Easy dinners for young adults on their own?

[swimmermom3]

Sailor Dude called this afternoon and in the course of our conversation mentioned that he had started working out again after work, but was finding it difficult to eat enough to sustain his workouts without the meal plan on campus. He's about a month into apartment life and says he eats too much frozen pizza.

 

What are some easy favorite meals that a young adult can fix in a short period of time?  All of my kids have a difficult time keeping weight on (didn't get that from their mother!) and I want to give ds some good options.

[EKS]

This doesn't address your question exactly (or at all really!), but after a year in an apartment off campus, we decided to invest in the commuter meal plan for our son.  He was having trouble with needing to stay on campus at all hours (engineering major, which apparently means building stuff late into the night) and not being able plan how to deal with eating for an extended period away from his apartment.

Edited June 24, 2017 by EKS

[retiredHSmom]

I highly suggest the book, A Man, a Can and a Plan.  It is a compilation of recipes from Men's Health magazine.  The recipes are simple and varied and mix fresh ingredients with canned ones. Few kitchen tools are needed to cook them and no complicated techniques. Most recipes cook in 10-30 minutes.

[Kassia]

My sons make a lot of whole wheat pasta, eggs,brown rice, stir fry, frozen veggies, peppers/onions, salads.  They cook chicken in big batches and make individual portions of the chicken to eat with everything.  They also eat a lot of ground turkey.  They don't want to bother making patties/turkey burgers so they just mix that in with their rice or whatever.  They also have trouble keeping weight on and are always eating.  

Edited June 23, 2017 by Erica H

[8filltheheart]

My kids cook for,themselves every yrnother than freshman. Their approach has been either crockpot meals thrown in in the morning or cooking on the weekend and freezing/refrigerating meal size portions. If the cook 3 big meals, they can freeze and have variations. Ds fries up large amts of meat like hamburger with spices, onions, mushrooms, peppers, etc and then freezes it and pulls out individual bags for quick meals like tacos, stuffed pita, sloppy joes, spaghetti, etc.

[Serenade]

I highly suggest the book, A Man, a Can and a Plan.  It is a compilation of recipes from Men's Health magazine.  The recipes are simple and varied and mix fresh ingredients with canned ones. Few kitchen tools are needed to cook them and no complicated techniques. Most recipes cook in 10-30 minutes.

This just went into my Amazon can. I've charged each of my boys with learning to cook at least one new meal this summer.

[Nan in Mass]

Lisa, I will ask my youngest and his roommate.  They both have trouble keeping weight on and youngest, at least, is only interested in food as fuel - enough fat to keep his joints from aching, enough carbs to run, enough protein to build back his gymnastics muscles, etc. Youngest finally resorted to going to the nutritionist at the health center at school.  Together, they worked out a meal plan for him.  I will ask if he is willing to share it.  It is simple to prepare and repetitive, but not necessarily cheap. His roommate has a similarly repetitive system that is considerably cheaper but takes a bit more work and might not be enough to fuel youngest's major amounts of daily excersize.  He might be willing to share, too.

 

Nan

[happypamama]

Spaghetti and meat sauce.

Vegetable soup.

Quiche sort of thing with a storebought crust.

Buffalo chicken dip

Turkey/beef/chicken pot pie with storebought crust

If he has a slow cooker or instant pot, he could learn to slow cook a chicken or roast.

[Garga]

Not the healthiest options ever, but better than frozen pizza. But they still take a bit of prep time.

 

With any meal, toss a bag of veggies in the microwave--the kind of bags designed to be heated directly in the microwave.

 

Tacos: brown the meat then add the seasoning and water, cut onions, tomatoes, and lettuce. Can eat in shells with cheese on top or eat in a bowl with chips mixed in. For the bowl/chip method, I like to add some italian dressing.

 

Spaghetti: top with canned sauce or with canned Hormel chili; add frozen meatballs if desired.

 

Fish: buy a real fish (salmon, whatever). Chop an onion. Put 2 Tbls butter and 2 Tbls oil in a pan. Make hot. Add fish and onions, sprinkle with some sort of spice (rosemary is good), Cook time varies on the thickness of the fish. Start with 4 minutes on one side, then flip and cook for 4 more. Test with fork to see if done (if it's white and crumbly inside, instead of rubbery.)

 

Fish: Buy a box of frozen fish--not just fishsticks. Some come breaded and some come unbreaded, but pre-seasoned. You pop them in the oven and 20 minutes later, they're done. Make some rice for the side. (Rice: 1 cup rice, 2 cups water...bring to boil, then simmer for 20 minutes until the rice soaks up the water. If the rice is crunchy, add some more water to it --1/8 of a cup or so--and microwave it until the water soaks in.)

 

Pizza; homemade--buy a bag or box of pizza mix. Mix it with water and ball it up and moosh it around. Put oil on a baking pan of some sort. Spread the dough into whatever shape you want with your fingers. Top with whatever you like. OR, get the frozen pizzas and add more toppings--some frozen sausages, cooked in the micro and chopped, pepperoni, tomatoes, onions, mushrooms, etc.

 

Bean tacos: beans (canned), salsa, cilantro chopped, corn. Heat all that stuff up and then put in taco shells with cheese on top.

 

Refried bean enchilladas: can of refried beans, can of enchillada sauce (try red one time and green the next), chopped onion. Mix it all together. Spread on soft taco shells. Roll the shells. Put two of them on a plate. Buy two cans of enchillada sauce and use some sauce from the 2nd can over the shells, top with cheese. Microwave for 3 minutes. Eat. (You can make 10 from this recipe)

 

Buy hunks of chicken. Cook the hunks in a pan until they're done inside. Chop the hunks up. Add the chicken to some of the things above: chicken in the refried enchilladas, chicken in the bean tacos, chicken on the pizza. Get a pre-done package of lettuce and chop a tomato and then have a chicken salad.

 

Beef: Buy some beef. Chop it into tiny pieces. Add 1 cup of soy sauce and 2 Tblsp of sesame oil to a bowl. Let the beef sit in the bowl for 15 minutes. While that sits, chop a green pepper and an onion. Fry the beef, the sauce, the pepper, and onion in a big pan until the beef cooks (it's fast). Eat over rice. (Learned this one from our Chinese exchange students. If you want to get fancy, find ginger in the store and peel and chop that into the dish--not too much. I don't like the ginger, so I leave it out most of the time.)

 

 

I hate to cook. I lived off of spaghetti and tuna helper for years. The above recipes seemed like a lot of work to me at first. A lot of work! But now that I've made them a billion times, I can see that they're not really that hard to make.

Edited June 24, 2017 by Garga

[Rockhopper]

My son still lives at home but will happily eat Tasty Bite's microwaveable entrees nearly every meal. If you watch, you can get them at Costco or Amazon for a little over $1.50/bag. It's supposed to be 2 servings/bag but he eats the whole thing, usually with a (Tasty Bite) microwaveable pouch of rice. It would cheaper if we had frozen bags of rice for him, but I haven't gotten that organized.

 

*Madras lentils are his go-to but there are several other entrees he likes also, like the vegetable tikki masala. These are all vegetarian, and Indian/Asian flavors, so they may not be everybody's cup of tea.

 

 

[G5052]

This doesn't address your question exactly (or at all really!), but after a year in an apartment off campus, we decided to invest in the commuter meal plan for our son.  He was having trouble with needing to stay on campus at all hours (engineering major, which apparently means building stuff late into the night) and not being able plan how to deal with eating for an extended period.

 

DS is a commuting junior in the fall. Being over an hour each way from home with a crazy class schedule, we ordered a commuter meal plan. He needs to eat a lot at times, and carrying two meals each day is just too much even though he has a locker.

[Kassia]

My son still lives at home but will happily eat Tasty Bite's microwaveable entrees nearly every meal. If you watch, you can get them at Costco or Amazon for a little over $1.50/bag. It's supposed to be 2 servings/bag but he eats the whole thing, usually with a (Tasty Bite) microwaveable pouch of rice. It would cheaper if we had frozen bags of rice for him, but I haven't gotten that organized.

 

*Madras lentils are his go-to but there are several other entrees he likes also, like the vegetable tikki masala. These are all vegetarian, and Indian/Asian flavors, so they may not be everybody's cup of tea.

 

These look great!  I have one son moving out soon who refuses to cook.  He's a vegetarian and these might work for him.  

[Nan in Mass]

Youngest said maybe take half an hour of workout time and dedicate it to eating, that that half hour won't do any good if he isn't properly fueled up anyway. He said it can take him a week of eating to fuel half an hour of lifting. He eats a smoothie with greens, vegetable juice, fruit and yoghurt for breakfast and then doesn't have to worry about fruits and vegetables the rest of the day, which makes meals easier. He and his roommate go through gallons and gallons of whole milk. They eat a before bed meal, too - something simple like noodles and cheese or eggs on toast. Youngest eats lots of eggs, both raw in milkshakes and fried on toast. Roommate makes chicken in a crockpot and rice and packages it into 5 lunch containers which he takes to work each day.

 

For my oldest, getting tabletop grill solved the too much pizza problem. He grills up a bunch of vegetables drizzled with olive oil and whatever meat he feels like. When he isn't doing that, he does stew or fries up something to put in a wrap. Often this involves a packaged rice mix.

 

Nan

Edited June 24, 2017 by Nan in Mass

[Clemsondana]

I only had a meal plan my first semester of college. I ate a lot of 'ground beef plus an envelope of seasoning' meals - tacos, chili, etc. These days I make my own seasoning mixes, and I'm thinking that they will be a 'care package' staple when my kids are bigger...but the seasoning packets are cheap and pretty good. Make things in double or triple batches to freeze so that it's quick to thaw. I'd also cut up beef or chicken and do pesto-pasta with meat and maybe some broccoli. My kids are fans of garlic salmon linguine and also broccoli sausage simmer, both in Taste of Home and fairly quick.

 

Also, baked potatoes topped with whatever he likes are good - we make and freeze twice-baked potatoes so that we can heat when we are in a rush. And, he can use a crock pot to cook chicken pieces so that he has cooked meat if he wants a soup. White Turkey chili, also a taste of home meal (although I use chicken) is quick and popular with one of my kids. And, scrambled eggs...during ball season, we eat a lot of scrambled eggs!

[Bootsie]

Grilled ham and cheese sandwiches with fresh fruit and/or raw veggies

canned chili

scrambled eggs, bacon, oatmeal, toast

spaghetti and sauce

mac and cheese

frozen soup in individual containers 

ham slices--can be broiled easily and quickly and leftovers can be used in an omelet, pasta salad, etc.

broiled hamburger patties, topped with salsa and cheese

 

I have found having things that have a relatively long shelf life and are easy to fix for one person are handy to have available for college students with unpredictable schedules.