Favourite cheap meals

[ilovetocook]

Anyone have any good cheap meal ideas? We are a family of 5 but my youngest has ASD and basically lives off hot chocolate and crisps!! Also 3 of us have dairy and gluten allergies. I'm desperately trying to reduce our shopping bill and looking for cheap filling meals, we already have soup once a week and a baked potato once a week.

Bean chili. Cheap as chips, bung onions and canned beans and tomatoes in a pot with some seasoning. Works well for school lunches when put in wraps the next day too.

Carrot and potato dahl. Also dairy and gluten free. I use different spices depending on what's closest to the front of the cupboard and different amounts depending in whether It's only for me or for the children also.

It's essentially an onion, some chopped carrot, diced potato, lentils, spices and water, so exceedingly cheap.

Bacon & pasta , buy the cheaper 'cooking ' bacon that all supermarkets sell rather than rashers, stick the pasta on to cook fry a onion and and bacon add a tin of tomatoes reduce by about half and a table spoon of tom puree plus what ever spices/ herbs you have to hand. Mushrooms and peppers can be added if you have them .
Drain the pasta chuck the bacon - tomatoes mix in give it s good stir and serve. I reckon this dish cost about 50p to 70p per person for a big bowl full depending on where you get the bacon from and takes 20 minutes at the most to cook so cheap on gas / electric too.

I was forgetting that gluten-free pasta is probably a bit dearer than ordinary pasta so the cost might be a bit higher but still a very low budget meal.

Layers of onion, potato, tomato with cheese on top. If you’re feeling flush, you can crispy fry some bits of bacon and add that.

Ham, egg and chips.

Foxy I like the sound of that. We do try and have an egg dinner most weeks but it's trying to find a way to cook it that everyone likes. My daughter is going through a fussy stage, I usually say tough luck though and she needs to at least try what I've prepared.

Egg fried rice
Chilli con carne

Jacket potatoes
Pasta with pesto
Sausage sandwiches
Omelette

Buy a huge bag of rice. We buy a 5kg bag of basmati which lasts around 6mths.

The lady in front of me in Tesco’s bought a 10kg bag of rice for £11 today I usually buy the 500g bags for about £3 - I’m not very thrifty as you may be able to tell!!

Veggie burgers are a big favourite here and very cheap as basically it's just veg and a can of pulses, Jac Monroe's recipe is good (in fact her site has loads of great ideas for cheap meals, many kid friendly and she tags when they are GF)

cookingonabootstrap.com/2018/09/11/carrot-kidney-bean-burger-recipe/

Pasta with home-made meatballs and tomato sauce. A very tasty meal which is a big favourite in our house and costs buttons if you buy all the ingredients from Lidl.

'Kedgeree' - brown rice, sweetcorn, peas, fried red onions and tinned tuna all mixed together!

'Yellow rice' - fry boiled potatoes, green beans and carrots in oil and cumin seeds, add stock and basmati rice with a tsp of turmeric and cook until the rice is cooked.

Both cheap and filling childhood favourites!

Filled slow cooker with half bag frozen mince and all the scrappy veg left in fridge then added passata and a stock cube. Sweet potato and normal potato mash. It's fed 2 adults and 2 children so far and I will use rest tomorrow with pasta and the mash will be cheese and potato pie for my lunch! So a total of 9 meals from half bag of mince and pasta

Spag Bol
Stew
Does your corner shop/farm shop sell the big massive bags of spuds that you could base most dinners on? Mash, beans & Sausages/chips and eggs/roast dinner/chips peas and gravy etc etc etc
Pasta bake
Egg fried rice/veg fried rice

We're gluten free and dairy/egg free here (and vegetarian!).
Risotto (tomato or squash), bean chilli and lentil bolognese are staples in this house. Lentils generally are brilliant, can use them in shepards pie too. Slow cooker stew with any leftover root veg on a Friday night or weekend with dumplings. Rice noodles with vegetables used to be a staple lunch but I've gone off of it now.
Before egg became an issue dh and I had egg fried rice and Spanish tortilla regularly.

We made a lovely tomato soup tonight that is really cheap. Roast a pack of tomatoes with a carrot, pepper and a couple of cloves of garlic in the oven for about 45 mind. Then blend with veg stock. You can add a couple of strips of bacon on top before you roast the veg and that adds a nice flavour for not much extra cost.

Lentil Dahl. Red lentils, tinned tomatoes, veg stock, onion, garlic and curry powder. Slow cooker for a few hours.

Cost? About £1 for 4 servings with rice.

Sausage casserole where I just brown off some sausages and bang them in a casserole dish with whatever chopped veg I have and a tin of tomatoes, then slow cook for a couple of hours.

Fried rice - just boiled rice fried with peas, onions and a couple of eggs stirred through. Add sausage or bacon if you have them.

Baked eggs - a mix of tinned tomatoes, potatoes and whatever tinned beans you have. Cool this until soft and then put in a dish and crack eggs into little wells, bake for about 10 mins. Delicious!

holyfuck actually my husband came home with a 25kg bag of potatoes for £5 it's going to save a fair bit as I usually pay about £4 for 7.5kg plus extra on baking potatoes a week.
queen we do like dhal and I make my own naan not only as it's cheaper but I don't think anywhere sells gf

Pad Thai

Wide rice noodles from the Asian grocery are about £1.

I make an omelette with a bit of sugar and soy sauce in it to slice and put through it.

All of mine love it

Lots of asd and food issues so I have a chart they can add to on the fridge with 'no thank you' and 'ask me first' columns for each child.

They also happily eat tacos or fajitas.

Bean enchiladas.

Bean chilli and jacket potatoes. DH really lilke them topped with grated cheese, jalepenos, soured cream and bacon to make it slightly more exciting.

Minestrone.

Use as many leftovers as possible- stir-fry, frittata and soups are good for this.