Frozen dinner facts for kids

A 1950s-style TV dinner. This type of meal was common until the mid-1980s

A frozen dinner is a quick and easy meal that you can buy already cooked and frozen. It's a type of convenience food, meaning it's designed to save you time and effort. These meals are made in large amounts, cooked, and then divided into single servings. You just need to reheat them at home. A typical frozen dinner includes a main dish like meat or another protein, along with vegetables, a carbohydrate (like potatoes or rice), and often a sweet dessert.

Frozen dinners are super helpful for people who are busy or don't have much time to cook. They are also known as "TV dinners." This nickname came about because they were often advertised as the perfect meal to eat while watching television. Both frozen dinners and TVs became very popular around the same time in the 1950s.

The Evolution of Frozen Dinner Packaging

For many years, frozen dinners came in special aluminium foil trays. These trays made it simple to heat the meal in a regular gas or electric oven. People sometimes even cleaned and reused these metal trays.

Microwaves Change the Game

When microwave ovens started becoming common, there was a problem. You couldn't put the metal trays in a microwave because they could damage the oven. At first, foods made for microwaves couldn't be heated in a regular oven. Their packaging might catch fire or melt from the high heat.

New Packaging for All Ovens

To solve this, new packaging was created in the 1980s. This new design allowed the same frozen dinner to be heated in both regular ovens and microwaves. Some of these new trays can be reused, while others are made of paper and are meant to be thrown away after one use.

Taste and Variety Improvements

The quality of frozen dinners has gotten much better over the years. In the past, some parts of the meal, like the potatoes, might have tasted a bit strange, and vegetables could be mushy. Today, frozen dinners taste much more like they were freshly cooked.

Vegetarian Options Emerge

Many different kinds of frozen meals are now available. This includes options for people who prefer vegetarian meals. For example, Linda McCartney launched a popular line of frozen vegetarian dishes in the 1990s. These changes mean there's a wider variety of tasty frozen dinners for everyone to enjoy.

Images for kids

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  A German TV dinner (currywurst with fries) that has been heated

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  A frozen Swanson "Hungry-Man Country Fried Chicken" TV dinner

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  A British spaghetti carbonara ready meal after being microwaved