I cook most of my meals and am pretty frugal. I do a lot of meal prep (cooking in bulk), so I don’t have to cook every day in order to have food. But sometimes I run out of my meal prep or just want something different, and don’t have energy to cook something fresh. In these cases I often go for frozen food which requires very little prep.

It used to be the case that “TV dinners” / “microwave dinners” were for the most part pretty gross. Or, at least, my family never had them – maybe we were too upper-class for that, maybe my parents just didn’t like them, but regardless I learned from a young age that such things weren’t things we ate and I never had an opportunity to revisit it. (I also tried Soylent in my twenties and decided it wasn’t for me.)

But now I’ve discovered the joys of frozen food in adulthood and I’m very positively surprised at how good commercial frozen food can be. It’s faster and lazier than cooking from scratch, and is cheaper and (sometimes) tastier and healthier than ordering restaurant delivery.

Here are some frozen foods and my reviews of them. (I’m vegan, so I will only list my favorite vegan frozen foods, but I think omnivores will also find frozen food they will like). There’s a mix here of pure “reheat and eat” type meals as well as ingredients that don’t quite form a whole meal on their own but are still super easy to keep in the freezer and prepare when I didn’t plan ahead:

  • Amy’s pizzas: I quite like these, I think they’re the best frozen pizzas out there. I have trouble justifying restaurant pizza these days because I don’t like most vegan cheese that goes on it, but the cheese on Amy’s ones is much better than most restaurant pizza I’ve had.
  • Amy’s burritos: These are pretty good (but flagging that it’s a totally different experience than fresh burritos and may take some getting used to) - my main reservation is that I haven’t quite nailed the reheating plan yet. I’ve gotten used to microwaving them for a minute, let sit for a minute, then microwave again; but it would be nice if the exterior could be grilled but I don’t really want to heat up a pan. I usually make two for a meal.
  • Trader Joe’s vegan tikka masala: Tastes great, and has meaty soy chunks for a good amount of protein. Their reheating instructions are good too, although I don’t love the plastic in the microwave. I usually make two for a full meal.
  • Trader Joe’s beefless bulgogi & mandarin orange chicken: These are some of my favorite frozen meats out there. They’re preflavored, but I do usually add rice (my rice cooker makes two servings of rice in under 20 minutes, or you can also buy frozen rice which is microwaveable too). I usually microwave to separate the chunks, and then saute them while the rice is cooking.
  • Breaded chicken nuggets: Any brand – Gardein, Impossible, even store brands, all are very tasty air fried for 10 minutes, served with ketchup.
  • Impossible meat patties: saute for 10min, serve as hamburgers with toppings. I like keeping buns in the freezer too, and I usually have pickles, mayo and mustard in the fridge.
  • Beyond sausage breakfast patties: combine with frozen bagels or english muffins!
  • Meatballs: Any brand – start pasta, saute meatballs for a few min, dump a can of tomato sauce over the meatballs in the pan, heat through and combine.
  • Sausages: any brand – saute whole, saute chopped, even roast them in the toaster oven in a pinch. Very convenient format with little cleanup required.
  • Broccoli and brussels sprouts: I don’t eat these on their own – I just keep bags in the freezer all the time, and add some to the saute pan or air fryer when cooking other food, to add some nice fiber and micronutrients. Takes very little additional effort for some substantial health (and tasty variety) benefits.
  • Other pre-chopped (sometimes pre-sauced) frozen veg mixes – mixed mushrooms, grains and veg, peppers, etc: They can be a good “healthy food” base microwaved, served with one of the above meats. I don’t eat these on their own.
  • Spring rolls and mini samosas: I don’t usually eat these on their own as a meal, but they’re great when air fried and make lovely sides or snacks.

I’m not exaggerating when I say these are better than takeout in many cases: I don’t think they’re tastier than freshly prepared food, but freshly reheated Amy’s pizza is better than cold delivered pizza; the TJ’s tikka has better macros than whatever I can get delivered from local Indian restaurants since they don’t offer any protein except lentils!

And, as I mentioned above, the cost is much much lower than delivery, e.g., if I order delivery these days I’m likely to pay $25 versus under $10 for two frozen tikka masalas. And time from hungry to eating is much less (6 minutes for tikka masala, 45 minutes for delivery).

I’ll still be cooking a lot, but frozen meals have mostly supplanted takeout for when I want quick tasty food with reasonable health properties.