What’s your favourite cheapest meals to make?

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Hey, so I’m really really skint. As in, not just that I can’t go out for a meal this month, as in I’ve just made spaghetti with my last can of tuna and my last onion for dinner. I usually eat microwave rice with frozen vegetables with an oxo cube and gravy granules made into a sauce and mixed in, or instant noodles. I want to eat healthier because I feel faint every time I stand up, I bruise easily, I’m constantly tired and always have headaches, and after eating like this for almost a year since I moved out, I think it’s finally catching up with me. Can you please tell me your favourite cheapest meals? I’m only cooking for myself.

Bulghur wheat from a world food type shop doesn't require cooking. You pour boiling water on it and leave it for a few minutes.
Same with porridge oats, cous cous and rice noodles.

Look for green lentils - IMO tastier than red ones.

Make your own hummus. I've read that you can make it with peanut butter instead of tahini but I've not tried.

I would go and see a doctor for some tests with those symptoms but could well be poor diet etc. Make sure you drink enough, about 2 litres a day.

Then I would wonder about low iron. Some cereals have vitamins added and with milk might help a bit, porridge is good for calories. I would do meals like beans on toast, maybe make veg soup or omelette or boiled eggs.

*aglio!

I buy a pack of chicken thighs (bone in and skin on - very cheap and tasty) - I marinade them in something (usually a packet powder marinade that are less than £1). I have one or two with lots of salad (shredded iceberg lettuce, grated carrot, grated red cabbage and some sweetcorn is very cheap and you get loads of portions), a bit of grated cheddar, mayo and a flat bread. I'll keep the rest of the chicken in the fridge and eat this for a few evenings in a row. All the ingredients come to about £10 (excluding the mayo) and will feed me for 4-5 evenings. I don't get bored of it so will happily eat it over and over. Half my plate is salad so it is super healthy.

eggs.
Egg and chips
omlette and beans
egg on toast
boiled eggs and toast
egg sandwiches
egg drop soup
scrambled eggs

etc etc etc

Buy the full fat milk. it goes further in tea and coffee, and you absorb more of the vitamins and minerals

I also do the same salad but with a jacket potato and cheese or some quiche (loads of options). The salad works out very cheap and is nutritious.

At university, I bought a bag of baking potatoes, baked beans, cheese, tuna & ate lots of jacket potatoes with cheese/cheese & beans/tuna. Also beans on toast.

I would also buy spaghetti, tinned tomatoes & onions and have that together, sometimes with added tuna or quorn.

When I was skint, I used to make big batches of this and eat it with brown rice - https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/mexican_bean_stew_75910/amp

Also dhal as others have said, super cheap and filling and nutritious - https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/tarka-dhal

One from my childhood (that my parents no doubt used to make because they were skint!) and which I still make all the time for my kids is leek and potato soup. Fry 2 leeks, when soft add 5 or 6 potatoes, a veg stock cube and a sprinkle of mixed herbs. Simmer until soft then mash and mix through some single cream. It's my DD's favourite meal, and was mine too growing up!

Oh and Miguel Barclay's 1 pound meals are good. He's on Instagram and a lot of his recipes are also on the BBC food website. Our faves are the honey broccoli noodles and spinach, bacon and tomato spaghetti.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/chefs/miguel_barclay

One thing I would say when you have the money is pick up a multi vitamin
Boots cheapest is 99p for a month, Holland and Barrett is £1.50, Aldi, b&m, Wilko etc all do cheap ones
Then you know you're getting some

Lidl do £1.50 fruit and veg boxes if you have one nearby

See if you have one of these
https://www.yourlocalpantry.co.uk

What is going on with your finances? Can you cut back on any other out goings? Have you checked to see if you’re entitled to any benefits?

It’s worth going to your GP about your health concerns.

As a teen i lived off tomato soup and pasta 😆 a boiled egg also goes very well!

Spanish omelette, though eggs aren't so cheap now

I hate sauce, so pasta + veg + cheese (and meat of choice) was always a win. You can cook it all in one saucepan too!

Passata heated with a pinch of sugar to take off the sour edge with pasta and grated cucumber on the top , cheese if you have it . So cheap and easy but a lovely comfort food . It has got me through some hard times .

I have just had a go at making Burmese tofu... Just chickpea flour boiled up. It behaves like firm tofu. I used 150g of garam flour and 370g of water. Teaspoon of salt and tumeric. Sift the flour mix in salt and tumeric ( you can use any seasonings here). Mix the water in a bit at the time to avoid lumps. Transfer to a saucepan and cook until it gets to the consistency of mash potatoes/ thick polenta. Tip into a lightly oiled flat dish / square tin. Cool overnight and then cut up & use like normal tofu.

My other go to cheap meals are... Dal,
pasta mornay - white sauce with tuna / mackerel/ sardines and cheese- a small amount goes a long way. Finish off in the oven if you don't have to worry about bills.
Garlic fried in oil from a tin of anchovies add chopped anchovies and tinned tomatoes. You can also use a tin of mackerel or sardines in oil.
Chickpeas with everything / anything... Spinach, greens, tomatoes, peppers,

Look out for people growing herbs in their front garden.... I grow things out the front of my house so people can pick them if they need extra for their cooking.

Also ask at your local allotments as they may have gluts you can use.

Big batch of chilli use lentils, beans and some frozen mince as it's usually cheaper. Freeze some and you can use it in a variety of ways.

• put it in wraps and then bake with cheese on top
• over a baked potato
• with pasta
• with tortilla chips, or rice, or frozen veg
• on top of chips to make dirty fries
• thin it out with extra tinned tomatoes, stock and veg to make a chilli soup with some bread for dunking.

Eggs are the best cheap food there is, they are full of protein and healthy fat, can be made into a piously healthy meal or a sickeningly unhealthy treat food

• omelette with mushrooms, onion, peppers and some wafer thin ham
• scrambled egg with chilli, spring onions and cheese. A bit of hot sauce and into a wrap
• fried egg sandwich
• fried egg, beans and chips
• eggy bread
• French toast
• boiled egg a load up for egg salad sandwiches or buy a 20p pack of cress seeds from wilko and grow it on kitchen paper on your windowsill for fresh egg and cress sandwiches.

Look in the cooked meat aisle for things like ham or bacon scraps, they're great for adding to soups, stews, pies or omelettes when you want meat to be chopped up anyway and it doesn't matter what it looks like.

Are you on all the food giveaway sites? Too good to go etc?

when do you next get some cash?

if you work is there anyone employee assistance schemes you can access?

after you have sorted the here and now...

I agree with the poster above who said buy a big packet of chicken legs / thighs and cook with a bit of salt/ flavouring. Nice hot chicken leg meal straight away and then use the rest with salads, in curries etc over the next few days

ditto sausages - sausage pasta, sausage fried rice, sausage salad

turkey mince is cheap and great to stirfry - especially with Thai type food.

if you are close to a Morrisons or a fishmonger go and have a look at their fish counter, things like fresh sardines etc can be really really cheap.

carbonara made properly with an egg yolk. Save the white to mix with another 2 eggs and some cheese for a small omelette the next day

get plenty of dark green veg into you, spinach and chickpea curries (with some turkey mince perhaps) chicken legs with spinach salad and boiled egg.

Jacket potatoes with sausage and beans

batch cook chilli and again have with rice / jacket potatoes - freeze portions in plastic freezer bags.

stock up on yellow stickers when you see them.

Definitely get a referral for a food bank, speak to your GP surgery and say how little food you’ve had.

Then as suggested get full fat milk/yoghurt/cheese. Cream cheese makes a good sauce with canned fish for pasta/rice. It doesn’t have to be an expensive brand either.

Frozen vegetables and fruit tend to be cheaper than fresh. Veg curry with tinned lentils is easy. I do a cauliflower curry with boiled eggs- any curry paste/powder, chopped onion, tinned tomatoes, blanch cauliflower florets then add to sauce. Serve with rice and boiled eggs to your liking either sliced or halved.

Jacket potato with lovely crispy skin and whatever filling you have/can get.

Pasta bake, just the cheapest pasta, and a jar of supermarket pasta bake sauce and if you do a large-ish one it could last a couple of days. Maybe one of those super cheap garlic bread baguettes on the side?

Tin of soup and bread.

Maybe a pack of wraps and you could fry some onions, peppers, the cheapest meat you can get and add any spices lurking in the back of the cupboard. Then you could use the wraps for lunch the next day or couple of days. Make a pizza out of a wrap with the cheapest tomato purée, some grated cheese (those little cheddar sticks in the net bag are good from Aldi if you can't afford a full block) and any other toppings you could think of.

A pack of sausages could go a long way. Casserole, sausage sandwich, chopped up into pasta like little meatballs.

Toasties! Any filling.

You could go to the food bank, I've had to go a few times i was give so much and when i got some money i donated back.

Cheap meals when im skint:
Anything tinned on toast
Pasta,ham,peas and cream cheese
Veg rice with chicken in a wrap
Omelette
Egg fried rice

This is my favourite cheap meal, OP.

It only uses root veg and dried lentils, both very cheap to buy, along with some curry powder. I often double the recipe so I use up a whole small bag of carrots and parsnips, and that makes 8 to 10 big, filling portions. It is much tastier than it sounds from the ingredients, somehow it melds into a very tasty dish (its from the bbc good food website, there are lots of reviews of it on there). (I often don't have fresh coriander for it, but it tastes fine without it).