Minimal cooking while still feeding my family?

Post date: 2025-02-17 13:53:06

What specific convenience foods, such as frozen foods or prepared options, would you recommend for feeding a family? If you think I should exclusively shop at Trader Joe's, that's fine!

I love cooking and eating. But that's the problem - I'm reconsidering how our lives are balanced, and I spend way too much time cooking/optimizing/thinking about food. We need to seriously make everything less complicated and would also love to have less to clean up. Please believe that I've thought about this deeply and decided this approach makes sense. It has actually taken me a lot to get here. I grew up in a home that was culturally obsessed with food, regardless of the amount of labor involved, and in many ways I don't know what a reasonable way of integrating convenience foods even looks like. In a way that maintains some kind of "family meal" feel, if that's possible??

I would like to incorporate more frozen meals into our schedule. Or semi-prepared grocery store meals. Or some kinds of takeout that are surprisingly cost efficient? Cost is not a major consideration, but like, we're not going to get a personal chef. It would be great to skip trying out a bunch of mediocre crap if you have specific recs.

2 adults, 2 children (4, 1). Children food preferences not a decisive factor. 1 person eats basically everything and would love a tapas style range of a million cuisines (me). Perfect convenience meal: frozen dumplings. 1 person eats a range of cuisines but does not like cheese or tomato-heavy stuff (this cuts out a lot of Italian American defaults I would normally think of) Nor deli meats. Does love bread. Perfect convenience meal: chicken pot pie.

Can you think of specific types of convenience foods or combinations that would fit our goals? For example, I would suggest a package of frozen goyza from Trader Joe's plus their veggie fried rice. Or, provide guidance that, (I'm just making this up) those shelf stable Indian packets in foil are generally good, but the ones based on lentils or smaller beans have better texture than rajma/kidney beans. Or, tips or specific suggestions along these lines.

Tempted as you may be, DO NOT reply with any specific recipes you recommend. Also, I'm aware sandwiches exist. I mean, they're fine. But I guess I prefer hot food when it's 30 degrees outside. In the summer we can do salad kits and rotisserie chickens or something. Is there a winter equivalent that is just as easy but a bit more stick to your ribs?!!

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