Recipe ideas for 5 healthy dinners for 50 quid

Buy a 750g pack of beef mince, make burgers in buns with salad and cheese, add potato wedges and coleslaw (can make homemade with half a cabbage, shredded carrot) on the side then the rest of the mince, add onion, courgette, carrot, tinned tomatoes, garlic and seasonings and cheese and make a pasta bake.
buy a kg of chicken thighs and use half to make make chicken noodle stir fry with veg like onions, sliced cabbage (the other half) , mushrooms, sweetcorn and the other half to make a chicken and chickpea curry and rice
thats 4 dinners.

I take it that's for the week? 🤣

Chicken Parma with spaghetti and marinara sauce and steamed broccoli

Pasta bake

Sausage casserole, jacket spuds, carrots

Fried rice and spring rolls

Spaghetti carbonara, cheap pack cooking bacon and cream

Shish kebab chicken thighs in wraps with salad, diced potatoes in air fryer

For puds I'd do apple /peach crumble or a load of banana bread or chocolate/courgette loaf

Fish pie... 1pkt smoked bassa (ie 2 fillets) & 1pkt unsmoked bassa poached in milk. take fish out, make white sauce using the milk (butter, flour), mix fish with frozen peas, sweetcorn, and the sauce. mashed potatoes on top. Fish abt £1.80 each, so £3 60, so should easily be under £10 with 4 fillets between 5. Could add more fish if v hungry teens and stilk squeak in on budget Can add boiled eggs. Serve with carrots, broccoli, etc.
Ministrone soup (tinned toms, not fresh), crusty bread.
Slow cooker? Peel & quarter 2 bags onions, sliw cook with teaspoon sugar & butter.l for 8hrs. Put in pie with salad cheese (fake feta) crumbled over top. Serve with salad, finish meal with semolina or rice pudding (ie stodge).
Cauliflower & paneer curry
Saag aloo (use frozen spinach)
Orzo... maybe chorizo, red pepper, courgette, small dollop of cream. Or mushrooms, garlic & parmesan.
Desserts - semolina!! Costs buttons, cheaper than rice pudding usually. Frozen fruit for pies, crumble, whatever. Blackberry season too...

Personally, I dont find dinners the challenge with my weakly shopping. 5 dinners for £50 is relatively sinple. Its all the other stuff - breakfast, snacks, endless replacing of condiments/tea/coffee etc. Cleaning stuff. My core meals is a relatively small part of my weekly shop.

Rhis week we had a lamb casserole one night and pork schnitzel one night - both of which probably cost about a tenner. Pasta is always a good cheap option wjth a tomato based sauce. Fajitas or tacos. And yes to the chicken thighs/legs - great value and easy to prep. I also do burrito bowls regularly with chicken breasts and tacos with mince.

Could you share your dough recipe please? 🙏 I can never seem to get mine quite right

Roast chicken and a mahoosive MN salad.

Macaroni cheese will allow you to spend a bit more on another day.

Pork steaks are usually around £5 for 5.

Tesco do 5 meals for £25 in their magazine. They are for 4 people, but you’ve got double the budget.

I love pulled pork in slow cooker made with cheap pork shoulder steaks, some BBQ seasoning and a squirt of BBQ sauce, delicious with mashed potato.

Toad in the hole is a cheap and filling meal.

I make a big bolognaise ragu to serve with pasta then turn the bolognaise sauce into chilli con carne with some rice or jacket potato the next night by adding chilli powder, cumin, paprika and baked beans (we don"t like kidney beans).

I make pizza from scratch once a week which is very time consuming (the dough takes 90mins to prove), but costs less than £1 per large cheese pizza for the ingredients and it tastes delicious, I can't go back to frozen pizzas.

Agree on chicken legs! I like to make a stew with them. I take off the skin, pre-season for a day in the fridge. Seal them in a pan, and put them in the slow cooker with potatoes, carrots, onion, a casserole sachet and a few extra seasonings. Then when cooked, I strip them off the bone and shred. If I can be bothered beforehand, I’ll take off the bone before cooking.

Taco mince, served with rice and salad.

Bolognese.

Chicken legs again but in a different form, with rice and corn on the cob.

Jacket potatoes with fillings.

I have just put those meals through ChatGPT based on 2 adults, 3 teens, and asked it to calculate quantities and prices at Aldi and produce a shopping list and it came to £47-50!

Surprisingly, the bolognese was pricey. I was considered it a budget meal but it came in at £12!

Also: spag bol, other pasta bake, baked potatoes with lots of toppings

Dal is always the answer!

Ooh, nice challenge. I guess the 5 meals for £50 means some can be more than £10 per meal as long as it compensates.

1. Classic roast chicken with roast potatoes and vegetables. An extra large chicken would be about £5.60, plenty of spare for potatoes and veg
2. Hairy Bikers sausage casserole with broccoli and baked potatoes (2× 6 sausages is £5, tinned cannelloni beans and tomatoes about £1.50, pack of baking potatoes £1.80)
3. Beef chilli (750g beef mince £7, tomatoes and kidney beans £1.20) with rice. Sour cream 75p and tinned sweetcorn 55p optional.
4. Chicken and mushroom pie, using chicken thigh fillets £6.50, mushrooms £1.20, half a JusRol puff pastry (60p) with green vegetables
5. Pork loins (£5.75) cooked in an onion, tomato and paprika sauce (about £1), served with couscous and steamed vegetables.

How is that?

Sausage suprise - sausages, mash, baked beans thrown together in a dish with melted cheese on top.

Jacket potatoes & filling.

Roast chicken

Chicken curry (use the leftover chicken from the roast .)

Bacon, eggs, chips (make these from.the potatoes) and beans.

Easy.

Chicken legs are your friend. (The M and S ones are huge, 2 legs for £1.50!). Last week we were away with our church group of teens (we had access to a large oven). One of our meals was chicken legs baked in rice (we used basmati) with lemon wedges and garlic. Served with green veg and frozen corn on the cob. They loved it. This would certainly come in at £10 for the five of you.