RTO dinner Take-out hacks?

[Anonymous]

I don't have take-out hacks, but these three weeknight dinners save us a lot when we are both in the office with commutes:

- Crunchy tacos from the kit. On the table in 20 minutes, vegetables go right on the tacos, can use ground turkey if you don't eat beef.

- Meatball subs with the frozen Italian meatballs from TJs, jarred vodka sauce, wilted spinach to dress the sandwiches. You just throw the meatballs and sauce on the stove on low with a lid, toast some sub rolls in the oven for 3 minutes, and then throw the spinach in the sauce right before dishing up to wilt them. Very low effort. Again can sub in turkey meatballs.

- Quesadillas. We prep veggies on the weekend which makes this especially easy. Sauté up some peppers, onions, and spinach, throw in black beans, then load onto tortillas with cheese and cook. Super fast and easy, plus it's vegetarian. Good way to use up veggies from another meal as well.

- Soup and grilled cheese sandwiches, using either boxed soup from the store or a soup we made previously from the freezer. You can dress up the sandwiches with tomatoes, bacon, etc. if you want to.

- Pizza with prepared dough (either homemade on the weekend or store bought). Only takes a few minutes to assemble and pop in the oven.

I also often will double a recipe I'm making on the weekend if it freezes well, and then put the extra in the freezer for easy weeknight dinners over the next month or so. Lasagna, soups and chili, burritos, empanadas -- these all freeze really well. The only trick with these is that you need to remember to thaw in the fridge the night before because if you try to cook from frozen after work, you'll be eating really late. So it takes a little bit of forethought. But then almost no effort.

You need a routine and schedule, too. Part of the problem is that you are trying to figure out dinner the day of, often after work, and that's so stressful. That's why you're looking for take-out options because it's something you can decide to do and then pick up fast. But there is no way to do that economically. You need to start thinking ahead, create a rotation, do some of the prep and shopping on the weekend. That way you are never like "it's Tuesday at 3pm, I have no idea what we're eating for dinner." You're like "oh yeah it's taco Tuesday, we already have everything except the meat and cheese, I'll pick that up on the way home, and the veggies are already prepped." It's such a relief.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Rao’s lasagna frozen section of grocery store

How do you make this a quick weeknight meal? Doesn’t a frozen lasagna take forever to cook? Do you cook in advance? Not OP

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rao’s lasagna frozen section of grocery store

How do you make this a quick weeknight meal? Doesn’t a frozen lasagna take forever to cook? Do you cook in advance? Not OP

OP here. I have an older kid, so it actually would be OK if I popped it in the oven at 6 then we ate at 7. I just need to reduce the amount of time I spend cooking and cleaning on weeknights so having an hour while it’s cooking is OK. I’d just do other chores or relax or check on homework. I also need to teach my kid to use the oven so he could get it started.

[Anonymous]

Oooh yeah +1 on the “cook once eat twice” concept. We do this all the time bc of schedules. The initial “make” is usually on the weekend.
Lasagna, mac, other casserole type things - make two freeze one
Same thing for almost any soup, stew, chili etc.
yesterday i made a crockpot full of pulled bbq chicken (like 6 lbs chicken breasts and a bunch of bbq sauce. Cooked most of the day, shredded, easy dinner with a salad. Plus two meals’ worth in the freezer which will get pulled out in the next few months.
The trick is to make things that you will actually eat. After years of this i am figuring out which frozen homemade stuff is enthusiastically eaten (chili) vs not (vegetable soup).
Also TbH we have a decent stash of protein bars although these are more likely to be last minute lunches, forgot my lunch, running late kind of “meals.”