A healthy diet when on very little money

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Obviously, I am aware, that many people are living on a very tight budget.
But it is important to still try and eat as healthy as possible, whilst spending as little as possible.

People recommend oats, milk, cheap tins tomato soup, lentils, bread. What else?

This thread isnt for me right now, but who knows in the future?

If there is a thread already like this, please point me in the right direction. Thanks.

Watching

But with fuel costs rocketing, it might be better value to buy a richer pre-cooked tomato sauce.

One thing I do is cook stuff in a pan that really retains heat then switch off the heat and leave it on the stove. It cooks slowly and gently there for at least half an hour with no cost.

If you have space - grow some stuff. I have rocket growing in a large patch, I let it go to seed then every year it just grows back again. Saves a fortune. Basic herbs like thyme, rosemary, sage are perennial and you can dry some leaves while they are in season so you have a few pots to last the winter. If you can find space for flat leaf parsley and oregano, you're well supplied.

In summer you can make an amazing coleslaw salad of finely sliced carrot, white cabbage and red cabbage, onion, celery if you have some. For the sauce you want a big spoon of cheap mayonnaise, the same amount of French mustard and a splash of vinegar (cider vinegar is great).

You can also make a huge batch of couscous salad. Make up the couscous and stir in some fresh herbs from your garden, raw carrot and celery diced incredibly small. Grind over some black pepper. Grate some lemon rind in if you have some. You can vary the recipe - add red pepper, or fry some onion until caramelised etc.

A few good stock cupboard ingredients go a long way. I have a bottle of cider vinegar I use for lots of things. I have a stash of black peppercorn which I grind for fresh pepper.

I love to make 3 bean salad - any mixed beans will do, Lidl do nice tins. You can add celery if you have some too. Then eat it wih half a tin of the 61p tins of mackerel from Lidl, black pepper and a splash of cider vinegar and some brown toast. And some of my rocket, if it is in season!

It is definitely worth exploring some of the cheaper more unusual foods you might not have tried before. Tinned fish when prepared well is delish and so much cheaper than fresh + long shelf life, but still gives you your omega-3 oils.

A pinch of sugar in tomato passata will take away the acidity. Also, I use (cheap) olive oil to sweat the onions at the beginning. Lidl does great tubes of garlic paste for about 50p - you only need a tiny spoonful of garlic paste for a really garlicky taste. They also do ginger and chilli.

I've also switched from beef mince to quorn mince (for environmental reasons) and I find you need a lot less of it...I divide a 300g tub and use half for pasta (2 adults, 2 kids) and half for tacos.

We go to the market at close to closing time. They sell off their stuff really cheap so you can get loads of fruit and veg for next to nothing. Yesterday we got three big punnets of strawberries for £1. Two raspberries for 50p. In all we got four bags of fruit and veg for £5.

I’ve figured out when the supermarkets nearby do their reductions and incorporate a visit at those times into my day. For example, the big Tesco by me does their big reductions at around 2:30pm so I go before the school run on my days off. I’ve noticed a lot more people rely on yellow sticker food now.

I agree with PP about Jack Monroe’s recipes being a good shout - she’s got a great parmigiana one and I also love her spinach and mushroom bolognese. All available for free on her website.

If you have any space at all, my biggest tip would be to grow fresh herbs, even a couple like parsley and basil. They can make a massive difference to meals.

Tins of chickpeas, butter beans and mixed beans. Used in soups tinned or homemade, I tend to blend in half and then add the others who's for texture -plenty of fibre and protein.
You can also add in stale bread (the crust that gets left) into the soup and blend it to thicken it up.
Chorizo is a stable in our fridge, a small amount diced and fried can give many dishes a good lift. As a dried preserved meat it keeps well too.
Lentils the small orange ones, added to mince dishes, reduce the meat required and are nutritious.
Any fruit that is getting too ripe canbe peeled and frozen, add into a breakfast smoothie, with a small scoop of oats, honey (or sugar) a cheap yoghurt (lidl/Aldi bucket size) and milk -blitz up.
Cous cous - is very easy and cheap to make. Fry off Chorizo, fry some veg, onion, garlic, small diced carrots, chuck in frozen peas, add some stock. Allow cous cous to absorb stock. Tomato sauce can help boost flavour. Eat hot or as a salad, delicious with diced orange added.
Smoked mackerel, lovely as a salad addition. Mix with mayo for Sandwich filling or mash & add to cold mash with beaten egg to make tasty fish cakes.

This might be a good thread to ask on...does anyone have a good recipe for a beany, tomatoey soup? DS1s favourite tea is a bowl of baked beans with cheese stirred through and toast to dip in, it'd be nice if I could make something similar we'd all eat.

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Uurgh just had a long reply and MN went glitchy and I lost it. Heres my twopence worth ( or 2.shillings according to Boris!)

Tinned fruit in juice....
Fairly cheap. We like apples and pears. Tinned is precooked so nice and soft for children. We do pear chopped through porridge, or with rice pudding. Or tinnned apple, a handful of raisins, warm custard and a pinch of cinnamon is like a fake apple crumble

Pancakes...
Cheap and easy to make and versatile. I do no measure mug pancakes so a mug of milk a mug of flour and 2 eggs. Makes plenty for a family. Can be sweet eg lemon and sugar or above pear and apple, bit of chocolate spread? Or savoury, our children like sweetcorn and grated cheese in the middle.

Similar to pancakes but fritters, easy to make its pancake batter with veg in could use frozen veg eg peas or sweetcorn.

Tortilla wraps are fairly cheap and great for leftovers we like doing quesedillas with leftover chilli etc or there's a black bean filling we like will try to find recipe later and black beans are really good for you. Then pop tortilla in a pan, spread filling in middle with a bit of grated cheese, another tortilla on top or just fold in half and flip. Cheap nutritos and filling.

Those pouches of dhal etc are also very good we like a chickpea curry one I think it's about a pound and we have it with rice and it's.an easy meal.

@Bakedpotatoesfortea just read as far as your post, good tips. On the natural yogurt Jamie Olivier flat breads, super easy and I found during storm arwen I could do them in the wood burner. Actually nicer than garlic bread as well.

Spinach and salad leaves are really easy to grow in a container and the seeds are cheap. Works out much cheaper than bagged salads from the supermarket and less waste. Not all grow your own works out cheaper as there can be a lot of input cost, but these are both really cheap.

There was a BBC series a few years ago called Economy Gastronomy and I still have the cookbook that went with it. The recipes were good, based around cooking one big batch and turning it into several meals. Worth checking out if you can find a cheap second hand copy or a copy in the library.

You can get a lot of books free by googling the title with PDF at the end. Then save it to the kindle app so it reads as a book not a scroll.

@BuwchGochGota I absolutely love that cookbook. Still one of my favourites