Really cheap healthy family meals

[SunnyLobelia]

Morning!

I'd love some cheap family meals ideas. Like most I am trying to really reduce our outgoings and I seem to spend way too much on food.

I already shop at Aldi so that is a good start. But my go to meals tend to be pasta based. Although tonight we are having soup and cheese toasties.

I love meal threads on MN and just would love some more ideas of things I may not have thought about or have forgotten about. :)

Many thanks in advance!

White fish and bean stew - any frozen white fish (which you can usually pick up reasonably cheaply - eg Iceland 700g for 4.75 or can get it as part of a 3 for £10 deal with two other things), whatever canned beans we have, some carrots or any other vegetables that need using up - frozen spinach has worked well too - salt, pepper, and a load of paprika. Fry it all up and add about 500ml passata (we can't used chopped tomatoes because my youngest doesn't like the lumps of tomato and would refuse to eat it) and a stock cube. Served with toast or any bread that we have, and always gets eaten.

The good thing is that we can just keep all the main ingredients in the cupboard and freezer so don't need to go out to buy anything after getting back from work. It's quite quick too, or the fish falls apart if cooked for too long.

Costs around £5 for the 4 of us if we get the fish on a deal, so not really really cheap (certainly not 30p for instance!) but not bad and incredibly nutritious.

Mine love enchiladas and can full them with as much of whatever you want

Salad nicoise: although the green beans are cooked they still have good texture and are served cold: use frozen green beans as they are cheaper than fresh, any crispy leaf, potatoes, baby tomatoes, hard boiled eggs, a tin of tuna chunks, dressing. Feeds everyone for £2.50.

Also a good salad for someone with food issues as you can plate up the elements separately rather than mixing them if required.

That's a tuna salad with green beans @ODFOx. A nicoise has anchovies and black olives as well - it can't be a nicotine without them. It's like calling pasta with ham and cheese a carbonara. Look up "Ging di Franco and Holly Willoughby carbonara". If nothing else it will make you laugh.

When you say that your DS won't try anything spicy do you mean chilli heat or any spices?
If he likes pasta sauce or tomato soup, try a carrot soup with a little ground cumin fried in with the onion before adding a chopped potato, chopped carrots and enough stock to cover. Once everything is soft, blitz until cOmpletely smooth.
If he gets on with cumin, next time try turmeric. Once he's comfortable with those 2 you can make a very simple korma and a simple tikka. Neither need chilli.
Both can be served with salad or crispy veg while the rest of you fill up with rice or bread.

Well yes, but I put anchovies into the dressing and was trying to offer the OP a budget meal without soft veg for her son to enjoy with the rest of the family.
I know what you mean though: I have to leave the bolognese threads when people start talking about peppers and mushrooms 😄

Following with interest as I'm always after new ideas. In our house though the following always goes down well

• vegetable egg fried rice- boil rice or microwave a packet rice for speed. Boil/steam some small cut frozen veg (peas, sweetcorn, carrots or anything you like really) beat 1 or 2 eggs in a bowl add it all to a large sauce pan with a drop of oil and lightly fry until the egg is cooked. Add soy sauce and butter and serve.

*easy carbonara (apologies to any italians out there) chopped ham, peas, sauce is made from egg, cream cheese and extra cheddar. Mix and add everything to cooked pasta and heat until egg is cooked

*homemade beefburgers with frozen mince (i find the texture really nice with frozen mince)

• homemade tuscan bean soup- fry onions and chopped bacon, add dried herbs, chopped tomatoes, 200ml ish of stock, tin of mixed beans and add any other random bit of flavourings in the cupboard that sound vaguely Mediterranean, reduce until soup thickens and serve with sliced crusty bread.

Ha I least I've apologised in advance 😅

Aah yes. The separate elements on the plate are indeed very important! (I have just managed to get him eating lettuce too so that is a good idea).

I love so many of these ideas thank you! The sausage meat in peppers is inspired!

I had completely forgotten about gammon which is very much a favourite!

I have become quite conservative in my cooking lately and am loving being reminded of some wonderful dishes. Many I can adapt for DS1 but he would basically be having the same as us which would be great. Also wraps - they were my lockdown staples and I had forgottne how versatile they can be.

Tomorrow is going to be the tomato, peas and cheese pasta mentioned upthread. DS1 will have the tomatoes on the side so I can easily separate that out.

Thank you much everyone. :)

I’m not sure how your son feels about cooked tomatoes, so this might be a complete none starter. But that feta and cherry tomato pasta that was all over instagram is absolutely delicious and the easiest thing I’ve ever made. The most expensive element is a block of feta.

Shakshouka eggs.

Fry diced onion, add some garlic (if you have any), blits and reduce down canned tomatoes, add some spices if you like (cumin, salt, cinnamon) then make a few wells, crack an egg into each well. Serve with rice. Half browned prior to boiling for extra taste.

Enjoy 😉

anything spicy or with heat at all I am afraid. (and I am sadly including salt and pepper!).

I definitely could try and very simple chicken 'korma' with adding incremental bits of cumin and turmeric over time (I mean literally months ). Thankfully DS2 who is 2 years younger eats everything otherwise things would be evern more difficult.

I have been meaning to give this a try actually! Thanks.

Just checking in to say that the pasta with cheese tomatos and peas suggested upthread went down an absolute treat tonight. I added a little bit of cream cheese and pasta water to make it creamy. DS2 eats anything and had seconds. DS1 (the tricky one) ate about half of a decent sized bowl. :) Very very pleased.

Tomorrow I am going with chicken drumsticks and sweet corn and colesaw (but it will be predoimiatey carrot and with a teeny bit of mayo.

I wrote every suggestion down in a lovely long list and have pinned it on the fridge. Thank you so much everyone. :)

-one of those words in my post was 'predominantly'

[checks spelling again..]

Making your own pasta sauce is a good way to use up slightly old veg. I put in things like peppers, carrots, celery courgette, broccoli stems (grated up) etc.

Plus onion, garlic, tin of tomatoes, herbs and a stock cube makes a nice pasta sauce, and it can be frozen.

Great thread @SunnyLobelia , I used to love cooking til Lockdown (s) when my kitchen ressembled a 24hour cafe.
I'm slowly getting back into it. Some really good ideas here.

If you often find yourself with slightly old past it's best fruit there's 2 things I do.

1. if it would taste good in a smoothie I chop it into chunks and put it in a 'mixed fruit' bag in the freezer, then I can just pour some into the blender with a bit of fruit juice or yoghurt and blitz it when DD wants a smoothie.

2. if it's berries, plums or apple I put those into a different freezer bag, when I have loads, usually helped by some blackberry picking in the local parks in autumn, I cook them down with some cinnamon and sugar to make a fruit compote. Some of it we eat that day with cream or custard, the rest I freeze in portion sizes for quick winter puddings. Just take a portion out and pour into a Pyrex (other brands will do) dish with a sheet or pastry over the top, or some sweet dumplings or crumble mix and bake, or defrost it and serve with yoghurt or porridge.

I bulk cook a lot for the freezer.

I make huge cottage pies.

I use aldi mince, bulk it out with onions, peas and carrots (and obvs the usual stock cube/seasonings).

I mash carrots and broccoli in with the potatoes and grated cheese - it’s lovely and makes the mash go further and it’s great to get veg down my toddler.

The mince is about £1.50 a pack, all the veg doesn’t come to much. If I cook 4 packs of mice, a bag of potatoes, bag of carrots, two heads of broccoli, that makes a huge amount for us and the freezer. Would feed the 5 of us (3 adults and two children) for 3 lots of dinners.

We also make huge batches of bombay aloo and dahl to freeze. So, so cheap to make.

I do the same with Lasagne too. I buy the white sauce from aldi, the mince again and you can knock up huge amounts of lasagne to freeze for not much per portion.

Our cheap meals are

• jacket potatoes with filling. DD likes cream cheese with any tomatoe/cucumber/pepper/sweet corn chopped small and mixed in, I usually have tuna mayo about £1-1.50 pp
• chicken goujen and salad wraps, work out about £1pp
• Soup and crusty rolls (we like the part bake at home ones with soup), approx £1pp
• Left over curry: I take an onion, some

Garlic, spices and any left over crem fresh/cream or a can on coconut milk and make a curry base. Sometimes I'll have just that with naan breads or I'll add any left over veg (potatoe/sweet pot are particularly good). Less than £1pp

• lots of pasta meals with with some veg (usually peas or broccoli for us), some cheese (crème fresh or phili) with optional meat (salmon is my favourite but to make it really cheap just chop up sandwich ham or chicken). Could be as cheap as £0.5pp
• Pesto pasta with chopped tomatoes and mozzarella. Probably less than £1pp

I'm not a big batch cooker so following for tips.

Sorry- forgot that mumsnet doesn't follow formatting anymore

Egg fried rice with peas/sweetcorn, and some grated cheese. You do need to cook the rice in advance, though - it needs to be cold.

My favourite for the kids is pasta sauce with hidden veg.
Chopped tomatoes. Garlic. Carrots and any other veg. Summer in olive oil and add tomato purée. Blend down and grated Parmesan. We sprinkle with basil for the adults and add frozen diced chicken.