[rosseloh]

> a (relatively) healthy supermarket meal easily cooked on the stovetop in the time it takes to wait in a drive-thru

Don't get me wrong, I don't disagree with your overall point....but what drive-thrus do you use?

A home-cooked meal for me takes at MINIMUM an hour. Prep, cooking, eating, cleanup. If it takes less than that, then it's probably a lot of pre-made/processed stuff that isn't particularly healthy in itself.

The only way I've been able to get around it with my work schedule is to meal-prep on weekends. Making stuff in bulk helps, but it's still 3-5 hours of my precious weekend used up.

[windowsrookie]

You're doing it wrong. There's so many ways to cook a quick healthy cheap meal.

I cook 6 chicken breasts at a time, that way I have chicken for today and the next 5 days. It takes less than 5 minutes of your time to put chicken breasts on a sheet pan and then step away for 20 minutes while they bake in the oven. Then one minute to wash the sheet pan when they are done. There's 6 minutes of my time for 6 days of chicken breasts.

Then there's so many ways to use the pre-cooked chicken breasts. One day ill chop one up mix with mayo, and mustard to make chicken salad and apply to some toast. 5 minute chicken salad sandwiches.

Next day I'll chop the chicken Breast up mix with taco seasoning microwave for 1 minute and apply to taco shells with lettuce and tomato. 5 minute tacos.

Next day I'll microwave a chicken breast with some mixed veggies. 5 minute chicken and veggies.

Next day I'll microwave the chicken breast apply to some toast with lettuce,tomato, mayo. 5 minute chicken sandwich.

That was just some things you can do with a chicken breast. There's so many meals you can prepare in less than 5 minutes that is healthier and cheaper than anything you get going out to eat.

[ConceptJunkie]

I used to cook chicken breasts whole until I discovered that cutting them up and then cooking them turns out way better. You end up cutting them up eventually, whether it's to put in a recipe or eat. But cutting and trimming 6 chicken breasts does take a while. The supermarkets are usually pretty good at removing the fat and icky parts, but there are still sometimes bits of gristle or even occasionally bone fragments. That said, it's well worth the extra effort.

For years I could never figure out how my favorite Thai restaurant makes the chicken in the Basil Chicken dish have such a great texture. Now that I cut the chicken before cooking, I get similar results. Now if I could only get the seasonings right.

But aside from that, your recipe ideas are excellent, and I do a lot of the same kinds of things. Chicken and veggies, usually done as a stir-fry kind of thing (and with a good wok, you don't even need to add oil, although I usually put a little in).

Another item I can't live without is garlic paste. I put that in almost everything, and my wife always gives me a hard time for buying so much of it, but I use it that much. Besides, we've had an agreement for many years: She doesn't like cooking, so I do most of it. And there are few things more satisfying than having your wife just raving about some excellent dish you've prepared (ditto the kids). That alone is enough encouragement for me to keep doing it, but I get to enjoy it as well.

Chicken breast is my go-to for easy meals, but lately I've also been using tilapia filets a lot. They're relatively inexpensive... for fish... and very easy to prepare. For a treat I'll use salmon filets or tuna steaks. I love both, but my wife really prefers the tuna.

I have a number of similar dishes based on ground beef, too, (like chili) but since that's been going up in price more than chicken, I've been using it a bit less these days.

Pork loins and chops are another good protein that's easy to cook, and not too expensive, but chicken often wins because it's the cheapest of all.

[rosseloh]

FWIW, I don't go out to eat that often. I don't cook much either, except for weekend prep as mentioned. When I don't have something prepped, it's usually wraps with tortillas, baby spinach, and some sort of meat and cheese.

(Long story but I live in a complicated environment with a bunch of people who never clean up after themselves, so the kitchen is basically unusable since I refuse to clean their messes.)

Also, "some mixed veggies". Do you use frozen? I like frozen veggies, but they take a lot longer than five minutes to cook unless I'm just microwaving a steamer bag (and they never taste that good prepped that way). I much prefer fresh (and they're normally cheaper, monetarily, though obviously they take much longer to prep).

[74d-fe6-2c6]

> I cook 6 chicken breasts at a time, that way I have chicken for today and the next 5 days.

you eat chicken six days in a row and you think that is healthy? dude wtf :D

[windowsrookie]

I eat 1 ~7oz chicken breast 6 days in a row. I'm currently working out daily and gaining lean muscle. Chicken is high in protein and low in fat. So yes, I consider that healthy. You don't?

The average American is eating corn, beef, french fries, and cheese for nearly every meal every single day.

[74d-fe6-2c6]

have you ever heared of antibiotics?

[the8472]

> A home-cooked meal for me takes at MINIMUM an hour.

It's not hard to optimize for speed. White rice, beans and frozen veggies boil in 10-15 minutes and don't even require attention for the full timespan. Cleanup consists of putting things in the dishwasher. And I don't know why you would factor in eating, going to McD won't teleport it into your stomach. Time can be further amortized by making several servings, putting them in the fridge and warming them up in the microwave later.

We're comparing to fastfood here, not a high end restaurant course.

[lapetitejort]

Get an instant pot (a relatively new "smart" pressure cooker). I've been introducing my in-laws to their instant pot and it's hard for them to comprehend how fast it cooks. Mashed potatoes, steel cuts oats, lentils, all in about 10 minutes. The pot cooks everything.

My go-to lazy meal is 1 1/2 cups of rice and beans, a few cups of stock, a cup of salsa, extra flavoring as desired, whatever veggies and protein I have around, all thrown in the pot for 25 minutes. Then I take out the pot and put it in the fridge. That will last two people a few days. Very little prep for a massive amount of food.

You can also make yogurt overnight for maybe a 75% savings over store-bought.

[BostonEnginerd]

The other tip with the instant pot I’ve found is to put your food in a glass bowl on the steamer tray in the instant pot. This way you can add exactly the amount of water, and you don’t make a mess of the pot.

[rosseloh]

Cleanup for me definitely doesn't consist only of the dishwasher; my knives, wok, cast iron stuff to start definitely don't get put in there.

I have optimized what I do quite well, or at least I'm much faster than I used to be. But for example this last weekend, I made some stir fry in a large batch for this week's meals. By the time I left my parents' house (long story but I basically can't cook at the house I live in), I had used up three hours. That was prepping four bell peppers, an onion, garlic, cabbage, broccoli, and chicken, cooking them, and cleaning up afterward.

I'm sure I can speed my prep up even more, mostly with knife skills. But at this point, that's how it is.

I factor in eating because I clean up after I eat. Most of the stuff I make is best fresh out of the frying pan with very minimal resting time.

But anyway, I'm not here to argue. If cooking at home works for you in 15 minutes, fantastic! I can't do that, it never works that quickly. I was mostly wondering how the parent poster's drive-thrus were so slow that they could cook faster because where I live, I never spend more than five minutes in one.

[manmal]

Cooking time heavily depends on the dish. There are recipes optimized for time consumption - if time is a priority, you could use those. Sometimes we just put potatoes in the pressure cooker, peel afterwards, and season with some oil and spice - takes 10m max. That’s the healthier alternative to fries from McD. A keto meal will take longer, but at least in my area there‘s no takeout option for keto anyway.

[phonypc]

>there‘s no takeout option for keto anyway.

Big Mac, no bun, extra mac sauce. /s

[Spivak]

I feel like this doesn’t optimize for enjoyment. Like shit this is what I ate when I was a broke in college. Are y’all not miserable eating this? At that point in my life getting taken by my parents out to somewhere mediocre like Olive Garden was heaven.

[bcrosby95]

Boiled veggies are disgustingly bland.

We season and bake our veggies. It adds to cost, but doesn't make me want to toss my food in the trash.

[8note]

If you don't boil them too much, they're plenty flavourful.

It's just that it's the flavour of the vegetable, which isn't full of sugar, salt, or msg unlike the very optimized processed foods

[ConceptJunkie]

I blanch broccoli for two minutes and it turns out just fine. The days of boiling all vegetables until they turn grey are long gone.

And I don't find any need to put butter or other stuff on the broccoli. Usually just a smidge of Tony Chachere and garlic powder.

[windowsrookie]

No we're not miserable. In fact having home cooked healthy meals daily makes me feel better than ever. When I go eat fast food now I feel noticeably worse than I normally do.

You are what you eat. Eat garbage fast food, and you will feel like garbage. And your body slowly accumulates all that garbage.

Traditional dine in restaurants are usually just as unhealthy as eating fast food as well.

It's actually shocking to me that garbage food has been normalized to the point where eating healthy is "what I ate when I was a broke in college." and that we must be miserable eating healthy.

Wow that's crazy.

[jjeaff]

I don't think they are necessarily saying that fast food is healthier, just that you aren't going to get too many people excited by claiming that cooking for yourself from scratch is easy and doesn't take much time. Then you go on to describe a meal that consists of white rice and boiled vegetables.

[ConceptJunkie]

You're right. Cooking takes a lot of time, and cooking good healthy food that isn't boring can be expensive. I'm sorry, I can't live on vegetables and be happy. I cook plenty of chicken, fish and red meat as well. Although my appreciation for vegetables have gone up considerably in the past couple decades. The first lesson I learned is that canned vegetables are awful. Frozen is much better. Now I feel that frozen is awful (well, for things like spinach, broccoli, carrots and cauliflower anyway, corn and beans are fine). Now I only like fresh veggies (except for corn, frozen corn is fine). But fresh veggies don't keep long. There's a Lotte about 20 minutes away that has about twice as many different kinds of produce as most markets, and at about half the price, but that's a long way to go for every day shopping. I'll get fresh veggies at Giant or Target, but I don't like paying so much more.

I happen to love cooking, so to me it's relaxing. My wife doesn't like to cook, so I do most of it. But even still, as much as I like doing it, there are definitely days when I don't feel like all the work. And if I'm going to put the effort into making stuff, I want to make something good, and often something new, and that takes a lot of time.

And while brown rice is much better than white rice. If you want white rice, go with basmati. It tastes much better, cooks faster, and is hard to screw up. I don't understand why people use any other white rice. There are tons of other kinds of rice that are worth exploring too. They all have much more interesting flavors and textures than plain old generic long-grain white rice.

[eurasiantiger]

No, we’re not miserable. That’s just the media environment playing mind tricks on you to get you to buy things you don’t need so you don’t miss out on the montage of joyous people and half-naked bodies playing and frolicking on the sunny ocean beach with refreshing, ice-cold, bubbly, intensely colored sugar water.

[Spivak]

Yo that’s super depressing if you’re buying your time back just to watch TV. Do you just assume that people don’t have friends, hobbies, side projects?

[eurasiantiger]

Sure, people have those. Friends to go out with to spend money, because that’s the way to socialize. Hobbies that require buying more non-essential things, and places to keep them in. Larger apartments to accommodate everything. Side projects to keep you busy while the world goes to shit.

[jjeaff]

So are you saying you don't have friends, you don't go out to socialize, you don't have hobbies, you don't do any work besides what your regular job pays you for, and you stay home in a small apartment and eat mostly white rice and boiled vegetables?

[jhanschoo]

I don't believe your assessment of most peoples' priorities in life is helping you very much in convincing them to adopt your worldview and way of life.

[netizen-936824]

Didn't optimizing for enjoyment get the US into this obesity thing in the first place? Maybe let's not do that so much? Like just season stuff well, even boiled veggies

[8note]

I think you're conflating enjoyment with status?

It's low status to eat well on home cooked foods, and high status to eat poorly at well advertised garbage restaurants

[jjeaff]

Unless we are talking about the kind of restaurants that are difficult to get a reservation for, then I think you are confused about what creates status in American culture.

Going through the drive through at McDonalds certainly will not raise your status in America.

[bradknowles]

Rice = carbs Beans = carbs Veggies = carbs?

All these carbs can and probably will be bad for your health, regardless of where you get them.

The easy things to fix tend to also be less healthy for you. And the less time and money you have, you tend to lean into this trap even more.

[netizen-936824]

Brans are extremely high in protein, and when combined with rice you get all of the essential amino acids. Plants are more than just "carbs"

Life isn't quite that simple

[netizen-936824]

Beans*

[Spivak]

This hits home for me. I really enjoy cooking but I’ve basically given up on weeknight meals that aren’t either leftovers from when I cook for fun or something prepared.

Like it is genuinely the most out of touch privileged statement but I have the money and am absolutely willing to buy the time. $30-70/wk (less the cost of groceries) to gain 8ish hours of leisure time and more variety than I would ever bother with is a no brainer experience at this point in my life.

[chefkoch]

I agree with this if your single, but if your a family every meal outside is 4 times the price and the time to prep the meal at home stays almost the same.

[ljm]

How much time do you spend driving to the drive-through, queueing up at a drive-through, making your order at the drive-through, waiting for your order at the drive-through, receiving the order from the drive-through, and then taking the order from the drive-through home before you eat it?

Add up that time over the course of a week and see how much time you waste on convenience.

You can cook a lot of inexpensive and healthy food in less than an hour. Protein, veg, complex carbs. Get a wok and do some stir fry - you can make a meal in literally 5 minutes then.

[SamoyedFurFluff]

> Get a wok and do some stir fry - you can make a meal in literally 5 minutes then.

I own a wok and stir fry is my go to meal- I can’t make meals in 5 minutes. I take the time to cut vegetables/protein, then clean up afterwards. And if you’re going from pre-cut frozen it takes more than 5 minutes to thaw???

I agree that stir fry is a fast easy meal but I really disagree with this exaggeration of its speed. It makes the argument disingenuous.

[ljm]

It's similar to saying fast food is fast because you get served in 5 minutes, but don't count the time you spend in your car on the journey there and back.

[chongli]

People pick up fast food on their way home from work. The time that takes is only the difference in travel vs the most direct route (could be negligible) plus the time spent waiting in the drive thru. On the other hand, a lot of recipes online or in cookbooks completely ignore the time it takes to wash and cut vegetables, meats, and clean up after the meal. Recipes quoted to take 15 minutes can easily take over an hour. Lots of people also don’t know how to sharpen and use a kitchen knife properly so they take even longer for simple prep tasks. It’s fine to say “well they’ll get better if they take the time to learn” but they may not have time between multiple jobs and looking after kids.

[ConceptJunkie]

I love to cook, and I make home-made meals from fresh ingredients regularly, and it does take a lot of time. I will often spend 3-5 hours on the weekend cooking meals for the family as well, but since I find it relaxing and fun, I don't feel like I'm "losing" that time. Well, usually. I do keep some frozen meals or other similar stuff around because I don't always have the time or sometimes don't feel like making something fancy.

On Wednesday, I made a stir-fry with boneless chicken breast , broccoli, poblano peppers, canned mandarin oranges, canned pineapple, garlic and ginger paste. It took a little more than an hour for this "quick" meal. I should have chopped a couple of onions, but I was getting lazy.

After reading your post, I'm realizing that I spend a _lot_ of time chopping vegetables. I have a food processor from 25+ years ago, but I can't find all the parts to it. I think it's time to find those, or just replace it.

[krageon]

> A home-cooked meal for me takes at MINIMUM an hour

Cut some onions and garlic, some cabbage and perhaps some dried sausage, fry it while your rice is cooking. Dinner done in 20 minutes. Cleanup is done with a dishwasher, because I don't live in a swamp. Forgoing rice, it can be done far faster.

[mirker]

I personally compare cooking time to time to go out end-to-end. Even with fast food, you have to drive to the pickup window, wait for the food, etc. It’s easily 10 minutes and you have to do it 1-2 times a day, so 2-3 hours a week. I’ve had fast food joints take 20 minutes to make the food, too.

I don’t think most people analyze the cost like this and they probably like restaurant food more.

It’s like spending “just 10 minutes” on HN everyday, adding up to something significant by the end of the week.

[GekkePrutser]

Yeah cooking is really boring to me and extremely unrewarding as I live alone.

I wish I could simply but healthy meals for a few bucks. I mean I can outsource my laundry for 7€ a bag and get it washed, dried and folded the next day. Why doesn't it work like that with food?

There's takeaway of course but those aren't the healthiest of options. It's more a luxury special thing. I wish I could get a meal service like some old people get :)

[jhanschoo]

Fwiw I do meal prep. The downside to it is refrigerated or frozen cooked food that you eat the same dish of for an entire week. The upside is that I get to cook and eat all kinds of world cuisine (some quite labor intensive), while still being quite alright on time spent cooking. So even though its microwaved leftovers, the very different flavor profiles that I get to snack on every week makes it up for me.

[acchow]

> A home-cooked meal for me takes at MINIMUM an hour. Prep, cooking, eating, cleanup

As you cook more at home, you get much faster at it. Especially for recipes you familiarize yourself with. It also becomes less of a chore as it requires less focus and you can do other stuff (listen to music/podcast, chat with your SO/roomates) while cooking.