What're your go-to "quick dinner" options?

One of my favorite "I don't want to cook" meals is whole grain bread, goat cheese, and sliced avocado with a dash of salt. I like the spreadable goat cheese, but if I have the crumbled kind, I throw it in the toaster oven to melt it before putting the sliced avocado on top.

I like Amy's frozen meals and burritos, they aren't all vegetarian but there are many vegetarian options. One of my favorites, even though I'm not vegetarian is the Light & Lean Quinoa & Black Beans with Butternut Squash & Chard.

Since you have a fridge you could do some make-ahead type salads. I found several interesting options on the website Budget Bytes. There's a recipe for chickpea confetti salad that I love on that site. There's a falafel salad that looks great and I'm planning to try today. It calls for a cooked grain but maybe you could snag something from your dining hall to toss in if you don't have the tools available to cook grains at home.

Breakfast For Dinner:
Scrambled Egg (if you do eggs) with Salsa, or Spinach - easy to make in a microwave
Plain Shredded Wheat with almond milk - no cooking involved
Oatmeal

Or you could not plan on a full-on dinner, but allow yourself two more snacks late in the day / early evening, instead.

Your school's dining hall hopefully has a decent salad bar - which should help.

I'd also suggest you have a chat with your catering department head, about nutrition & how they're failing you. :grumble:


Since dinner for me is often only 300 cal or so, my 2 go-to things are:

greek yogurt with a sliced piece of fruit & some dry oatmeal, sometimes honey (cal vary depending on amount of oatmeal & honey)

a wrap made with a mini tortilla (50 cal), 1T black olive paste, 0.5T sundried tomato paste, bacon bits, a slice of cheese (cheddar or colby), 2 slices turkey lunchmeat, and sometimes a little bit of lettuce or spinach (290 cal)
Obviously you would substitute tofu / soy meat products.

Tonight I'm having something new: a mini tortilla spread with 2T almond butter, wrapped around a banana. (315 cal)


My favorite summer salad would be easy for you to make with your limited tools:
1c couscous + 1c boiling water + 1t garlic powder + 1T olive oil - put it in a big bowl & let it absorb while you add everything else on top, then stir it all together
1 can chickpeas, drained
4-6 oz crumbled or finely chopped feta cheese (easiest: get the tub of crumbles)
1 can sliced black olives, drained (sometimes I use 2, 'cause the cans are small & I like olives)
1 cucumber, chopped
about 2c chopped tomatos
1 bunch parsley, chopped
can also add: chopped yellow bell pepper, chopped summer squash
Best when chilled, but fine at room temp if you can't wait.

I love the Tasty Bite Madras Lentils - I buy them at Costco but I've seen them other places as well. They come in little pouches that technically have two servings in them but I figure you only live once and eat the whole pouch for 300 calories and 14 grams of protein. They cook in the microwave in 1 minute and taste awesome! I've eaten them by themselves, over rice or quinoa, or over steamed veggies.

Sandwiches. I find the Sarah Lee 45 calorie bread to be a nice option, whole grains, not many calories. I use extra filling on one slice of bread and eat it as a sort of "rollup". Works for me.

Oh, a bowl of cottage cheese. Dressed however you like. Some sweetener and a few splashes of vanilla for an ice cream knockoff, or maybe splash some hot sauce in it for a hot wing type thing. Cottage cheese is not for everyone though. Nothing faster or easier than that, though.

I'd also suggest you have a chat with your catering department head, about nutrition & how they're failing you. :grumble:

Tried that, they don't care for much other than my money. ($500 a week rent for a room and food I don't ever eat that they still charge me for. Grumble

$500 a week!! Why don't you just buy a house, it would be cheaper.

The breakfast-for-dinner suggestion would have been my answer. However, I have another..

I nuke boneless, skinless chicken breasts all the time. Now that in and of itself doesn't qualify as a meal, so I cook whole grain pasta by the pound and dole out portions accordingly. Since there are way too many ways to make pasts more exciting as a meal, I will leave that up to you.

Nuke some broccoli, drink some skim milk--as long as you're not lactose intolerant--and you have a pretty well balanced meal for little money and rime spent. It also has the benefit of being a helluva lot healthier for a person than any frozen dinner of which I can name. This is mostly about the sodium load that typically comes with frozen dinners.

The reasons that this is one of my "go to" meals is that it is really easy to portion things out, and I too am often pressed for time for not entirely dissimilar reasons. PLUS as previously stated there are lots of ways to add some pizzazz to pasta without blowing your calorie budget.

Quick:
- Canned tuna
- Canned beans
- Salad (Letuce, tomato, cucumber).

Drain tuna and beans and mix it up.
Shred lettuce, slice tomato and cucumber and mix them up.

Ready.

morning star farms patties
steamed broccoli, asparagus, zuchinni, potatoes, sweet potatoes etc ( can be done in microwave)
cucumbers and tomatoes

I would suggest getting one of these halogen ovens.
They use little electricity and you can literally cook just about anything in them, from toast to stew to roast dinners to stir fries to soups and so forth.

http://www.amazon.com/Rosewill-R-HCO-11001-Halogen-Convection-Oven/dp/B005EHQN4Q/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1410118123&sr=8-2&keywords=halogen+oven

-low fat cottage cheese
-with tomatoes
-and cucumber
-with slice of whole wheat bread
- and green tea.