The best low calorie ready meals you can buy (top 6)

Published by Finn Hayden

For those of us who lead busy lives, ready meals are a saviour. They're very convenient, they usually taste good, and they're not too expensive. But the one downside has always been that ready meals are generally not as healthy as cooking a meal from scratch yourself, as they're designed to be tasty and filling, not healthy.

However, as people have started to become more health conscious, ready meals have also had to adapt. We've seen a huge rise in the number of low calorie ready meals available to buy, which are ideal for people who want fast food but who also want to watch the amount of calories they consume. We thought it would be useful to round up the best low calorie ready meals that we've found and tried, let's get into it:

Quick overview of top choices

1 Count on Us M&S
2 Sainsbury's Be Good To Yourself ready meals
3 The Gym Kitchen
4 WeightWatchers
5 Morrisons Counted
6 Tesco Calorie Controlled

Count on Us M&S

We feel like a bit of a broken record with how often we rave about the food from M&S, but we really do think it's great. And unsurprisingly, we think the Count on Us ready meals from M&S also taste great, plus they're very low in calories. For example, this Braised Steak meal we had from the Count on Us range (pictured) contains just 224 calories per pack, and we found it to be really filling. Learn more and explore the range here - marksandspencer.com

Sainsbury's Be Good To Yourself ready meals

We're always impressed with the healthy options from Sainsbury's - we recently reviewed the low calorie salad dressing from this supermarket and found it to be very good. We were also very impressed by the Be Good To Yourself range of ready meals from Sainsbury's, which not only taste good but also happen to be low in calories. This Mediterranean Style Vegetable Pasta from the range contains only 314 calories per pack, so very little. Explore the range here - sainsburys.co.uk

The Gym Kitchen

We spotted these in the freezer aisle of our local ASDA and immediately knew that we'd have to try a few to try - these ready meals from The Gym Kitchen have been made with macros in mind, and each meal manages to be both high in protein and low in calories. Given how much we enjoyed the taste of this Beef Lasagne from The Gym Kitchen, we were impressed that it contains just 352 calories per pack. Learn more and buy it here - tesco.com

WeightWatchers

We'll be honest, we find the WeightWatchers products to be very hit-and-miss. We really like the low calorie crisps from WW that we wrote about previously, but we haven't enjoyed some of the other products that we've tried from the range. But these ready meals from WW are actually very good, especially this Thai Red Chicken Curry ready meal that we tried, which was flavoursome and filling. And with just 342 calories per pack, we didn't feel too guilty about eating it either. Learn more and explore the entire range here - groceries.asda.com

Morrisons Counted

We're really impressed by the Morrisons Counted range of ready meals, not just because of how extensive it is but also because of how low in calories many of the ready meals in the range are. For example, this Beef Lasagne we tried from the range (pictured) contains just 266 calories per pack, which is very low. We also found that the ready meals we tried from this Morrisons range tasted very nice and filled us up too. Learn more and buy them here - groceries.morrisons.com

Tesco Calorie Controlled

The Tesco ready meals range is generally very good, and we're really glad to see a lower calorie version of the popular ready meals from this supermarket. The Calorie Controlled range includes a number of dishes, from classic dinners to more interesting dishes. We're big fans of the Chicken Roast Dinner (pictured), which is really tasty and filling but only contains 249kcal per meal. Buy it here - tesco.com

Hopefully this guide helps you to find a ready meal which is low in calories and delicious! Let us know if you've tried any of these or if you have any other suggestions for our guide.

The best low calorie ready meals you can buy in the UK (top 6)