While Thanksgiving is largely a great opportunity to give thanks and appreciate loved ones, the meal is also pretty important! However, in order to create the perfect Thanksgiving meal, you need to spend hours in the kitchen. When you’re a super-busy person, this isn’t always easy, but there is another alternative.
You can purchase ready-made food you can serve up on Thanksgiving. Many companies have created specific Thanksgiving meal boxes and pre-made side dishes. Here, we’ll look at the pros and cons of using ready-made food for this year’s Thanksgiving meal.
Pro: It Saves You a LOT of Time
Using ready-made food for Thanksgiving is going to save you a lot of time. If you just don’t have hours to spend in the kitchen, investing in a few ready-made dishes is a great way to cut back.
You can always create the main dish yourself, then use ready-made side dishes. Alternatively, you could ask friends and family who are coming to dinner to create one dish each. That way, you’ll still cut back on the amount of cooking you need to do, whilst enjoying homemade dishes.
Con: They Often Lack Flavor
One of the main drawbacks of ready-made food is that it can often lack flavor. This is down to the freezing process. So, to make up for the lack of flavor, they tend to pack a lot more salt and fat into the meals.
This obviously means ready-made dishes can be pretty bad for the health. Thanksgiving may be a time you can overindulge a little, but the lack of flavor in ready meals doesn’t really justify the increased salt and fat intake. If you do want to enjoy some ready-made dishes this Thanksgiving, try to invest in fresh rather than frozen ones.
Pro: Eases the Stress of the Day
When you serve up ready-made meals, it’s going to really ease the stress of Thanksgiving. It can be really stressful spending hours in a hot kitchen, especially when there are so many other things to do too.
So, if you want a more relaxing experience, ready-made meals are a great idea.
Con: It Takes Away Some of the Experience
Part of the experience of Thanksgiving is making the effort to cook a large dinner. By investing in ready-made meals, it can feel like you’re cheating. It takes a little away from the experience, so you may not enjoy it as much as you usually would.
Pro: Portion Control
Finally, another advantage of ready-made Thanksgiving meals is that they offer better portion control. When you’re making food yourself, it’s hard to establish what a single portion is. Most of us eat far more than we should in one sitting, particularly at Thanksgiving. So, having ready-made meals ensures you are eating standard portions.
These are the main pros and cons of using ready-made Thanksgiving meals. Ideally, it’s better to have the entire meal homemade. However, if you really don’t have time, you could get away with using a couple of ready-made dishes to reduce the amount of cooking you need to do.
