Store Bought Freezer Meals
1atjensen
Posts: 20 Member
Does anyone have any good recommendations for store bought freezer meals? I specifically looking for like rice bowls without the protein. I would like to add my own grilled chicken. Healthy Choice has a few but all come with their own protein.
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I like the frozen veggie fried rice from Trader Joe’s. It’s not an individual meal, but comes in a bag,1
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Amy’s Organics is by far my favorite. They’re all vegetarian so you could easily add your own meat.5
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Another option would be to buy some of those bagged veggie/rice, veggie/pasta things that are intended as side dishes, and add protein to those.8
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Healthy Choice Cafe Steamers are what I eat when I go for a TV dinner. I like that it steams, so the stuff hasn’t been sitting in the sauce and it’s not all soggy and weird like most frozen dinners are. The taste is the best I’ve found in diet frozen meals, and they’re super super low calorie. You could probably eat 2 for dinner.
And yes, they have rice bowls!1 -
Cooking the supporting actors (rice, potatoes, veges, etc.) for the addition of grilled meats is at first an unrewarding task. But, it does not have to be. Use your grilling skills to make those supporting menu items special. The bagged and frozen products are, at best, awful and will lower the satisfaction you get from your grilled meats. Just embrace the process.3
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My favorite is EVOL ginger soy udon noodles. They are pricier than others, but very tasty. Also enjoy Lean Cuisine linguini with cheese meatballs. I often add my own chicken/protein to it to both of these.2
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wilson10102018 wrote: »Cooking the supporting actors (rice, potatoes, veges, etc.) for the addition of grilled meats is at first an unrewarding task. But, it does not have to be. Use your grilling skills to make those supporting menu items special. The bagged and frozen products are, at best, awful and will lower the satisfaction you get from your grilled meats. Just embrace the process.
My OH and I were talking about instant rice the other day. I can't stand the stuff and don't see the point. Including bringing the water to boil and letting the rice steam for 5 minutes when it's done cooking, it takes me less than 30 minutes to make rice, and very little of that time is active. I make the protein and veg while the rice is cooking.
He said not everyone wants to do that, or knows to do that, or knows how to do that. To me, the superior results are worth it. But I get that not everyone shares this belief.
I wouldn't mind cooking a whole meal from scratch every night, but lately I've been trying to be more efficient with my time. So, Sunday he grilled a big package of chicken tenders, and I made us entree salads. Monday, we had steamed spinach in a stock/wine/butter/lemon/capers sauce with the leftover chicken and cheese raviolis. Tonight, he made nachos with the leftover chicken and I made salad to go with it. All of these meals were under 30 minutes.2 -
Happi Foodi has really good “cauliflower rice” bowls.0
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kshama2001 wrote: »wilson10102018 wrote: »Cooking the supporting actors (rice, potatoes, veges, etc.) for the addition of grilled meats is at first an unrewarding task. But, it does not have to be. Use your grilling skills to make those supporting menu items special. The bagged and frozen products are, at best, awful and will lower the satisfaction you get from your grilled meats. Just embrace the process.
My OH and I were talking about instant rice the other day. I can't stand the stuff and don't see the point. Including bringing the water to boil and letting the rice steam for 5 minutes when it's done cooking, it takes me less than 30 minutes to make rice, and very little of that time is active. I make the protein and veg while the rice is cooking.
He said not everyone wants to do that, or knows to do that, or knows how to do that. To me, the superior results are worth it. But I get that not everyone shares this belief.
I wouldn't mind cooking a whole meal from scratch every night, but lately I've been trying to be more efficient with my time. So, Sunday he grilled a big package of chicken tenders, and I made us entree salads. Monday, we had steamed spinach in a stock/wine/butter/lemon/capers sauce with the leftover chicken and cheese raviolis. Tonight, he made nachos with the leftover chicken and I made salad to go with it. All of these meals were under 30 minutes.
I make a dry cup of Basmati rice and then use only a cup cooked, The rest makes up two more meals of some sort. Usually something like Bibimbab made with a half oz of toasted sesami oik and onions, garlic and shrimp or scallops. The rest, if any re-heated with steam and soy sauce as a side dish.
If you haven't made Basmati, it is something else. Just don't stir it. A minute or two of boiling and turn it off or mostly off. No butter or oil. Just as much sea salt as you can tolerate.1 -
Just posted to another thread, found this at Target and would be excellent with added proteins.
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Of course, the problem with that product ^^^ is that mole has about 5 calories per gram. Practically the highest thing there is other than oil. And, with 270 calories for 11 oz without a protein of what would otherwise be steamed vegetables, it is a pretty calories luxurious offering. Why not just steam frozen vegetables and add some less calorie dense sauce?0
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Don Lee Farms organic veggie bowls from Costco
https://www.donleefarms.com/product-page/organic-superfoods-veggie-bowl0 -
wilson10102018 wrote: »Of course, the problem with that product ^^^ is that mole has about 5 calories per gram. Practically the highest thing there is other than oil. And, with 270 calories for 11 oz without a protein of what would otherwise be steamed vegetables, it is a pretty calories luxurious offering. Why not just steam frozen vegetables and add some less calorie dense sauce?
Did you look at the actual product? It's 270 calories total and has eleven grams of protein. You could easily add additional protein to this and still have a reasonable number of calories for lunch. I'm struggling to see how this is especially "luxurious." It's seven grams of fat.6 -
Definitely take a look in the frozen vegetables section - there are a lot of variety packages made by bird's eye, green giant, and even the store brands. Bird's eye Asian blend vegetables are great, and Green Giant has tuscany flavored broccoli that I like really well, too. Green Giant steamers in the box make a great lunch - I've taken the anitoxident blend, for instance, and added a pouch of ginger sesame chicken in a pouch for a quick meal - the blend is I think 150 calories for the entire box and the pouch of chicken was around 70 calories, I believe.
But you can get cauliflower risotto, mexican blended vegetables, and pictsweet has a spring mix that is really good, too.3 -
If a frequent menu item, for the effort of hauling the boxes/bags of finished rice/rice-veg-blends home from the store and the increased pricetag, it's worth considering just doing a large pot of rice for the week or half week -- (almost 0 effort in a rice cooker or electric pressure cooker)(optionally mix in a bit of a sauce or spice and maybe vegetables) to scoop out and microwave later. (The rice part in a lot of those Healthy choice ones aren't stir fried or anything special...just plain rice topped with frozen veg, a bit of sauce, and a miniscule amount of meat).2
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If a frequent menu item, for the effort of hauling the boxes/bags of finished rice/rice-veg-blends home from the store and the increased pricetag, it's worth considering just doing a large pot of rice for the week or half week -- (almost 0 effort in a rice cooker or electric pressure cooker)(optionally mix in a bit of a sauce or spice and maybe vegetables) to scoop out and microwave later. (The rice part in a lot of those Healthy choice ones aren't stir fried or anything special...just plain rice topped with frozen veg, a bit of sauce, and a miniscule amount of meat).
I went through practically the entire freezer meals section of Krogers before I started counting calories here. Most everything is garbage. Soggy vegetables, bland sauces, unrecognizable rice and quinoa. And, why the hell would anyone choose one with mole or "cheesy sauce" which adds a lot of superfluous calories. Mostly these "sauces" are disgusting.
A pot of rice for the week as described above and the addition of seafood or vegetables and a low calorie sauce if needed is a good formula for quick, cheap and healthy.
One can put a cup of cooked rice in a saucepan with some fresh asparagus and a frozen 6 oz tilapia filet, some minced garlic and let it steam for 10 minutes and enjoy a delicious healthy meal. For me, copious amounts of soy sauce.0 -
wilson10102018 wrote: »If a frequent menu item, for the effort of hauling the boxes/bags of finished rice/rice-veg-blends home from the store and the increased pricetag, it's worth considering just doing a large pot of rice for the week or half week -- (almost 0 effort in a rice cooker or electric pressure cooker)(optionally mix in a bit of a sauce or spice and maybe vegetables) to scoop out and microwave later. (The rice part in a lot of those Healthy choice ones aren't stir fried or anything special...just plain rice topped with frozen veg, a bit of sauce, and a miniscule amount of meat).
And, why the hell would anyone choose one with mole or "cheesy sauce" which adds a lot of superfluous calories. Mostly these "sauces" are disgusting.
I've noticed that different people enjoy different things. A meal that one person finds unpalatable, another person can enjoy. And the amount of meal prep one person finds acceptable can be too much for a different person. It's not that anybody is wrong in these situations. It's that people are different.9 -
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wilson10102018 wrote: »
Lol, thank you, I was thinking of editing my post AGAIN!
OP, a friend of mine loves these. He eats them regularly.
They are all plant-based, so you could add your choice of protein. There are a number of varieties.0 -
wilson10102018 wrote: »
Lol, thank you, I was thinking of editing my post AGAIN!
OP, a friend of mine loves these. He eats them regularly.
They are all plant-based, so you could add your choice of protein. There are a number of varieties.
For this Tuscan one (which is reasonable calorie-wise, I would add a 140g of frozen shrimp to this lightly sauteed with crushed red pepper flakes.0 -
If you hate making veggie and starchy sides to go with your protein an easy solution is jacket potato or sweet potato cooked in the microwave and any vegetable you can serve steamed cooked in the packet in the microwave.
For the potatoes, prick all over with a fork so that steam can escape to prevent explosions. Microwave on high 6-9 minutes depending on size of potatoes and strength of your microwave. Start with six minutes and give a squeeze to check if tender before microwaving further. If you are cooking for more people, a larger quantity of potatoes in the microwave will take longer. A single sweet potato is about 5 minutes total.
For veg such as green beans, sugar snaps, green asparagus, tenderstem broccoli cut a corner off the bag it's sold in so steam can escape. Microwave on high a minute, then flip the bag over and microwave another minute. Test if it is almost cooked enough to your liking. At this point cut open the bag, and rinse off the veg before warming up another 30-60 seconds in a microwave safe serving dish.
It might take a little practice to get the timing right so that everything is ready at the same time.0
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