What do you class as a cheap meal in terms of cost?

[AlwaysCountYourPennies]

Lots of threads recently on cheap meals but what is a cheap meal???

I'm a frugal cook-from-scratch type (love a Mumsnet chicken, etc) I eat meat and don't buy organic. I buy a lot of own-brand items and shop mostly in Aldi, Lidl and Morrisons. Meals always have a lot of veg and we don't eat large amounts of meat.
(I spend on average £75 a week on food for 2 adults and two hungry teens))

Standard meals include roast dinner, spag bol, chilli, stir fry, curry, hearty soups, cottage pie, ham and parsley sauce, homemade faggots and peas, pulled pork, lasagne, casseroles, pasta bakes, risottos and homemade pizza.
Per serving these work out between £1 and £2 per person

An expensive meal for me would be roast lamb, steak, or fresh fish (or a takeaway)

I spend a lot on food and if I cook an evening meal for £8 or £9 for four adults I’m pleased with myself.

I guess probably a meal with the least expensive ingredients. For us I'd say baked potatoes, omlettes (we have chickens so always have loads of eggs), beans on toast etc. In fact probably anything that doesn't involve meat.

That’s very cheap and I’m surprised you can feed your family for an average of 2.5 a day for all meals and drinks. I’m assuming you bulk everything up with pasta, rice potatoes etc and use little fresh veg or meat.

3 meals a day?!

I doubt anyone can tell you anything. £75 is low already

I would say £6-10 per regular evening meal easily. Tonight will be Spaghetti carbonara, salad and garlic bread and that’s probably £8 for 2 adults and toddler. We spend around £150 a week for 2 adults and toddler.

It is all relative.
There have been times when a jacket potato with value baked beans about 3 times a week came in very handy - cost pence yet was very filling - but, I wouldn't want to have to continue to live like that year in, year out. That was back in the days of paying 15% mortgage rates.

Nowadays, we eat like you do. I know so many posters love to mock the MN chicken, but actually eating all of everything we buy has always been normal in our family. I find it weird that someone would buy a chicken and then only get one family meal from it, and not then make another meal from the scrappy bits. I am astounded by articles or TV progs when they give facts and figures about the amount of food that is thrown away by families every year.

We seem to spend a lot on food!
I cook a lot (& we also get takeaways semi regularly)
I never work it out per meal but easily spend it the region of £150 per week on 3 adult portions - though 1 is a late teen & also has plenty of snacks which I buy.

Tonight we're having fennel.risotto with garlic & lemon King prawns on top, seved with green salad.
Teen doesn't like risotto so will have penne pasta with tomato & fresh mozzarella sauce, garlic bread, Olives & salad.

£75 would be very low now. Less than 1 year ago, it would have been easily done.

I only really mentally price up our evening meal and I’m happy if it comes in around £10. We have 4 adult portions and 1 child portion.

Cheap dinners used to be mostly carbs cooked in veg stock with beans or something for protein.

Eg rice cooked in veg stock and turmeric with sweetcorn and served with half a boiled egg on top.
Falafel made from chickpeas, cooked with a crushed up stock cube, a spoon of peanut butter, a clove of garlic, olive oil and a bit of lemon juice.
Pasta cooked in veg stock served with a sauce made from kidney beans, tinned tomatoes, stock cube and a grate of cheese on top.
Macaroni cheese but made with no cheese in the sauce just grated on top for baking. Carrots grated into the sauce if I had any in.
Bubble and squeak, made with microwaved potatoes crushed in a pan with oil, seasoning, a couple of pieces of bacon trimmings from the freezer, chopped onion and a few Brussels sprouts/cabbage leaves.
Dahl made with dried lentils soaked overnight, curry powder and tinned coconut.

None of these meals would keep us going long term but they kept everyone full until payday.

I just bought chicken (650g) from Co op for £6.75! I’m making fajitas. Peppers, maybe around £1. Rice I don’t know, maybe 50p? Onion- pennies as I get a big bag of them. Fajita mix (I do have spices but am lazy) £1.10. Tortilla wraps around £2.50 as I got two packs. Dips 2 for £2. I didn’t even get myself any gluten free wraps as they were about £2.60 for 4!! 😳 I’ll just have rice and fajita mix and some salad. Oh and I’ll grate cheese as my family are cheese monsters. No wonder we spend so much on groceries.

My mum used to make lentil soup and we all loved it. Little did we know it was an end-of-the-month cheap meal. My kids won’t touch it. 😢

To answer your question, jacket potatoes with beans and cheese.

If you have porridge for breakfast and homemade soup everyday for lunch you can keep your food costs way down. This is what I mostly have. It's to do with money but also laziness I like knowing that I don't have to think too hard for those meals. It's pretty healthy too.

Then can spend a bit more on dinner (if you want to).

Family of 6 here, 2 adults and 4 kids (1 who is a toddler) and up until last year, I considered anything under €5 very reasonable, but with rising prices and increasing kiddie appetites it's impossible to hit this. I guess it's more like €6-7 per meal now.

Cheapest meal in out house is probably chicken portions with mash and peas. Boring and you wouldn't eat it every day, but it's a decent meal all the same. Homemade pizza used to be a hit too but strong flour is gone so expensive and hard to find where I live now.

Cheap meals..... Omelettes, risotto, baked potato, bean based chilli or stew....generally meat free (cheese instead).

I can make my main meals very cheaply thanks to clever shopping, coupons and cashback apps and yellow stickers. However snacks is where I spend way too much money. They’re so pricy!

No idea per meal, steak tonight for 4 of us has cost £34 from the butchers and prawns for dd were £8. With sides and bread etc, probably about £55. Our weekly food shop
spend is between £200-250 for the 4 or 5 of us depending on whether dd is away at uni or not.
I do then get lunches out on top of this if I’m in the office although trying to be more organised about this and bring my own in to steer me away from junk!
@Fairyjuice we buy our bread flour in bulk from Amazon, think it’s a 20kg sack, we get one around every couple of months. We make a lot of bread, not loaves but a lot of pizza dough, naan breads, flat breads, baguette etc, just much nicer homemade and I’m convinced it’s probably cheaper too.

I think 'on toast' is our cheapest meal. Theres beans, cheese, mushrooms, egg all sorts

I'd say £1-£1.50 per person. We can do pasta with homemade sauce and garlic bread, stir fry and noodles/rice, chilli and rice/wraps for that sort of price. More expensive meals would involve chicken, sausages, salmon, halloumi etc, or things like pizza or kievs.

I think it depends if you are asking for 3 or 4 things you can use to eke a small amount of money to the end of the month, or if you are wondering about week in, week out for the rest of the year, to keep costs down generally.

I'm not sure why TheChosenTwo has posted that, tbh, as the OP has asked about what people class as a cheap meal

However snacks is where I spend way too much money. They’re so pricy!
I think snacks are cheap and main meal ingredients are pricey.

We try to have a mix of £ and ££ meals during the week and probably a £££ once a fortnight. We eat out about once a fortnight too but rarely all five of us.
3 adults and 2 teens.
Overall under £2.70 per person per evening meal.

This weeks meal plan - average cost

££ Mexican chicken stew with crispy potatoes and salad about £11.50

£££ Roast beef, roast potatoes, savoy cabbage, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower cheese and Yorkshire puddings £23

£ Ham and lentil soup (ham will be used for sandwiches and another meal) with bread £5

£ Ham fried rice £7

££ Chicken and mushroom pie with veg £12

£ Vegetable and bean quesadillas £7.50

£££ Prawn linguine with rocket salad and garlic flatbread £19

I used to class any meal that was under £5 for 4/5 portions as cheap enough . Recently though with price rises very few meals I cook qualify .. my cheap meals now are Mac cheese and jacket potato beans -both with salad / used to include a quorn lasagne and a tofu stir fry and fajitas but both of those are now £6/7 . I’ve just stocked up on some discounted veggie Christmas themed protein so that’s Tea tonight with potatoes dauphinois and veg . I spend probably twice as much as OP but am a bit lazy so would buy a cheese sauce rather than make one for example

If you manage to feed 4 for £75 I want some tips from you please!