Any suggestions for lazy dinner after work

Any suggestions for a healthy meal after work or when you don’t feel like cooking. It is so easy to go through the drive thru after a long day. Any ideas for quick and easy meals?
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Replies

  • amusedmonkey
    amusedmonkey Posts: 10,330 Member
    My laziest meal is 3 minute noodles with a can of tuna. Canned beans are also handy for a quick and filling bean salad. If I have leftover chicken breast, I make a chicken salad sandwich (shredded chicken with greek yogurt, pressed garlic, cucumbers, and dill).
  • amorfati601070
    amorfati601070 Posts: 2,852 Member
    stir fry takes like 10 - 15 minutes. Load up on the veggies.
  • candylilacs
    candylilacs Posts: 614 Member
    Hummus, if you like veggies dip them, or rice crackers!
  • neugebauer52
    neugebauer52 Posts: 1,120 Member
    I have watched the Chinese way of preparing stir fried cabbage. Add a little bit of spiciness, soy sauce, sesame seeds / oil etc. My quick recipe. Also like eggs and spinach leaves (thank you canadjineh) - quickly prepared and lots of variations possible.
  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,304 Member
    Cook pasta
    Put oil in pan, add chopped onion, when ready add tin of tomatoes in pan, add tinned tuna, pinch of sugar and bit of lemon juice to lift the taste. Mix.

    Alternatively
    Cook pasta
    Put chorizo or other hard sausage in small pieces in pan and cook the fat out. Add onion and garlic, add tin of tomatoes, add lemon to lift the taste. Mix. serve with parmesan cheese

    Or cook very small pasta, like ellbows
    Chop onion and garlic, in pan with oil until both sweat and a bit crispy. Cut tin of luncheon beef into small cubes. Remove onion from pan, throw in cubes and cook until crisps. Add onion/garlic back. Mix with pasta once ready. Serve with parmesan cheese.

    Or cook rice, make basic teriyaki sauce
    pan fry salmon in slices, cut vegetables in the meantime. remove salmon from pan. Put veggies into pan and maybe a drop of the teriyaki near the end. Put rice into big bowl. Veggies on top. Salmon back into pan and glaze with teriyaki, small amounts at a time. put salmon into bowl

    Boil water. Chop spring onions, red pepper, chili pepper, garlic and ginger or whatever you like. Cut chicken.
    Oil into pan, add garlic and ginger and cook until fregrant. Add chicken. Boil noodles in the meantime. Add veggies to pan and cook until ready. Add soy sauce and fish sauce in ratio 3:2. Drain noodle and add to pan. Add green from spring onions and stir. Eat.

    All takes about 20 minutes to cook.
  • SuzySunshine99
    SuzySunshine99 Posts: 2,983 Member
    Rotisserie chicken from Costco or the grocery store. It's precooked, so I just re-heat it in the oven.
    I'll through some veggies in the oven to roast with it.
  • Lazz5k
    Lazz5k Posts: 251 Member
    Rotisserie chicken is such a smart idea! & it's sooo good!!
    I also find myself making spaghetti squash bowls to make a quick meal.
    Microwave a spaghetti squash, and sautee some peeled shrimp quick.
    Once your done add alfredo sauce to the spaghettti squash, with shrimp and boom! Shrimp alfredo!!
  • echmain3
    echmain3 Posts: 231 Member
    Any suggestions for a healthy meal

    What do you mean by “healthy”?

    (I’ve asked this a million times and have yet to get a straight answer)
  • vim_n_vigor
    vim_n_vigor Posts: 4,089 Member
    In our house we prepare the bulk of our meals over the weekend and just heat and serve during the week, or we use the crock pot to cook our food through the day while we are at work. Then you can make pretty much whatever meals fit withing your definition of healthy.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,879 Member
    make a sandwich?
  • Lounmoun
    Lounmoun Posts: 8,426 Member
    Pasta and salad
    Zoodles with sauce, cooked chicken and mozzarella
    Eggs
    Sandwich or wrap
    Leftovers- soup reheats nicely


  • nocgirl72
    nocgirl72 Posts: 139 Member
    Rotisserie Chicken is a good one. Or a couple chicken soft tacos from taco bell. Chick Fila grilled chicken sandwich. Wendy's small chili and a side salad?
  • vanityy99
    vanityy99 Posts: 2,583 Member
    canadjineh wrote: »
    Scrambled eggs with a large handful of fresh spinach leaves wilted in, drizzle with a bit of hot sauce or salsa, on the side - celery sticks with cheddar or cream cheese in them.

    I like this.
  • quiksylver296
    quiksylver296 Posts: 28,443 Member
    Something already in the crockpot is my favorite. Done when I arrive home. Yay!
  • littlegreenparrot1
    littlegreenparrot1 Posts: 693 Member
    Stab potato with fork, put in microwave to bake.

    Cook omelette while potato cooks. Add whatever veg is lurking.

    Eat.
  • sarabushby
    sarabushby Posts: 784 Member
    Spanish omlette / Tortilla (so many recipes you can try but just use whatever you have around you. To cook the potatoes or sweet potatoes fast just microwave them then slice)

    Regular omelettes - not just ham/cheese/egg/mushroom but have you tried adding tonnes crab meat, sliced asparagus & some red chilli?

    Egg fried rice with added prawns/chicken/pork veggies etc. Super fast if you use pre-cooked sachets or frozen rice.

    Baked beans on toast /cheese on toast

    Microwaved jacket potato with any filling
  • NadNight
    NadNight Posts: 794 Member
    I usually keep some microwave meals on hand in the freezer which are good but failing that I go for pasta which once cooked I put in pan with tuna, cheese and whatever green veg I can find (peas, broccoli, green beans, asparagus, spring onion).
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 9,948 Member
    I'll often do a "starter course" that doesn't need to be cooked when I'm in that situation to take the edge off, then make something cooked.

    Tonight when I finally was able to stop working and get some food, I started with about 2 oz. of cooked ham (I put the Easter ham in small packages, enough for a couple of meals, and froze them, and now I can take them out one at a time whenever I'm in the mood for ham), an ounce of cheddar cheese, a 90 calorie potato roll (dinner roll size), and a mandarin orange. About 380 kcal.

    Later, I threw a frozen Trader Joe's salmon burger in a pan to cook while I chopped a hot pepper, pulled some frozen diced onions from the freezer (whenever I chop a fresh onion for a recipe, if there's any leftover, I either pop it in a quart-size freezer bag with remnants for making stock, or I dice it and freeze -- it works fine from the freezer for any recipe where you want to saute it), and tossed them into the skillet with a little fat I had saved from the pan drippings from baking the ham, along with leftover diced butternut squash (bought frozen, so I never did any prep work on it). Cooked it like hash or home fries, and served with the salmon and a little Tabasco chipotle hot sauce. And a glass of unsweet plain soy milk to wash it down. Another 400 kcal.

    Anyway, I'd say the themes for me is to (1) have stuff on hand you can eat without cooking -- leftover cooked meat, charcuterie, jerky, cheese, eggs, any veggies you like to eat cold (I like the edamame they sometimes sell in the fresh produce section in little plastic tubs), pickled foods, olives, bread, crackers, V8 juice, fruit, etc. If you come home really hungry, have some of those ready-to-eat foods to take the edge off. (Sometimes, I have those kinds of foods as my whole meal when I don't have a lot of calories left, which usually would mean I'm not that hungry, and also might not feel like making the effort to cook if I'm only going to have 300 calories for dinner). Then, (2) have already prepped foods on hand if you want to make something cooked but don't want to do a lot of work. These can be leftovers, frozen or canned foods, or foods that you've prepped (or bought prepped) earlier in the week.

    Another trick is to put a pot of water on to boil as soon as you walk into the kitchen, while you think about what you want. Then it's ready if you decide to cook pasta or rice (you can cook and drain rice the same way you cook and drain pasta), boil potatoes, boil veggies, steam veggies (transfer some of the boiling water to another pot and insert steamer basket, boil or poach eggs, quickly refresh lots of different cooked things you might have in the refrigerator or freezer ...