Your DC's favourite, cheapest meals?

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We can't absorb the food price rises and unexpected bills like idiot DH buying a new bike so I need to cut the food budget for the next couple of months. What are the cheapest, balanced, nutritious meals your DC like?

Nothing mushy texture or with mushrooms or nuts. I haven't mastered lentils (tips?), they always go mushy or if I cook them less, give someone stomach ache. I have a teenage boy to feed and a pre-teen girl going through a growth spurt. Random, unorthodox combinations acceptable; we are not vegetarian but are trying to eat less meat.

Mine are 6 and 8 and love bacon/ham/salami or leftover meat, rice and broccoli. This can be combined into a far better meal with some softened onions before cooking the rice and then cooked together in a big frying pan with spices, chili etc, other chopped veg. Uses up loads of bits of vegetables and is filling.

Tortilla pizzas are cheap.

I wish my kids would eat eggs, beans and tuna but they bloody well don’t. 😡

Vegetarian egg fried rice
Cajun sweetcorn pasta
Baked potatoes, beans and cheese

Egg and chips with peas and carrots
Spinach dahl and rice
Pasta pomodoro

All three can be made for a family of four for well under £5.

Cooked pasta mixed with a tin of beans , topped with grated cheese. Can be grilled , it's a lovely gooey mess !

Some good ideas here. Plus mine, don't make it more expensive by doing enough for your idiot DH to have some. Tell him to go for a bike ride instead.

Mince and tatties
Eggs, baked beans, bacon
Lentils with rice or lentil soup
Curry bulked out with veg

Practically anything in a wrap, he recently discovered chips and salad wraps with chilli sauce.

@RequiresUpdating The quinoa just gets added to the pot but I rinse it VERY well (and I never bother rinsing rice but quinoa really does need it).

Also - to add - I don't care at all if something doesn't look like a proper meal. As long as there's a protein, carbs and vitamins, iron etc - who cares? So wraps with hummus, carrots and cucumber and a slice of beef - totally fine. The beef can last for days if needed - stir fry strips, in an omelette etc. (somehow never manage to make a chicken last but a £10 joint of beef can last us a week if I'm clever with it and don't give in to the teen "can I have some more meat?" requests...)

Roast dinner but using sausages as a replacement for the joint of meat. Serve with yorkshire puddings, roast potatoes, stuffing, veg and gravy.

Mine love to build their own wraps. They have sweetcorn, cucumber, sour cream and grated cheese. Might have some leftover chicken or something, but they are happy without.

A family favourite of ours: salmon and cream cheese pasta. It allows 2 small pieces of salmon to stretch to 4 servings. Cook the pasta, and steam the Salmon (wrapped in foil) above it. Melt a tub of cream cheese with a splash of water, stir in the cooked pasta and flaked salmon. Serve with veg on the side, some fried cherry tomatoes or a green salad.

Look for Jack Monroe's 'Cooking on a Bootstap'. Really good ideas. Our favourite is the veggie Bolognese made with minced mushrooms instead of meat. Really quick, really cheap.

Pesto pasta.

Omelette.

Richmond sausages & mash 🙄(I really like them!).

Pasta with bacon and leeks.
Sweet potato, tuna and chilli fish cakes.
Pasta with garlic mushrooms
Sweet potato falafel in pita with salad

Is noone addressing the elephant in the room?

you’re struggling to feed your kids and your husband is off buying a bike???? Please tell me it’s a cheap one to reduce commuting costs…

Katsu curry and rice with fish fingers always goes down a treat here. Can easily double up the sauce and freeze half too. I use the BBC good food recipe for the sauce.

Jacket potatoes with various fillings-

baked beans and cheese /chilli /veg bolognaise/
filling scraped out and mixed with leftover ham /bacon,fried onions and scraps of cheese and put back in the skins and brown in the oven served with salad or beans.

Stir fry veggies and noodles

Carrot soup (with lentils blitzed for thickening)with crusty bread and a little
grated cheddar

Homemade fish cakes using tinned fish

Cauliflower macaroni cheese

Slow cooker casserole using neck of lamb fillet, pearl barley,veggies and dumplings- cook long and slow and is gorgeous
We fill Yorkshire puddings with it instead of dumplings sometimes

Jacket potato night
pasta pick n mix night (bits of ham/meat/salad/pesto/cheese whatever needs using)
somethin on toast night
somethin with rice night

Mix a cup of cooked rice with a can of kidney beans in a frying pan with some chilli powder. (A can of beans in chilli sauce is ideal).Put some of the mix in a tortilla wrap with grated cheese. This makes quite a few wraps and is filling.

OH loves making soup so we've always had lots of soup, especially whatever veg is left soup.

Other suggestions...
Tinned macaroni cheese on toast
Tinned spaghetti on toast (bit of a theme)
Sausages with mash and gravy with peas.
Fish fingers chips and beans
Fry up
Omelette (filling as you feel fit)
Cheese & ham toasties
Salads

Re the lentils, I occasionally use tinned green ones, need heating rather than cooking. I have a gousto recipe for veggie shepherds pie. I make the unofficial version, basically carrots, onions, tin of tomatoes, any other cheap or leftover veggies, simmer like you would for a veggie bolognaise. Stir in a tin or two of lentils depending on size of cooking dish. Top with loads of mash.

buy the strongest cheese you can for cheese sauce. I make mine just with cornflour and milk - doesn’t need butter. Mature value cheese is often the same price as mild.

yes to pudding especially if main course was light such as soup. (And try cheap garlic bread it’s ok and about 32p)

Tinned rice pudding, home made crumble (see if you can get cheap or free apples). Tinned custard. Large tub of full fat yogurt is about £1 - add a few berries (literally a few) or sprinkle of granola to make it more appetising. home made scotch pancakes are very quick easy and cheap.

Quorn pieces (like tiny cubes of chicken) in a korma sauce. Add any veg you like. You get a bag of Quorn and you can just use what you need from freezer, it cooks really quickly.

For Ds breakfast I make porridge (bag of rolled Scottish oats about 90p in Tesco) and chop up fruit into it - banana (about a quid for 5), apple (cheap ones), frozen fruit.

I make a chicken pasta but you could leave out the chicken: make a roux and add some chicken stock, boil up some veg (usually peas, broccoli and carrots, all frozen) and combine.

Home made tomato sauce from tinned tomatoes (like 30p), herbs, onions and celery (frozen) and veg stock, blend up if wanted. Add to pasta with some cheese if wanted (it's very nice with buffalo mozerella which can be cheap if you get own brand)