – they’re awesome. They do a meatballs thing as well, which is pretty decent.
There’s also those soups you can get in cartons. Some of those are ok.

But you’ll probably, due to lack of farting around with your range cooker and not using Le creuset pans for every meal, before you know it you’ll be…

M&S Paella is excellent. Most of their meals are good. Mrs TiRed has eaten them as part of calorie counting.

Another vote for Cook. My mum lived off of them for about 3 months as most carers would not cook from scratch and were only happy to reheat in a microwave. We bought one of each of the one person dishes and used to supplement it with M&S microwave veg pouches as often as we could. Mum tried them all and only rejected one.

That said, I also agree with others that a simple camping stove could make life easier as could one of those combi microwave/grill/conventional ovens

The food snobbery on here is absolutely laughable!

Does that include all the Aldi and Lidl recommendations? Or my beans on toast one?

Camping stove and disposable BBQs will increase your options massively…

No just the snobby ones. Duh.

Not sure about those pies Binners,they look too much like sponge cakes ;-)

No just the snobby ones. Duh.

Binners’ options all look to be over priced junk, to me (apart from the Pukka). Who’d spend their pennies on a Pot Noodle branded noodle pot? Middle classed mugs. And Heinz beans! Sure conspicuous consumption decadence.

Is it wrong that binners is making my hungry?

When we did our kitchen we just ate takeaway, M&S/Sainsburys ready meals and occasionally went to the mils. Regarding the readyeals, some were better than others but none were horrible