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Comment by vel0city | Hacker News Reader

I'd love to see a return of the aluminum containers for frozen dinners. Lazy Dog sells fresh-made take-home dinners (albeit at restaurant prices) in aluminum trays, and it seems superior to those plastic ones. Cooking the food in the plastics, having the tray be pretty much unrecyclable, being mostly limited to only cooking in the microwave as most of those plastic trays couldn't stand a 350F oven for long, pretty terrible experience overall with plastic IMO.

I never really lived in the time when those aluminum trays were a thing though. What were some of the big negatives, other than the obvious cost aspect? Durability? I guess microwavable issues?

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I would say today's frozen food is better than the old frozen "TV dinners" we had back then. I always thought the microwave enabled the quality in today's frozen foods? IDK.

I think microwave won out because it was quicker. That said many frozen foods have both oven and microwave instructions and almost universally I find oven tastes better

Actually, I can’t think of a single item that tastes better reheated in the microwave than an oven.

I just recently got an Anova Precision Oven (which has steam injection in addition to otherwise just being a really good and consistent convection oven) and literally everything I reheat now just tastes fantastic.

I imagine foods that need a lot of moisture content are probably better with the microwave, those trays probably wouldn't seal well and you could lose a lot of moisture in the 30min or so it probably takes to reheat from frozen. But in the other direction it seems foods that are crispier usually aren't great in the microwave in comparison.

But IME even with a good microwave a lot of frozen meals tend to reheat somewhat unevenly with the default directions even with a rotating tray. I do admit I've never used a microwave where the magnetron moves though.

I don’t see why they couldn’t do a sealed aluminum top. I remember they used to do that for frozen lasagna.

> I'd love to see a return of the aluminum containers for frozen dinners.

You can't put aluminum in the microwave...

And if you can't microwave a frozen dinner, good luck trying to sell it.

Yet there are some out there. As I mentioned in an earlier reply, Red Baron frozen French Bread Pizzas have no microwave instructions (though people may try it anyway, idk), and either does Stouffer's family sized Chicken Alfredo (except for their sped-up hybrid instructions).

I'd be curious to know how the market is for frozen dinners designed to be microwaved on/in a separate plate/bowl. I usually do that anyway for things that come in plastic microwavable containers

You can absolutely put aluminum in a microwave. Get a smooth aluminum container with no sharp edges or ridges and fill it with food then put it in the microwave. If it does anything except heat up the food I will eat my shirt.

They took forever in the oven, plus however long it took your oven to heat up.

I get that. So microwavable issues.

I'm probably an odd-ball though. If there's oven directions, I almost always go with those. Usually more evenly heated, things can be crispier instead of just soggy, etc. My countertop convection oven heats up pretty quick and uses its fan to cool off pretty fast as well when done, so I can often get a set it and forget it kind of deal reheating frozen foods in it once I dial in the time/temp on convection mode for whatever dish I'm making.

I also tend to let a lot of my pre-made frozen foods thaw in the fridge the day before cooking to speed up cooking times. Once again that usually takes some trial and error to dial in the cook times as the packaging pushes you to keep the food frozen until cooking.

> My countertop convection oven

Thank you; I'm with you! I'm not sure I could even bring myself to buy one over it. (I decided not to on cost vs savings basis before having to make that choice, since time to preheat isn't something I generally care about so that's not a benefit to me.)

Pretty much that, remembering that you probably didn't have a microwave. Nobody bought a microwave just to get away from aluminum foil.

I hear you on the convection oven, but the real game changer for me was moving into a house with a double oven. The top oven heats very quickly but can fit a half sheet.

Ovens are fine, except in the summer when you live in an apartment cooled only by a portable A/C unit. We avoid the big Stouffer's chicken alfredo meal and Red Baron French bread pizzas in the summertime.

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