When cooking isn't happening: ready meals, meal drinks and frozen options

Some weeks the gap between being hungry and eating is a chopping board, a pan and six decisions. This guide is about shrinking that gap to one step, or none, without living on toast.

What to look for when cooking isn't happening

Count the steps between you and eating, then the minutes. Everything else comes second.

• Steps to eat. Zero steps is a drink you open. One step is a meal you heat. A few steps is frozen food in an air fryer. Buy something from each tier, because the bad days are not all the same size.
• Minutes, and whether you have to watch it. COOK's meals go in the oven for about 45 minutes, which sounds long, but you can walk away. A pan of boiling eggs needs watching; an egg cooker with a buzzer does not.
• Where it lives. Cupboard, fridge or freezer. Fourteen frozen meals need freezer space, so measure the drawer before you order.
• Cost per meal. Huel is about £3.17 a bottle at the subscription price (£38 for 12), and its Hot and Savoury meals about £2.80 each on subscription. COOK's box works out at about £6.43 a meal (£89.95 for 14). A Wiltshire Farm Foods cottage pie was £4.95. Gousto starts at about £3.20 a portion but adds £3.99 delivery and still needs cooking.
• Washing up. The Ninja's drawers and crisper plates are dishwasher safe, according to SharkNinja. The rice cooker has a lift-out non-stick pan.
• Decisions. A recipe box asks you to choose from 175 or more recipes a week, per Gousto. For some people that is fun; on a bad week it is one more thing.

Ready meals, meal drinks or a recipe box?

Ready meals and meal drinks take the cooking away; a recipe box only takes away the planning and the shop.

That is the whole difference, and it is easy to forget when you are ordering on a good day. If the hard part is deciding what to eat and getting the ingredients, Gousto or a similar box solves it. If the hard part is standing at the hob, a recipe box will sit in the fridge and make you feel worse.

A meal drink is the fastest option there is. Huel's Ready-to-drink comes in eight flavours, including chocolate, banana, vanilla and iced coffee caramel, and the maker says it is vegan and gluten-free. The trade-off is that every bottle feels the same, which some people find reassuring and others find grim by Thursday. If cold is the problem, Huel's Hot and Savoury range is the warm version: add hot water to a pasta, noodle or grain meal, about £2.80 a meal on subscription.

Frozen ready meals sit between the two. COOK's Meal Box for One has 14 different dishes, including chilli con carne, fish pie, macaroni cheese and a vegetable lasagne. COOK says it may occasionally swap one or two meals in the box, which is worth knowing if a particular dish is the reason you ordered.

Wiltshire Farm Foods and Oakhouse Foods both deliver frozen meals by local drivers, and you pick dishes one at a time. Wiltshire says there is no subscription; a 380g cottage pie was £4.95 when we checked. Oakhouse's mini dinners start at about £4.99 and full roast dinners run to about £7.99, with delivery at £2, and its drivers will put the food in your freezer if you ask.

Setting up a freezer and cupboard that decides for you

Keep a small fixed stock of foods that need one step each, and replace them when they run out, not when you feel like it.

A workable stock looks like this: frozen vegetables, frozen fish or chicken pieces for the air fryer, a bag of rice, eggs, and a few ready meals. It is boring on purpose. The fewer options, the less there is to decide at 7pm.

Frozen veg is not second best. The NHS says frozen and tinned fruit and vegetables count towards your 5 A Day, and that 80g is one portion. The Food Standards Agency adds that frozen vegetables need to be thoroughly cooked before you eat them.

Some food safety rules are worth pinning inside a cupboard door, all from the FSA:

1. Follow the cooking instructions on the pack or for your appliance.
2. Reheat until steaming hot throughout.
3. Reheat leftovers only once.
4. Eat leftovers within 48 hours, or freeze them.
5. Keep the fridge between 0 and 5°C, and defrost food in the fridge.

If money is tight

The cheapest low-effort meals are frozen veg, rice and eggs, and two small machines turn those into one-button jobs.

The Lakeland mini rice cooker (about £34.99) makes one or two portions in a 500ml pan and also makes porridge. The Lakeland egg cooker (about £26.99) does up to seven eggs, with a measuring cup for the water, a pin to pierce the shells, and a timer and buzzer. Together they cost less than one COOK box, and the food that goes in them costs very little.

An air fryer is the bigger investment. The Ninja Double Stack is about £199.99, with two 3.8 litre drawers and six functions, including reheat. It makes sense if frozen food is a big part of how you eat. If you only want it for chips once a week, it probably doesn't.

Things to know

• Huel's price depends on how you buy. About £38 for 12 is the subscription price on Huel's page when we checked, with a 10% saving on repeat orders. A single box was listed at £42.25.
• Meal drinks and your health. Huel describes the drink as complete nutrition. We make no claim about what it does for you. If drinks are replacing most meals for weeks, talk to your GP or a dietitian.
• When eating gets narrower. The National Autistic Society suggests seeking advice if someone accepts fewer than 20 foods, refuses whole food groups or is losing weight. Your GP is a good first stop.
• COOK meals take time. About 45 minutes in the oven for most of them. Put it on, set a phone timer, and do something else.
• We have not tested these. Specs and prices come from the makers' pages, checked on 11 Sep 2026.