What's your usual GET A HOT MEAL ON THE TABLE ASAP meal?

Canned soup or pasta or some sort of cooked/smoked meat out of the freezer with some sauce/gravy over noodles. (When I run the smoker I tend to do 10 pounds or so just for that purpose.)

Meat inna pan. Steak, pork loins, lamb steaks, chicken breasts, burgers - whatever’s in the fridge, just put it in a frying pan and season with salt, pepper, onion powder and sage. While that’s cooking, make some rice - I don’t mind microwaved basmati rice, and then either a basic salad (lettuce and cucumber with dressing) or some frozen peas also microwaved.

Or, when all else fails, eggs is eggs. If I have easily preparable ingredients - omelette. If I don’t - scrambled eggs.

If I have the time and I’m feeling motivated, I sometimes prep a casserole or Mac and cheese, really any one dish meal of any kind and stick it in the fridge. The next day, I can just pop it in the oven.

Open a quart jar of vegetarian chili. Heat it. Meanwhile, crumble a pound of chorizo and fry it up. Combine chili and cooked chorizo. Optionally, top with a dollop of sour cream.

Grilled cheese - Or if I’m extra lazy a toast cheese sandwich - no frying pan necessary
Fried egg & cheese sandwich on toast
Lipton chicken noodle soup (NOT Cup-a-Soup) & crackers
Hot dogs on the grill
Frozen pizza - cooked of course!:smiley:

My wife and I almost always have left overs during the week. Make a big batch of something on the weekend and re heat it.

While it takes longer than 10 minutes (unless you just microwave it) a baked potato is about as easy as it gets. Just depends on how you want to dress it up. We will often do a quick sauté of onion and broccoli or what ever is on hand to top it with. A fried egg on the potato works well. Failing that, just some butter and cheese and salsa works too.

Pancakes and Eggs are my go-to quick meal. My kids love breakfast-for-dinner, and I usually pair it with some sort of fruit.

I’m also a crockpot fan. It takes a little time in the morning, but it’s super quick when I get home from work late.

Otherwise, I admit that I buy the Tai Pei microwave Chinese dinners. I’ll nuke 2 or 3 of them and a bag of microwave Asian veggies. Plenty of food for the kiddos and me, and quick.

I’m so glad to know I’m not the only one who loves breakfast anytime.

Honestly, eggs are the world’s most perfect food. (pepperoni is a close second)

I almost always have spaghetti sauce in the freezer, so while it’s being nuked, I can cook up some pasta and have dinner ready in about 15 minutes. My sauce had a lot of veggies in it - diced tomatoes, onions, mushrooms - so I don’t even need to come up with a veggie side dish.

For quickie comfort food - mac-n-cheese-n-peas.

Oh, no. That’s extremely common, IME. I mean, just witness all the "all day breakfast menu"s at places like McDonald’s and White Castle (and of course, IHOP/Dennys, etc.)

I got to thinking that my above answer is for the family. If it’s just me, and I’m in a hurry it’s usually a can of soup- usually Progresso or Campbell’s.

Pizza for me as well, since when it is cheap enough I buy some pepperoni Tombstones and then chop up some green peppers to add. Nothing in the OP about oven-cooking frozen stuff.

I would not post microwaved soup since the OP mentioned microwaves, but I assume rangetop soup is okay :slight_smile:

Hot dogs, pierogies, or reubens! What, how the hell did we run out of sauerkraut?

Guess it’s spaghetti or eggs then.

There’s just two of us, our variable schedules make it difficult to eat together, and our kitchen makes a closet look spacious.
We are also trying to do keto, so no pasta, rice, or potatoes for us.

Meat, grilled or broiled. Salad from a kit if we have one.

From the post, I was assuming supper, so the eggs we invariably have in the house we already had for breakfast.

Pancakes are fast.
I keep pizza crusts and sauce plus turkey pepperoni and cheese on hand most of the time.
Quesadillas.
Usually taco meat and/or chili in the freezer.
Pull a fish filet out of the freezer and thaw it using warm water. Then cook it in foil with olive oil and herbs.
Nacho fries.
I usually have shredded chicken because I make that in the instant pot on Sundays. A box of chicken broth, some lime juice, pico de gallo, and some shredded chicken make a quick Mexican lime soup.
Can of tomatoes with green chilis, box of broth, whatever peppers are in the crisper, can of diced Hatch chilis, and a stack of corn tortillas diced up makes tortilla soup. Add some black or pinto beans if you’ve got 'em.

Define “cooking.” My “go to” ASAP dinner is a meatball sub and some mac & cheese I made earlier and then froze, but none of it involves cooking outside of defrosting/heating something up in a microwave.

My #2 is leftover frozen pizza, which I put in the oven for about 15 minutes.

I’m good with this. You cooked it with the intent to freeze it then re-heat and consume at your convenience. That works. If you had heated up a purchased, pre-made meatball sub then no deal.

We just did sausage, eggs and toast last night for dinner. We like breakfast for dinner, and eggs are especially so versatile and easy. Yup, we eat eggs fairly often for dinner.

Fried meat (steak, chicken breast, fish, ostrich - whatever’s around) , garlic home fries (parcooked in the microwave) and microwave steamed veg. Can have that on a table in 10. Mostly because who peels potatoes?

And why a “HOT meal”?

One of my most time consuming meal preps is an Andalusian Gazpacho that takes me hours to make and is served ice-cold.