What do you consider a "cheap everyday meal"?

[FloopyZebra]

Just made a pasta bake for 4 and decided to cost it out as I like to keep a keen eye on my shopping costs, we spend on average £100 per week for 3 adults and 1 teen (that's for everything including beer and wine)
It was a veggie meal tonight wholemeal pasta with a creamy tomato sauce, onions, courgette and mushrooms topped with grated cheese. The total cost was £4.50.
Tomorrow we are having pulled pork with spicy rice and salad, which will be a bit more at £10.00 but there will be meat leftover.
An ulta cheap meal for us is a thick homemade veg soup served with warm bread.

We tend to eat our own variations of meals we like so for pasta which is generally a cheapy meal, we'd have:

• Pasta/spinach/pesto
• Pasta/tomato sauce/cheese
• Pasta/jar mascapone sauce

Red lentil dahl from 'taming twins' I use a few of her recipes and find some cheap and options hoe to cheapen. We eat a lot of veggie as eldest dc is veggie.

This sounds like a seriously flatulent dish 💭

I rather like a chickpea tagine with carrots. some good quality ras el hanout and freshly grated ginger and garlic makes it taste restaurant quality. I serve with a boiled egg, dressed salad leaves and couscous. cheap as chips. any sort of bean curry also goes a long way. Black eyed peas are a particular favourite.

https://www.tamingtwins.com/slow-cooker-dahl/#recipe

Tomato based pasta dishes are my go to as well.
A good one is fry a few rashers of bacon, diced mushrooms if you like them, diced onions, add garlic for the last minute; season with chilli powder, regular paprika, and smoked paprika (I use half a teaspoon of each, but adjust spices to taste); and a tin of tomatoes and / or a carton of passata; simmer gently while you boil the pasta.
Fried rice is also a good one for using up odds and ends of meat and veg, you can either scramble an egg in or fry and serve on top. I like it with lots of soy and sriracha.

I've been imagining ground hamburger as someone buying hamburgers and mashing them....

It isn't Is it?!

Coconut and spinach dahl (we have it as a main course, and serve with mini naan bread, poppadums and mango chutney)
Pasta with veggie ragu/sauce (uses up knackered veg and gets more veggies into my fussy DD!).
Lentil and spinach soup (or any veggie soup).
Veggie risotto.
Jamie Oliver did a lovely recipe with kale, potatoes, herbs and chorizo - we do that one sometimes.

We don't eat meat very often, and I try to double up with recipes when cooking so that we freeze stuff. This evening I did a tray bake of seasoned veggies and halloumi. That was pretty tasty and filling (and inexpensive to make).

I'm going to check out some of the recipe ideas that PP have put up on here. I love this thread!

I thought it just meant mince?

Home made daal either with home made flatbread or rice and some sort of green vegetable.

Cacio e pepe. Cheap, easy and tasty. Almost fell through the floor though when I saw Sainsbury’s were selling an individual ready meal version for £4!

How did you price that OP? Cheese alone is about £2-4 for a small block of basic cheddar.

i always worry that threads like these don’t take into account that not everyone has the cupboard staples required to make these recipes cheaply or they don’t realise you’re using 1” square amount of cheese from a much larger block and you’ve priced that accordingly rather than the price of buying the whole block of cheese. Cheese is just an example I’m using here there are many other ingredients that work in a similar way eg pasta or rice.

It’s a common media trope designed to make those struggling to feed their family on a low income feel inefficient and unworthy and makes quite fancy and filling and tasty cheap meals look possible with virtually no money.

I know I’ll get slated for this because it’s mumsnet and we can all live off a small chicken for our family of ten for six weeks but I think transparency is important when making these kinds of claims.

Beans on toast with a fried egg on top:

22p can of beans
16p for 1 egg (box is £1.60 for 10)
5p for 2 slices of bread
Extra for butter if you use it

• 43p a portion and actually balanced and filling!

Pasta bakes with tinned tomatoes and seasoning with whatever veg we have to use up added in and some form of protein- sometimes chicken (buy the 1.8kg packs from sainsburys and portion it into the freezer- works out about £1 for 2 breasts); sometimes mince made into meatballs or sausages and cheese.

I actually made a list recently of our most popular cheap meals that the kids pick. We eat these about 4 times a week and then have more interesting things the other nights.

Mac and cheese with cooking bacon
Sausage, mash and veg
Homemade pie, mash and veg
Tomato pasta bake and salad
Spag Bol and salad
Egg/ veg fried rice and curry sauce
Jacket potatoes and beans/cheese
Chicken pesto pasta
Fish fingers, homemade chips and frozen veg
Creamy chicken scone pie and veg
Pita pizzas/value pizza with extras and wedges, salad
Cottage pie and veg
Corned beef hash, beans and bread
Chilli, rice and veg
Tortilla wraps, chicken and rice

Google the George Alagaya daal on the bbc website, someone on here recommended it and it is delicious and very easy to make. Freezes well too.

Thank you.

Thanks @viques

We do the yoghurt and flour bases - so quick and easy and possibly more nutritious especially if you use wholemeal

I use protein wraps from Aldi. Spread with a pizza sauce and a little BBQ sauce. Lots of torn chicken, chopped peppers, tomatoes, sweetcorn, onion or whatever veg you fancy and top with cheese. Around 8 mins in air fryer. It's healthy and delicious. I do this with leftover chicken from the Sunday roast. I really strip every last bit off and freeze it. It can then be used as above or for whatever else you want.

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We had steak pie with vegetables and roast potatoes and extra gravy for dinner and I costed it at £6.15 for 6 of us.
Sone are saying bolognaise but even Aldis mince has gone up now, plus it requires lots of cooking and preferably wine to make it taste good.

Pasta with garlic mushroom sauce. Mushrooms sliced and cooked in butter and garlic, handful of parsley and a splash of cream if I have it in. All store cupboard ingredients usually left over from other meals in the plan.

made an aubergine and chickpea curry when lidl or aldi had aubergines Super 6.

You are welcome, Sainsbury sell curry leaves and you can freeze the ones you don’t use for another day.

Red beans and rice with pitta bread. Tin of tomatoes, red kidney beans, passata, rice, spices a pepper.
Fried rice. Bacon, left over chicken, any veg, egg.
Baked lentils, tomatoes, onion, a sweet potato spices.
cheese and potato pie, like it says, but I layer the cheese and add caramelised onions.