This easy Sunday chicken dinner really hit the spot – and included Yorkshire puddings, stuffing, mashed potatoes, carrots, green beans, sweetcorn, peas and lashings of gravy! Without an oven! This was all prepared without turning the oven on.

I try to avoid buying ready meals for one by default, when I know I can put a bigger/better meal on my plate, “just how I like it” – and this was one such variation.  Ready meals are great, but you’re limited to what they’ve chosen to serve you and I think “I don’t want that…. I want it a bit differently”.

As usual, it used quite a few quick and easy food cheats, but it’s still streets ahead of what can often be a tiny ready meal at an over-inflated price!

This type of simple and easy Sunday dinner is easy to put together relying on dried foods and frozen foods, to complete the plate and so feel you’re “had a proper Sunday dinner”.

Chicken Dinner Containing: 

• Roast Chicken – I cook chicken breasts in a slow cooker, then slice up the leftover chicken and reheat it in the microwave.  Sometimes a Sunday dinner will be freshly cooked chicken breast, sometimes it will be reheated chicken leftovers and sometimes I’ve frozen the chicken in portions and then defrosted/reheated the chicken breast.  If you really want to cheat, you can even buy ready cooked chicken slices at supermarkets!
• Yorkshire Puddings – easy to make yourself, but sometimes you just want to cheat – and these were frozen Yorkshire puddings reheated in the microwave for speed.  Some chicken dinner microwave ready meals contain a Yorkshire pudding, so it’s not just me that does this!
• Sage & Onion Stuffing – this is a simple supermarket packet mix, which I mix with boiling water and a knob of butter, then leave it to one side to soak in and plump up – I then microwave the stuffing for about a minute or so at the last minute to warm it through.
• Mixed Vegetables – here I used a bag of frozen mixed vegetables containing green beans, sweetcorn, small carrots and peas.  These I reheat in the microwave.  Frozen food retains its nutrition – with the vegetables typically being frozen within hours of being picked, unlike “fresh” vegetables that have kicked around in crates and warehouses for days/weeks before they’re cooked by you.
• Instant Mash – yes, instant mashed potato.  I don’t always have potatoes in the house, so will always keep a box of instant mash in the cupboard.  Made with a knob of butter and boiling water this tastes much nicer than any ready meal mash I’ve ever tasted – and the box says it’s 99% potato.  A good store cupboard staple!
• Lashings of Gravy – for this I use Turkey Bisto gravy granules.  I have used supermarket gravy granules in the past, but I personally love Turkey Bisto, so that’s what I use.  2-3 teaspoons of instant gravy granules, mixed with a little boiling water in a small cup = gravy!

When you make your own chicken dinner, even using a variety of food cheats, you are more in control of what you’re eating that day – and aren’t left with an expensive lack-lustre ready meal!

This is an easy meal to put together if you’re without a full kitchen, if you have a tiny kitchen, if you don’t wish to cook meals that take hours, or if you’re just too tired/unwell/busy to “bother”.  Ready meal chicken dinners offer a solution, but you really can do better if you make your own plate up!