Favorite Healthy Frozen Meals?

[The Cosmic Avenger]

Ah, yes, the medical, industrial complex doing its thing.

My last hospital stay, I got a menu and could have ordered as much as I wanted and as unhealthy (or healthy) as I wanted - and I was there for stents (after the procedure, of course.) Go figure.

Maybe they were looking for repeat business?

 

[old medic]

Yeah, hospital food can be crazy. They serve this highly processed stuff full of sugar. Then are ready with insulin if someone’s blood sugar goes out of whack. Insane!

YUP.... I had all kinds of issues when in the hospital after the wreck. Would bring me an Ensure type drink to help with healing bones, hour later check my glucose and return in a few minutes with a shot of insulin.

 

[Teacher Terry]

My friend was in the hospital for 3 weeks and lost 15 pounds the food was so bad. The sandwiches were one of the few edible items.

 

[aja8888]

It took me a day or so to figure out how to beat the "heart healthy" stuff they were sending me. I had a cafeteria menu and all the rooms had an Alexa device in the room to spy on you. A nurse told me I could order meals over Alexa using the menu and I did just that. No more heart healthy pancakes and surgery syrup in the morning! One dinner was grilled salmon over rice, steamed asparagus followed by sugar free Greek yogurt!

 

[sengsational]

I like your turkey recipe, but not sure what is in that processed Lipton Onion soup mix.

I looked at the ingredients. The only thing some might find objectionable is the "umami" (savory) "spices". They don't include MSG, but they do have some glutimates. I, personally, am not subject to ill effects (sometimes known as "Chinese Restaurant Syndrome"...sorry if I'm stomping on someones sensitivities, but I'm old). It's soooo simple, that we just use the soup mix rather than mixing our own. And the gravy it makes is darn good too.

As an extension to my post, I'll add that we're having it tonight, and I put three temperature probes in it. I plotted the lowest probe temp over time. We changed the setting to "Keep Warm" when it hit 165. Why? Well, if you explore the "America's Test Kitchen" archives, you see that bone-in turkey breast has a 165 target. But don't turn it to "Keep Warm". At least with our Crock Pot®, that means "Keep Cooking", LOL! Next time, we're going straight to "off" and manually flip between "Keep Warm" and "Off" to keep right at 165. Ain't nobody likes dried-out turkey breast!

 

[audreyh1]

It took me a day or so to figure out how to beat the "heart healthy" stuff they were sending me. I had a cafeteria menu and all the rooms had an Alexa device in the room to spy on you. A nurse told me I could order meals over Alexa using the menu and I did just that. No more heart healthy pancakes and surgery syrup in the morning! One dinner was grilled salmon over rice, steamed asparagus followed by sugar free Greek yogurt!

That’s good to know. I can’t believe hospitals consider pancakes and sugary syrup to be “heart healthy”. That’s ridiculous!

 

[Music Lover]

I've never really considered buying frozen meals. It's just as easy to put a frozen chicken breast in the air fryer. When it's almost done I'll cook some broccoli in the microwave.

Or reheat a few frozen homemade meatballs and make some pasta. Or frozen homemade chili.

If time really is limited I'll make a sandwich.

 

[happy2bretired]

I ate lots of frozen meals during Covid when I was ordering all my groceries online. I don’t even want to think about frozen meals any more. I do like cold rotisserie chicken for making quick meals.

 

[motley]

Healthy Choice is definitely a go-to for reasonably healthy frozen meals ("frozen meals" meaning a complete meal you just micro, not "anything that is frozen"). Some of the others are actually pretty healthy too, like Lean Cuisine, but vary a lot...bottom line: READ THE LABELS. That was a huge eye-opener for me (not just for frozen meals, but in general) as their amounts of salt/sugar/saturated fat can vary wildly. I rarely eat these anymore, as mostly I just ate them at work as a far easier and less expensive way to have lunch at work vs going out (and wasn't much for making my own and bringing it to work), but work at home now after covid. I still have a few on hand though in case I'm in a hurry or just want something different I don't normally have.

 

[Koolau]

I ate lots of frozen meals during Covid when I was ordering all my groceries online. I don’t even want to think about frozen meals any more. I do like cold rotisserie chicken for making quick meals.

Costco rotisserie chicken for $5 is amazing. For the price of one frozen dinner, DW can make 4 to 6 meals from one Costco chicken! Tastes great and really inexpensive. Much better than frozen stuff though YMMV.

 

[Qs Laptop]

Ahhh, yes. The famous ER.ORG thread drift strikes again.

Number of posts in this thread = 60.
Number of posts with actual frozen meal suggestions = 11.

We now return you to your regular scheduled programming.

 

[ls99]

A favorite of mine, usually makes 5 to 6 meals.
Frozen mixed veggies, add previously bought frozen pork loins, from a big package of fresh, which I divvied up and frozen.
Toss in crock pot add bunch of seasonings, cook on low for 8 hours. Eat some when done, refrigerate some and freeze some.

 

[euro]

A favorite of mine, usually makes 5 to 6 meals.
Frozen mixed veggies, add previously bought frozen pork loins, from a big package of fresh, which I divvied up and frozen.
Toss in crock pot add bunch of seasonings, cook on low for 8 hours. Eat some when done, refrigerate some and freeze some.

Really! What's in your mixed veggies? I have terrible luck with many vegetables in an 8h crockpot. They basically disintegrate. How do you keep them from going mushy?

 

[ls99]

California mix does well on low in my old crockpot.. Not too mushy. If I want some really crisp stuff, throw in some fresh sliced radishes at the end. Main objective is to cook the pork throughly.

 

[motley]

Ahhh, yes. The famous ER.ORG thread drift strikes again.

Number of posts in this thread = 60.
Number of posts with actual frozen meal suggestions = 11.

We now return you to your regular scheduled programming.

Welcome to the internet. It's not easy for me to hold back my thread police urges, so thanks for that

 

[Koolau]

Ahhh, yes. The famous ER.ORG thread drift strikes again.

Number of posts in this thread = 60.
Number of posts with actual frozen meal suggestions = 11.

We now return you to your regular scheduled programming.

Sounds about average. Sometimes I learn more from drift than the original subject but YMMV.

 

[aja8888]

If we didn't have thread drift, how would some folks get their post count up so high?

 

[Qs Laptop]

If we didn't have thread drift, how would some folks get their post count up so high?

Looks like you and Koolau are battling it out for 16th place.

 

[Koolau]

Looks like you and Koolau are battling it out for 16th place.

You should see the prizes we're going after.

 

[jollystomper]

Frozen strawberries, blueberries, banana slices, and pineapple chunks. Throw in a blender (in the desired proportions) with some water, ice, maybe a low cal powered drink mix stick for more flavoring, and a scoop of protein powder. Fills one up as a meal would.

 

[aja8888]

Looks like you and Koolau are battling it out for 16th place.

It's a tough job to post so much useless drivel (not all though), but we work at it. Prize? What prize?

 

[MichaelB]

Ahhh, yes. The famous ER.ORG thread drift strikes again.

Number of posts in this thread = 60.
Number of posts with actual frozen meal suggestions = 11.

We now return you to your regular scheduled programming.

Of course, that might mean there aren’t many good choices that satisfy the thread title.

 

[audreyh1]

Frozen strawberries, blueberries, banana slices, and pineapple chunks. Throw in a blender (in the desired proportions) with some water, ice, maybe a low cal powered drink mix stick for more flavoring, and a scoop of protein powder. Fills one up as a meal would.

Good for a massive sugar spike. Probably not healthy for many.

 

[aja8888]

Good for a massive sugar spike. Probably not healthy for many.

That's my thoughts too!

 

[Koolau]

It's a tough job to post so much useless drivel (not all though), but we work at it. Prize? What prize?

You mean you didn't know? Forget I mentioned it.