There are evenings when you have the time and energy to cook from scratch, and others when getting a meal onto the table needs to involve a little less work.
That is where a well-stocked freezer can be useful. Having a few frozen meal options available means you do not have to solve dinner from the beginning every night. You can choose something that suits how many people are eating, how much preparation you want to do and what everyone feels like having.
DINE-IN offers a range of frozen ready meals built around familiar dishes such as Beef Lasagne, Macaroni & Cheese, Cottage Pie and Smokey BBQ Chicken Pasta. The core range includes individual and larger formats, giving households options for different mealtime occasions.
Make your freezer part of the meal plan
Planning meals does not always have to mean deciding exactly what you will cook every night of the week.
It can also mean making sure there are a few useful options available when plans change.
A meeting runs late. Traffic takes longer than expected. Everyone gets home at a different time. Or perhaps you simply decide that tonight is not the night to start preparing dinner from scratch.
Keeping frozen ready meals on hand gives you another option without needing to decide days in advance exactly when you will use them.
Rather than thinking of the freezer only as a place for leftovers, it can become part of how you plan for easier evenings.
Choose according to the meal you feel like
One advantage of keeping more than one option in the freezer is that dinner does not have to feel the same every time.
The current DINE-IN core range includes different styles of familiar meals.
When pasta sounds good
DINE-IN Beef Lasagne combines bolognaise sauce, pasta, creamy béchamel sauce and cheddar cheese.
DINE-IN Macaroni & Cheese pairs macaroni pasta with a creamy cheese sauce and cheddar cheese.
For a different pasta option, DINE-IN Smokey BBQ Chicken Pasta combines smokey BBQ chicken strips with pasta and creamy cheese sauce.
When you want a familiar comfort-food favourite
DINE-IN Cottage Pie combines savoury beef mince with mashed potato, cheese and ciabatta crumbs.
The point is not to stock every possible meal. A small selection of different dishes can simply give you more choice when the question of what to eat comes around.
Match the pack to the occasion
The right meal can depend just as much on how many people are eating as on what you feel like.
Several DINE-IN core dishes are available in individual, sharing and larger formats. Exact pack sizes vary by product, so it is worth checking the particular meal you choose.
For example, Beef Lasagne, Macaroni & Cheese and Smokey BBQ Chicken Pasta are currently offered in 300g, 900g and 2kg formats, while Cottage Pie is available in 350g, 900g and 2kg formats.
Smaller packs
An individual format can be useful when:
- You are eating on your own
- Household members are eating at different times
- You need an easy lunch
- You want one meal without preparing a larger dish
Larger packs
A larger format can make more sense when:
- More than one person is eating
- You are putting a shared meal on the table
- You want a larger-format option available in the freezer
- The occasion calls for something everyone can serve from
Always use the information on the specific product to guide your choice rather than assuming every DINE-IN meal is available in the same sizes.
Look at how the meal needs to be prepared
Pack size is not the only difference worth checking.
Preparation instructions can also vary between products and formats.
Some smaller DINE-IN meals can be heated directly from frozen using the preparation methods specified on the pack. For example, current 300g Beef Lasagne, 300g Macaroni & Cheese, 300g Smokey BBQ Chicken Pasta and 350g Cottage Pie product information includes both oven and microwave preparation from frozen.
Some larger formats have different instructions and may require defrosting before particular heating methods are used.
That makes checking the pack an important part of choosing the right meal for the evening.
If you need something with minimal preparation, look at both the dish and the heating instructions before deciding what comes out of the freezer.
Build a freezer selection around real life
A useful freezer does not have to be packed from top to bottom.
Think instead about the situations that tend to make dinner more difficult in your household.
The night everyone gets home late
Having a complete frozen meal available removes the need to start with individual ingredients when the evening is already running behind.
The evening you are eating separately
An individual-format meal means one person can prepare a meal without requiring everyone else to eat at the same time.
The night more people are eating
A larger-format dish can be useful when dinner is being served as a shared meal rather than prepared individually.
The work-from-home day
An individual frozen meal can also work as a straightforward lunch option when there is not much time between calls or other commitments.
The evening nobody planned
Not every dinner needs to have been decided in the morning. Keeping several different options in the freezer gives you something to choose from when the plan is simply: we need dinner.
Keep variety without overcomplicating it
The aim is not to create another complicated meal-planning system.
A practical starting point could simply be to keep a few different meal styles available. For example:
- A pasta-based meal
- A familiar comfort-food option
- An individual meal
- A larger meal for sharing
That creates enough variety to give you a choice without turning freezer organisation into another job on the household list.
The exact mix will depend on how your household eats, the freezer space you have available and which DINE-IN products are stocked at your preferred retailer.
A little less work at mealtime
Cooking from scratch and choosing a ready meal do not need to compete with each other.
Some nights give you the opportunity to spend time preparing dinner. Other nights are easier when part of the work has already been done.
Keeping a few DINE-IN frozen ready meals available gives you the flexibility to choose according to the evening: an individual meal when you are eating alone, a larger dish when the meal is being shared, or simply a familiar option when nobody wants to start cooking from the beginning.
Explore the DINE-IN Range to see the available meals and formats, or use Find a Store to look for a stockist in your area. Product availability may vary by retailer and branch. The DINE-IN website currently provides a store-finder specifically for this purpose.
