With most people being on a tight budget at the moment a friend and I were talking yesterday about cheap meal ideas. Thought it might be good if we could share some on here and help save our pennies a wee bit. I will start with my friends recommendation of pasta bake.

Basically you put uncooked pasta into a baking dish, add two tins of tomatoes and one tin of water plus any veg you fancy (cook the veg before you put it in). Mix that all together then put in the oven for 45 mins. After 45 mins take it out and add soft cheese (for example philly) mix it in then put back in oven for another 15 mins. I am assured this tastes lovely, is very cheap and fairly healthy.

Mind a bit blank just now but will post other ideas later.

x

Creamy chicken and tomato sauce:

Make a roux with either butter or oil and flour. Add milk to make a very thick sauce. Grate in about half the amount of cheese as you would if you were making a cheese sauce. Add a tin of chopped tomatoes. Add leftover chicken (doesn’t matter how tiny the bits). Cook out while your pasta or rice is cooking.

Angie

Thanks for that Claire.
I’ve managed to really slash our food costs by cooking from scratch and baking cakes etc instead of buying biscuits, crisps and cakes.

We like easy and cheap meals such as…

Tuna pasta (cook the pasta and drain, add in tinned tuna, tinned sweetcorn and cooked frozen peas).

Slow cooker chilli - I cook the mince first (if using, or you can replace with a variety of beans and pulses).

Vegetable stir fry (you can get large pre-prepared family packs of stir fry veg for £1.50 in the supermarkets.  I buy 2 (one veg, one chinese style), add in some egg noodles at just over £1 per pack and I can feed a family of 7 for under a fiver. 

You can buy vegetable soup packs really cheaply - bung them in a slow cooker with water and a few stock cubes and that’s a delicious meal served with bread. 

Cottage pie is another full meal that can be done reasonably with mince - cook the mince, add gravy frozen peas, cooked carrots and sweetcorn (I buy baby corn for this if cheap, otherwise I use frozen), top with mashed potato and pop in the over. 

Homemade Meatballs - I often make these with a chunk of cheese in the middle, the kids love them

Rice Pudding is a cheap pudding - I love the taste of slow cooker rice pud.

Julia

great thread. Not feeling very inspired but with all this mention of mince thought I’d add that you can bulk it out (as it’s often the more expensive part of the meal) with oats, red lentils or barley.

I seem to be living on lentil soup at the moment - I bung in the things we might not normally fancy like the ends of the leek, the soft carrots, springy celery, the end of the bag of kale - add some tomtato puree, mixed herbs and it tastes delicious - all made from food you might otherwise shove in the compost

This week I made chicken casserole from leftover sunday lunch - bits of chicken, chopped roast potatoes, carrots simmered in thickened bouillon and with dumplings on top. Cooking extra stuff on a Sunday might not necessarily be cheaper on ingredients, but makes a significant difference with fuel costs…It’s the sort of meal you could do in a slow cooker…

mince cobbler is a fairly cheap meal, you can get away with using about 250g of mince cooked with onions, add peas potatoes and carrots cut to same size about 1/2 inch pieces, tin of toms and a bit of gravey granules in to a caserole dish. make plain scones and place on top cook for about half hour or untill the scone are golden and serve. we are a family of 6 and it’s a meal all in it’s self and really nice xx love caren

that sounds good caren - is it literally plain scones that you cook there?

Good idea….risotto is cheap enough, just the rice, veg stock which you can either use from a cube or use up any veggies and make up your own, and some veggies….whatever is in season which makes it even cheaper. Mushroom risotto is yummy and they’re quite cheap all year.

Spaghetti bolognaise is cheap too….use your mince and bulk out with grated carrot or lentils, or just use lentils and veg, passata or chopped tomatoes, mushrooms and your herbs. This is my fave meal at the moment!

Jacket potatoes…with any filling you can think of, beans/cheese/tuna/leftover chilli

Don’t forget things on toast can be a filling tea, usually we have this if we’ve had a bigger lunch…soup for example. You could have beans/eggs/tuna and cheese.

x x

hi starchild, yes just plain scones.I use the bero book recipe and if i have them i put sesame seeds on top too and glaze with egg if i’m feeling that way out lol xx