If you are poor, what do you feed your kids?

[SandysMam]

So every thread I read about parents struggling seems to suggest lentils to bulk stuff out and foraged blackberries
If money is tight for you, in reality, what sort of thing do you cook for the kids? Half term is taking it’s toll at the end of the month and I need to add some cheap but healthyish recipes that regular kids will eat!
Thank you!

Value brand almost everything.

One pot meals such as chilli, curry, stew/casserole etc that can be made in the slow cooker using frozen or tinned value range veg and that will mean we have enough left over to feed us all again the following day.

Anything that can be bulked up with potatoes, pasta, bread or rice.

Very little in the way of meat and any meat that we do use is the cheapest cuts that are best slow cooked.

Thank you, there are some brilliant ideas here. I just gave them spag Bol bulked our with extra veg then some tinned peaches and evaporated milk for pudding (about 60p for both tins from Aldi). Thanks everyone.

Pitta breads are good to sit in the freezer. I turn them into:
Pitta pizzas
Ham n cheese pitta
Fishfingers in pitta
Sardines in tomato sauce pitta
Pretend they're naans
Cheese n pesto pitta

Do try brown lentils and mince, half n half, in Bolognese. You can hardly notice the difference.

It depends on quite how poor you are.

When you are watching the gas/electricity Meyer, anything beige from Iceland that all cooks in 15 minutes is great.

Boiling even frozen veg in addition would be a non starter, and something like shepherds pie, no matter how many lentils you add, would be unthinkable.

So 15p noodles, chips, nuggets, small pizza, value range bread, jam..those are the risk free, safe to eat, won't go off staples.

Leek and potato soup, red lentil dahl, egg fried rice, pasta with bacon and sweet corn, bubble and squeak with bacon off cuts, home-made scone with value jam for pudding.

Same as others have said: strong cheese or highly flavoured meat is useful as a little goes a long way.

chickpeas are grea and kids do like them, i do them in curry but also do them in stock with garlic as a potatoe alternative. very cheap too

oh and then whisk up the water into vegan meringues LOL watched that on bake off the mind boggled

Ds is fussy, so I’m reading this with envy. Honestly, when we are brassic (which is a lot - single parent) I make buttery pasta with chopped tomotoes and left over meat in it. Lots of mash potatoe along side stuff because it fills you up. I buy carrots / cucumber / tomatoes a lot as they are cheap and can be used alongside sandwiches. In fact, if times are really bad, we often have cold food rather than hot.

That said. In an ideal world I’d do a roast chicken and have left overs of it the next day, then use the very last scraps of the chicken and veg on the 3rd day in pasta. Sausage and mash, with sausage pasta bake the next day. You get the idea!

Egg fried rice like pp said.
Pasta bakes with veg and bacon/ chicken with a sauce made from a couple of egg yolks and reserved cooking water (+- cheese, garlic and herbs)
Soup
Anything from the ASDA magazine cheap pages (under£1 per serving and always go down well, plus the magazine is free on the checkout!)

I've got a big family and the week before payday is always a struggle.

My go to recipes for skint week are

Lentil soup is gorgeous and really filling my recipe is garlic, onions, carrots and celery fried put in the lentils and pour over chicken stock and bring to boil then simmer for 30 minutes and serve with crusty bread. I sometimes fry up bacon with veg it's lovely.

Creamy pasta - boil a pan of pasta and fry onions garlic bacon and mushrooms when cooked through pour over double cream and stir until it's bubbling then mix into the pasta.

Sausage casserole- thin sausages chopped into three put in an oven proof dish add onions and a couple of tins of chopped tomatoes cook in oven for 30-40 minutes and serve with mash.

Other stuff I usually make are
Sausage rolls and beans
Soup and sandwiches
Egg and chips

Always have a good range of store cupboard stuff and on weeks when you have a bit extra buy freezer stuff.

Once a month I bulk buy household essentials like washing powder, toilet rolls and other stuff if you have a farm foods or Hime bargains nearby you can get good deals on cleaning products and store cupboard stuff.

Similar to everyone else really.
33p tin of chickpeas in... hummus and pitta

Falafel in pitta

Chana chat (cooked with a bit of tomato puree, sweet chilli sauce, garlic paste and lemon juice) and cheap rice

We have it in pasta with chopped fried veg

33p tin of kidney beans in ...
Chile con Carne (bit of quorn mince and lentils)
Refried Beans

35p tin of potatoes fried with curry paste and onion to make Bombay potatoes. With cheap rice.

Today we had 'perfect pomodorino sauce' from the Guardian which is mainly carrots which are v cheap and in season. With spaghetti which is about 25 p a pack just now.

I will shop at 4 different shops if they have various things cheaper.

Ginger nuts are 22p a pack in Asda. So the children can have them wrapped for school snack. 3 or 4.

Or space raider crisps are £1.60 for 20 in farm foods.

Rice is 45p/kg in Asda.
But corn tortillas are cheaper in Tesco.

I was managing really well in the reduced fridge as I live near a supermarket. But it's been rubbish lately.

We buy big sacks of potatoes from our local dairy. £6 for 25kg.

www.thespruceeats.com/northumberland-pan-haggerty-recipe-435687

I layer this with leftover chili con Carne or sausage or something

I batch cook things like bolognaise, shepherds pie, curry, fillings for fajitas and tacos (can also be used with spicy rice), chilli, casseroles etc.

All of these are usually about 40-50% meat, the rest veg etc, so bulked out with extra veggies. I then freeze in the right portion sizes so there isn't any waste. I then serve with a carb and more veg. I buy a lot of meat on reduced stickers (Beef mince, chunks of beef, chicken breasts/thighs, etc etc), and adapt what I'm planning to make depending on what I can find. The fact that there is so much veg in the meals means that one large pack of mince makes tons of meals, same as a pack of chicken etc. I also will use one base to make different meals. E.g. the shepherds pie base can be shepherds pie, beef pasty, beef pie, served with little roast potatoes, Yorkshires and veg etc.

Lunches are either sandwiches (ham, cheese or tuna mayo) with raw veggies, or omelette/scrambled egg with toast and veggies, or ham or cheese wraps and veggies. That sort of thing. The ham is only cheap, the cheese is value, the tuna is bought on offer. Eggs are cheap but filling.

Breakfast is either cereal and fruit, toast with peanut butter or jam with fruit or sometimes banana pancakes (just egg and ripe banana mixed) with fruit on top.

My daughter eats really well. Her diet is full of all the vitamins etc that she needs, but it doesn't cost nearly as much as it would seem.

I’m still struggling a bit but less so and I do feel I now over compensate with snacks and bits because we were so so tight with money for quite a while.

But actually they ate well and the kids didn’t really feel the strain. A lot of what I fed them is similar to what’s already been posted - a favourite which still stands for dinners is ppasta shapes served with hidden veg sauce. My 3 year old will eat so much of that.

Other things I’d make was a big batch of flap jacks, and there would also be porridge for breakfast (which they still have as they love it).

Oddly my children don’t eat oven bits very much, I would feel good filling the freezer with some cheap bags of £1 chips or waffles and chicken nuggets etc but unfortunately the wouldn’t eat it. The only oven type food DD will eat is pizza, and you can get some cheap cheese and tomato pizzas or make your own, which is great fun and feels really satisfying and like you’re having a treat - a great thing when you’re poor.

Mine also love beans on toast but not spaghetti hoops or anything. Canned or jarred hot dogs and rolls are cheap and filling as well. Serve with corn and home made wedges for a really filling meal. For lunches they would also have buttered noodles and peas, Sandwhiches or crackers and butter with fruit.

I agree with the poster that the most important thing when you’re poor is to make sure that there is no waste - which means making sure you’re getting something you know they will eat. It doesn’t have to be bad for them; I’d bet lost kids have at least 1 or 2 reasonably healthy meals that they like. It might mean eating repetitively for a while - but young children do that anyway and it’s just something you put up with when you’re poor.

The biggest thing I missed when I was really struggling for a couple of months was the fact I couldn’t really afford to get fruit. My little ones love fruit and I really struggled with feeling like I was feeding them mainly carbs, but feeding them well and balanced is possible with some forward thinking and I wish I’d done more research when I was in that position. Not that I’m massively better off now!

Few peoplementioned the whole chiken. I started doing the whole chicken in the slow cooker the meat falls off the bone so you get all of it easily, leaves fantastic gravy and then left over chicken goes back in the slow cooker as a curry and I also make chicken soup :-) But could easily stretch to pasta dish rather than soup if its a large chicken.

Pesto and pasta with sweetcorn (tin or frozen) or broccoli or cauliflower.

Tesco do frozen bacon lardons so only cook what you need. Either do with chop tom and pasta or fry then add to scrambled eggs or omelette

Vegetables and pasta cook in chopped tomatoes.

• Sausage casserole bulked with beans or pasta
• Baked beans and pasta (add bacon or chorizo into the beans it’s yummy)
• Chopped tomatoes with mixed herbs on toast with pesto spread on top
• eggs and soldiers
• a rice dish with chorizo, onion, celery, peppers, tomatoes and peas (effectively a sweep of what’s left in the salad drawer at the end of the week) I fry the chorizo, then add the veg meanwhile boil rice with a chicken stock cube, when the rice is cooked pour it in the pan with the chorizo et al and mix well then serve. It is one of our favourite dinners and takes 15 minutes.
• Chana masala
• macaroni and cauliflower cheese with bacon bits

A pasta bake that’s effectively a lob it, with a mix of cheese and bread crumbs on top - if I have little bits of different cheese (incl. blobs if Philadelphia) I put it all on the topping.

This thread is an eye opener. I was struggling 14 yrs ago and life was much easier for us I think