TV dinner

American  

noun

1. a quick-frozen meal, typically consisting of meat, potato, and a vegetable, packaged in a tray for heating before serving.

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Etymology

Origin of TV dinner

First recorded in 1950–55

Example Sentences

But your homemade meals don’t have to resemble a frozen TV dinner, with its segmented tray of meat, an amorphous sauce, a scoop of peas or rice and a mysterious, saccharine lump of... jello?

From Salon • Mar. 30, 2025

Eat: This Salisbury steak is no TV dinner.

From New York Times • Oct. 23, 2022

I spent middle school as a latchkey kid, riding two public buses to get home and once there, often ended up spending evenings alone and warming up a frozen TV dinner.

From Washington Post • Sep. 1, 2021

A new installment of “The Food That Built America” pulls back the foil on the classic TV dinner.

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 9, 2021

To be fair, one shouldn’t compare an organic TV dinner to real food but to a conventional TV dinner, and by that standard Cascadian Farm has nothing to be ashamed of.

From "The Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan