I have a work/lifestyle situation where I rarely have time to cook for myself, and since I'm not home very often, any perishable foods usually go bad before I can eat them.

I'm looking for suggestions on non-perishable, extremely convenient, single-serving meal options that I can either microwave, heat in a saucepan, or prepare in a toaster oven.

The single-serving part is pretty important. I can't do leftovers very well, because food left in the fridge will usually go bad before I eat a meal at home again and I don't want to over-eat just to avoid leftovers. I prefer to eat a very light dinner in general.

For the record, I am lucky to work at a place where nutrition and health of employees is very important, so our on-site food is very good (lots of employees don't even eat at home at all since we have access to healthy food at work). I'm just stuck trying to make my one quick meal at home healthier.

Lately, I've been eating Morningstar frozen vegan patties, or other things from the vegan/organic frozen section of the grocery store (I'm not vegan, but lots of stuff there is tasty).

Any advice? (specific items or brand suggestions very welcome).

Sorry mate i don't know about it so cant advice you any thing regarding this one.

I can recommend some brands that have worked well for me and some of my clients: Kashi and Fiber One.

Both of these are "packaged" product companies, but they focus on a healthier way of eating.

Give these a shot and see what you think...they taste great also!

~Tim

Hm. This is a tough one because I'm a big fan of not eating packaged, pre-processed foods, but you say you don't want to deal with leftovers. Kinda a dead end there.

Do you have a freezer you can make use of? One of the things I do is pick a day a month where I make big pots of stuff - tomato sauce, chili base, veggie lasagna, enchiladas, etc. - and then I freeze them in single or 2 person serving sizes. That way when I get home from the gym at night, I don't have to actually COOK, I just toss them in the toaster oven or microwave and am done. But I'm still eating healthy, home cooked meals w/out preservatives and misc stuff.

Is there any way you can do that instead of relying on packaged single serving stuff?

i agree w/kara, that processed foods arent always the best choices, but if you really need to - how about canned tuna, chicken and salmon... buy some whole wheat bread and freeze it, when you need to make a sandwich - you can throw a slice of frozen bread in the toaster and make yourself a tuna sandwich. frozen grilled chicken breasts, fish, etc can go with frozen vegetables... its difficult because all the "good" stuff is essentially all perishable (Veggies, fruits, etc...).. cant beat the freshness of it.

frozen pre-made dinners and single entrees could have healthy choices if you look hard enough, but you run into the risk that there could always be dangers in hidden ingredients, like preservatives or excess sodium...

if you really cook all the natural foods from scratch, maybe even fresh vegetables... maybe could you take the leftovers with you if you cant eat them at home... to even snack on throughout the day perhaps..