We Complained About These 24 Meals as Kids. Now We Miss Them

There's a saying floating around the nostalgia corners of social media: you don't actually miss a place — you miss a time you can't get back to. Turns out that if you want to time travel (in lieu of an actual time machine), your best bet is food. One bite and you're not just remembering dinner; you're back at the chunky oak table and chairs, sitting under a Pizza Hut-style hanging light with the rest of your ragtag nuclear family.

Dinner staples from the 1970s and 1980s have a special hold on Generation X in particular, and for good reason. As moms entered the workforce in bigger numbers, family schedules got more hectic than ever, and dinner went from "made from scratch" to — to borrow a phrase from TV chef Sandra Lee — a little more semi-homemade.

This was the golden age of the casserole. Leftovers got stretched in every creative way imaginable. Nothing went to waste, and the recipes, for the most part, came straight off the back of a box.

Meatloaf With Ketchup Glaze — Getty Images

Meatloaf: The Meal You Loved to Hate

Perhaps at the time it felt like punishment. Meatloaf was a constant in most houses, since ground beef was cheap and plentiful. But meatloaf again? Now you'd love a slice of that meatloaf more than almost anything on today's menu. (And some of you reading this are already yelling "I STILL MAKE THIS" at your screen — good. You're better for it.)

A tuna casserole sitting on a a dinner table ready to be devoured. — Getty Images

Tuna Casserole: The Original Struggle Meal (Done Right)

Let's take tuna casserole (yes, please), which has always been the go-to punchline for any sitcom joke about "struggle-meal" cooking — the ultimate "a can of this and a can of that" recipe. But there was a reason it was so popular: with the crunchy top and the slightly fishy, creamy middle, it hit the spot. And it still does — we just call it " the viral panko-crusted tinned fish pasta bake" now.

LOOK: 24 Childhood Dinners We Swore We Hated (Now We're Craving Them)

Let's set the table and look back at the meals we swore we hated — before we were old enough to know they'd be exactly what we miss most about those average, everyday days at home.

Gallery Credit: Stephen Lenz