Cheap / Minimal ingredient meals

[RunRunSausage]

I pretty much eat anything. I'm not a fan of offal but I need some ideas of meals for dinner or lunches where there are only a few ingredients. I am making tarka dhal tonight which will do a few days/freezer. I need some more inspiration though. I'm on a diet and a tight budget sadly.

Vegetable soups - chop the veg as small as possible to minimise cooking times

So carrot onion and lentils - any spice will help or a splash of the top of the milk ( if you still get that ; I'm dairy free myself so use oat cream )

Mushrooms onion and milk ( our grocer sometimes has big trays of going to waste mushrooms )

Aubergine Macaroni is one of our favourites which tastes fab and gives lots of leftovers - currently under £2.50 for everything.

Aubergiene (69p)
Courgette (30p)
Tin Tomatoes (28p)
Pasta (Any but we like macaroni) 50p a bag
Garlic and herb Soft Cheese (boursin currently on Clubcard offer)
Slice bread blitzed into breadcrumbs

Roast chopped courgette and aubergiene in a big dish with salt and a splash of oil. Meanwhile boil pasta. Once pasta cooked drain and add to veg, stir in the tin of tomatoes. Crumble the cheese and breadcrumbs over the top and bake until golden.

I usually get 2 days lunches out of the leftovers as well as feeding us dinner one night.

Fantastic thank you. Both sound good. I do eat dairy but not a lot of it. I haven't had aubergine in a while. That's a great idea.

I've just flung a corned beef stew in the slow cooker. Essentially an unconstructed Panacalty because I don't have time to faff about layering it 😁

Onion , tin tomatoes cook down and at the last moment stir in sone soft cheese makes a lovely pastas sauce

Pesto from a jar is my standby right now. We use a teaspoon per person for pasta and freeze the rest. But I love it also mixed with crème Frau he and used as a jacket potato topping

That should have been crème fraiche 🥹

Pancetta (or lardons), onions, carrots, green lentils, herbs de Provence, garlic, chicken stock cube and whatever green veg you have eg I like green beans in it. Crumbled feta or goats cheese on top works really well if you have leftovers from another recipe.

Carrots, onions, celery, garlic sautéed, add herbs de Provence, chopped tomatoes, can of mixed beans, paprika, stock cube and water (or leftover red wine) serve with bread, couscous or on its own.

3 bean chilli - tin of kidney beans, tin of baked beans, tin of other beans e.g. pinto, tin of tomatoes, packet of passata. Shake of chilli powder, cumin and paprika.

Lentil soup - red lentils, green lentils, carrots, celery, onion, garlic, tinned tomatoes, stock, various spices - cumin, cayenne pepper etc. There's a brilliant recipe on recipetineats website. (Just google recipe tin eats)