There is a whole spectrum of options between eating out or ordering food delivery - and cooking by yourself..
The first one isn’t the best cost-performance, and the second requires skill and time (even if you are into cooking — and I myself surely am! — sometimes it’s simply a time issue). There is a place in the middle – relying on store-bought shortcuts (semi-prepared foods).
Duh - will say you. And be right. But see - there is a trap there: using just those will often lead you to a very suboptimal place. For example, a package of pasta sauce from the supermarket will have almost no meat in it.
But there’s also a trick. An opportunity. A golden path :D
Buy a pre-made pasta sauce (all the necessary herbs and tastes are already there), but simply roast a small package of ground meat, mix it with the supermarket sauce, and boil your noodles.
While this philosophy isn’t specific to Japan, I somehow find myself doing this “food hacking” much more often here. It’s a recurring theme in Japanese home cooking—like buying a pre-made nabe (hot pot) soup base and then just adding your own gu (ingredients).
I am including this post as a standalone concept because this “golden path” approach will pop up for many different dishes I write about.
But so far, the best example I have on the site is ramen! This approach shines so brightly with noodles that I wrote a whole separate guide for it. You can check out my post on DIY Ramen to see exactly how to take a store-bought base to the next level.