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Instant ramen. Or if I'm feeling fancy, ramen that takes 6 whole minutes to cook

Egg noodles tossed in olive oil and topped with Parmesan and basil. Super lazy, super tasty, and cheap.

If I seriously don't feel up to cooking, like there's no fucking way I'm turning on the stove? Cereal.

My "just throw it in a pan" meal? Seashell pasta + canned tomato soup. Apparently one fateful day before payday, my grandmother had two hungry kids to feed, and nothing in the house but those two ingredients. So my gramma invented Spaghettios from first principles and a family comfort food was born. A hot meal so simple you can make it without a working brain stem.

Peanut butter sammich

A whole jar of pickles

Soylent!

This is going to be super Asian... But I usually have rice on hand, and in the fridge an assortment of Chinese pickled/preserved veggies, fermented tofu, Vietnamese fermented prawns, salted and/or century eggs, kimchi, jars of seasoning like sate for example. Keeps forever (use clean utensils to avoid contaminating the jars) and good in a pinch.

Even better to add a side of greens if I have them. Boil or saute for a few minutes, then toss them in whatever seasoning (oyster sauce for example, keeps it simple and magically makes everything taste like stir fry).

It's challenging to cook when one lives alone. I came up with a frozen buffet system.

I make several main dishes, several side dishes, and several desserts. Subsequently, I divide the foods into portions that I would normally eat, then I freeze.

That way I can grab 2 or 3 items, microwave, and eat whenever I'm hungry.

Doing this, I only need to cook once or twice every shopping cycle.

Fruit

• Boil macaroni elbows. Drain.
• Open jar of pasta sauce. Pour over macaroni. Stir until heated through.
• Add salt, pepper, a sprinkle of chile flakes.

Done.

Yogurt and granola, with a side of nuts and cheese for an portable, decent protein, heavy snack/light meal. Or, salad with chopped lunch meat and some cheese on top, so I can again get some easy protiens. I also keep some decent frozen meals in case I'm short on cook time and need a hot heavy meal. There are work gaps where I can barely spend time at home and the bagged "family meals" of pasta or mixed veggies are awesome portioned out for multiple meals.

Popcorn, cereal, or yogurt with fruit.

I'm choosing sleep for dinner tonight!

Medium rare chicken strips, duh

I usually have some kind of instant noodles and chili oil about. That typically will get me through. I also have some canned/frozen stuff that goes fine with rice (which we always have cooked (and I don't know that hitting a button on a rice cooker and walking away counts as 'cooking')).

I've basically got 2 lazy meals:

Veg dog on a toasted bun with diced red onion, pickled jalapeños, mayo, mustard and ketchup.

Instant ramen with some extra fixins. Always green onions and shishimi togarashi and then some combo of frozen corn, black fungus, pickled bamboo shoots, kimchi, sesame oil, miso, nori, fried gluten, and/or tofu.

I batch cook and freeze stuff, so honestly, most of my food.

Kraft Dinner 🇨🇦

Super lazy? Random bread/toast with store bought hummus.

A little bit cooking is okay? Then pasta with olive oil and garlic (and parmesan or chili if available). Or alternatively I put a can of kidney beans with a can of tomatoes, garlic, chili, and spices in a pot, cook it a bit, and serve with rice, pasta, bread, or tortilla chips. Or whatever else is quickly available.

Or frozen pizza.

Walmart frozen burritos. They are incredibly cheap, by weight almost comparable to cheap staples like pasta or rice. I can toast them on the pan and add some fire hot sauce. Tastes good. Easy to make. Inexpensive. Only downside is that there's no way it's good for you.

Can o soup.

Pre-made sauce and spaghetti. Usually doctor up plain marinara by adding a little olive oil with sautéed pre-packaged diced garlic, some dried oregano, and maybe a little salt and pepper. The hardest part is waiting for the water to boil.

Baked beans on toast is my usual go to when I want something quick and minimal effort.

Cheese.

Humous and baguette

Two cans of air fried garbanzo beans. I don't consider it cooking because it takes all of 19 seconds to open the cans, drain, spray cooking spray and turn an air fryer on. Gives me what feels like a bag of potato chips at a much healthier nutrition on the cheap. Toss some tajin seasoning on there and away I go.

I'm not seeing it here so I will recommend:

Always have some frozen shredded chicken in the freezer.
It's super easy to make. Chicken, broth or water, some veggies like celery and onion and salt if you just used water and let it simmer in pot with a lid on at a low temp or use a pressure cooker for even more hands off and then hit with a mixer to shred the chicken.

You can make several pounds of it in advance and then just wrap up portions of it in Saran wrap or foil. Bag it and put it in the freezer. It's now very resistant to freezer burn and it's a perfect ingredient for lazy days.

Tacos, grab some chicken add some cayenne cumin and lime juice and throw it in a tortilla.
BBQ, mix with BBQ sauce and heat up throw on bread or a bun or even better some yellow rice or rice-a-roni. You can add it to soup, you can turn it into all your classic chicken dishes and it's there and waiting for you.

Shredded chicken.

Overnight oats, just steel cut oats in whole milk left in the fridge for at least 4 hours. Healthier and cheaper than a box cereal and so so easy. But if I didn't think ahead to chuck some in the fridge beforehand, then it's gotta be hardboiled eggs. I always have eggs in the fridge and chucking them in a pot and waiting 11 minutes is as easy as it gets.

Well, aside from eating fruit/berries with cheese and crackers but that could be argued to be a snack not a meal.

Microwave oatmeal

Ingredients

Oatmeal

• 1 part oatmeal (1 dl for a small meal, 2 for a bigger one)
• 1.25 parts water
• Some salt
• Optionally some psyllium seeds for extra fiber, maybe a teaspoon

Extras

• Some milk, maybe 1 dl
• Some lingonberry jam, maybe a tablespoon

1. Mix everything in a bowl
2. Microwave for 2 minutes for 1 dl oatmeal or 2.45 for 2 dl oatmeal
3. Mix with a spoon
4. Top with jam and pour over some milk (careful, it's hot)

Ready to eat in five minutes, very low effort, produces little in the way of dishes to clean, cheap as dirt, vegetarian if using cow milk and vegan if using oat milk, and not particularly high in calories but still quite satiating. Downside is that it's not the most exciting meal you could think of, but you arguably get more than you pay for all in all.

Bottle of soylent. 400 calories, chug it and forget.

Sandwich or hotdog with chips.

Or a Soylent and some toast/ bread.

Avocado toast, actually. Toast bread, mash avocado on it, maybe sliced onions and if I have any cheese I have that with it or on it.

pineapple slices straight out of a tin can

Take a tortilla wrap, put a slice of gouda young cheese in it, wrap like a wrap, 40 seconds in microwave et voila! Hot pocket and filling meal.

I bulk prepare and freeze food often for those situations, so I can get lazy and still have a decent meal. For example, my freezer currently has chickpeas stew with sausages, kibbeh, Bolognese sauce, a simpler tomato sauce, a half dozen pierogi... all of those can become a meal if paired with quick stuff, like rice or pasta and a tossed salad.

If that fails, I cook some quick polenta using pre-cooked cornmeal, then break some eggs in it.