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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.

Peanut butter sammich

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.

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).

Fruit

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.

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.

I'm choosing sleep for dinner tonight!

Medium rare chicken strips, duh

Popcorn, cereal, or yogurt with fruit.

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')).

• 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.

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.

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.

Can o soup.

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.

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

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

700 grams of hot wings into the airfryer or alternatively 450 gram pack of french fries. More often than not though I simply just don't eat if I'm not feeling like it. I skip meals each week. Yesterday I only ate breakfast for example.

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.

Cheese.

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.

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.

Kraft Dinner 🇨🇦

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.

Peanut butter on an apple.

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.

Speed

Doritos in a bowl of water microwaved for 15 minutes throw spaghetti noodles in it and let soak til soft.

• Cereal
• pasta or rice, frozen vegetables, cheese
• Vegemite on toast

I've got a bunch of frozen mashed potatoes pre-divided into meal-sized tupperware. Microwave one of those and it's quite hearty.

I've also got a rice cooker and it's super easy to make something both substantial and tasty with one of those, dump in the rice and water and then add a tin of condensed soup as well. Push the button and come back later to dump it onto a plate. I've found most kinds of condensed soup work well, though avoid anything with "cream of" in the title as those can end up unpleasantly goopy.