Need suggestions for stores with pre-made meals?!

I am not as familiar with the other stores, but I know that Trader Joe's has wraps and salads. I don't think they have fresh food that you can reheat.

I've only seen them places for much more than the $9 Sprouts is charging you, like at the old My Fit Foods store( I miss that place). In pre-covid days, you could make up some meals from the prepared food buffet at Whole Foods or similar stores. Those are gone now.

I think you're likely to find a similar price point at any store that offers this kind of thing - that's the tradeoff of not preparing the food yourself, the person who does must be paid for their time and energy. My weekly meal prep works out to under $5 per serving at most usually - I understand if your schedule simply doesn't allow you to spend your own time on this, sometimes it be like that, but it may be worth looking at your day-to-day and seeing if you can scrape together a couple of hours one day a week to batch-cook and portion things out.

Rannoch3908 wrote: »

I could - I have plenty of time if I wanted to eat the same 1 or 2 things over and over again.

But I want to be able to go buy stuff like this - kinda hard to meal prep just 1 of each:

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1 - pot roast meal
1 - meat loaf meal
1 - pesto chicken plate
1- spaghetti meatball
1 - chicken alfredo
1 - carne asada bowl
1 - pulled pork bowl

Pot roast meals should freeze well so you can have a serving or two and freeze the rest for later meals.

For the chicken dishes, you could prep the chicken ahead of time, or make for one dish with extra for the second type of dish. Even alfredo sauce made from scratch comes together quickly, and I've found some brands of jarred sauce to be perfectly acceptable. Ditto with pesto - I can make this from scratch in the time it takes to cook pasta, but my Mom who is Ms. Cook From Scratch uses Classico brand pesto. In the summer I make big batches of pesto and freeze them it it little plastic containers.

My favorite meatballs are ones I make from scratch, with does require some time, but I have also used precooked frozen or refrigerated meatballs with jarred sauce, and the meatball and sauce part is done in the time it takes to cook the pasta.

For carne asada and carnita bowls - is there a Chipotles near you? (I personally have to be very careful with portion control at Chipotles, but with pre-planning this is not an issue.)

I can't help re your actual question, as I'm not in the US, but do you have a freezer? Much of what you've listed could be made as a larger meal - and then freeze additional portions.

My freezer is full of different curries, different stirfries, chilli, bolognese, tagine, different roast meats, cheesy tomato pasta bake, casseroles, cottage pie, fish pie and more, including rice that is cooked and bagged in me-sized portions. Most of my 'main' dishes contain a lot of veg as well. Sometimes I'll have grilled chicken or grilled fish on rice, with veg, but mostly, at least 3 or 4 times a week, I just have to get something out of the freezer in the morning and reheat it in the evening. You could just as easily get something out of the freezer the night before and heat it for lunch.

I rarely have the same thing within any 3 week periods. If you prep during week 1, you could make enough to do week 2, part of week 4 and part of week 6. During week 3, you cook different things and make enough to do part of week 4 and part of week 6. You then have some variety and can mix things. By cooking during alternate weeks, you can swap things around so it's not a case of "It's Monday, therefore I must be having x".

All of our local groceries have some sort of premade meals like that. You might also want to check out the Hormel meals in the butcher area of the grocery. They have things like pot roast, meat loaf, pork roast, steak tips, etc. Add a vegetable and you have a good dinner. They aren't frozen and are really pretty good. There are also some pulled pork in that part of the store that are pretty good and some that are more sauce than meat.

Our local grocery store has meals like this. Usually $4.00 to &6.00, depending on what you get, in the deli department. I purchase one every week for my husbands dinner as a change from his normal supper. He works 2 to 10 pm. They even have prime rib, but it’s expensive. There’s a gas station here (Kwik Trip) that has recently began selling them too. I haven’t purchased any from them so I don’t know prices.

Since you meal prep, you probably already know it would be cheaper to just prep more. Sometimes it’s just nice to take advantage of convenience, and get something different, even though it costs more.

janejellyroll wrote: »

I am not as familiar with the other stores, but I know that Trader Joe's has wraps and salads. I don't think they have fresh food that you can reheat.

Being a fan of Trader Joe’s wraps and salads, I can say they only last a few days (expiration date is 3-4 days after purchase). I would suspect other fresh food solutions have similar freshness limitations. You’ll need to plan on a couple shopping trips a week.

I usually meal prep on weekends with my instapot and some chicken/potatoes and reheat during the week with some frozen veggies thrown in.