Are there any recipes dishes or meals that you make at home that are partly from a mix/prepared and partly from your personal additions?

I do semi-homemade and part packaged part scratch meals all the time.

Like I’ll use frozen sliced turkey and gravy with mashed potatoes and add my own veggies as a side.

Another frozen is the Bertolli chicken margherita and I make either sautéed zucchini or sautéed green beans to go with it.

My husband makes boxed Velveeta shells and adds peas. Sometimes he adds browned ground beef too.

Would you count using soup or soup mix for dishes? I use Liptons onion in the packet to make meatloaf and meatballs (two different recipes). I use canned cream of mushroom soup for a chicken dish.

Edit: Another frozen is I buy plain frozen pizza and add my own mushrooms. Sometimes I add some spinach too.

I make cornbread from the cheap Jiffy muffin mix, substituting yogurt for milk. Sometimes I add jalapeno chunks or frozen corn.

I also use yogurt for boxed macaroni and cheese.

I mix homemade with prepared regularly.

Tonight I made smashed potatoes. I didn’t want to get out the milk and yogurt and butter and seasonings and frozen stock cubes, so after I boiled the potatoes I stirred in jarred garlic alfredo sauce and a tiny bit of boxed chicken broth. Perfect for a late Saturday.

My favourite insta-meal might be my cheater pad thai. A half box of cooked noodles, with two tins of tuna, a tbsp of peanut butter, some random hot sauce. Throw on some chopped peanuts and green onions and it’s done.

I do a seafood corn chowder when I want something kind of fancy but really fast. One box of beef broth, one box of chicken broth, 2 cans of creamed corn, 1 package of faux crab meat. Heat it up. Throw on some green onions and minced ginger and it’s good to go. The only thing missing from the ‘real’ recipe is the egg whites.

I used bisquick the other day when I wanted to make stuffing muffins. I couldn’t be bothered to make biscuits from scratch.

I like both Mahatma yellow rice as well as Uncle Bens wild rice but I rarely buy them anymore. You can add an onion and cubed chicken or chipped smoked sausage and have a good meal. I got used to cooking with no salt a few years ago and even though I’m advised to use more salt I no longer like to so I rarely buy any of these processed rice packages.

I was reminded by a post above that if I have boiled potatoes left over, I sometimes smash those and combine with box instant mashed potatoes made to directions plus some extra milk and salt. The little bit of real potato makes them very close to tasting as if it’s all made from real.

I rarely make gravy, but I make a fast no fat mushroom onion gravy with Liptons beefy onion packaged soup, or their regular onion soup. I heat the soup with water to taste and sliced mushroom. I don’t use the whole envelope, just what need for the meal that night. The mushrooms help make the soup less salty. After a few minutes in a separate little dessert cup I mix cornstarch and cold water until it completely dissolves. Then I add that to the soup and mix. Keep in mind the cornstarch mix will water down the flavor a little because of the extra water, but also thicken the mixture to a gravy. Stir while it simmers for a minute, then it’s ready. You can add wine to the gravy also. If you have any drippings from a meat you just cooked add that too.

Cornstarch gravy isn’t great in a second day. I use the soup the same way with a classic roux recipe for gravy also sometimes with butter and flour.

All of them.

One of our favorites was adding pineapple cream cheese to a great waffle recipe we found. It was heavenly. They don’t make pineapple cream cheese any more, though.

@Dutchess_III: they do make pineapple cottage cheese. I wonder if you too that and put it in a blender, if it would be similar. Another idea is put it in a blender with some regular cream cheese (so it’s half pineapple cottage cheese, half regular cream cheese).

Or just put real pineapple + cream cheese in a blender.

When I came across the waffle recipe it was an “Ah ha!” moment. I love pancakes and syrup, but I can’t stand putting the syrup on the pancakes because after a moment they get mushy, like soggy, wet bread. I have to put the syrup off to the side.
But I was always able to put syrup on waffles and that didn’t happen, and I wondered why. When I found that recipe, it calls for egg whites beaten until they’re stiff. That;s the secret to good waffles!
I oughta try that and just make pancakes with it, see what happens.