How often are you having this sort of thing for your evening meal?

[Bemyclementine]

Scrambled eggs/beans on toast
Baked potato
Soup and roll.

I'm trying hard to cut my shopping costs but neither me or the DC like the cheaper options if some things. I'd eat them, but they won't abd then it's waste. (Such as sausages, or breaded chicken) They dont like pasta bake from a jar.

I just feel like something on toast/potato/soup aren't really options. Or are more like lunch options again, happy to eat them myself but want the dc to have proper food abd a good variety. I think I'm probably making life hard for myself

My DC love breakfast for dinner.
Also occasionally do jacket potatoes.

Soup.and a roll tends to be a wfh lunch for DH and I. Neither DC is keen on soup.

If your DC aren't keen on tomato sauce, I do pasta with half pesto half cream cheese and a handful of frozen peas or some brocolli in it.

At least once a week. For dinner I'd want a protein and preferably two fruit or veg unless i was swapping lunch with dinner. So egg on toast would need some mushrooms and avocado or tomato. Cheese and tomato on toast with salad or some pan fried greens.

Once or twice a week or so. We usually do a ‘simple easy dinner’ on Wednesday - usually a jacket or this week it’s cheese quesadillas.

And often on Sunday kids have cheese, crackers and apple in front of the tv, which oddly is a treat they look forward to. Dh and have leftovers or soup with bread or similar.

We have chickens so go through phases of having an ‘egg dinner’ once a week - scrambled eggs and toast, fried eggs on toast, frittata. I get sick of eggs though!

It’s a bit down to money saving but also just making an easier dinner that isn’t such a PITA to cook.

I have jacket potato once a week usually with cheese and coselaw. Not broke.

I don't usually do scrambled egg for dc but dh will so I'd say every other week if I plan / precook nothing and he has to be quick the kids get eggs or beans.

I love an omelette and will do them for tea from time to time.

Lunch is usually a sandwich or bread and cheese. I prefer eggs for breakfast but will cook scrambled egg if in a hurry.

How old are they? Some pre teens and teens have the appetite of 3 shire horses. Mine did. I did myself. I was desperately skinny as a 13 year old and always wanting large meals. I used to have breakfast, come home for lunch and have a home made cooked dinner and then for my evening meal I had another proper dinner. I woukd have been starving on an adult’s sized lunch like soup and a roll.

im menopausal now and rarely have much of an appetite but am the heaviest I’ve ever been (still not overweight though)

@Bemyclementine

have you tried them with the soup in mugs instead of bowls? You can still dip bread into it!! I find it more enjoyable & weirdly more filling (obviously mind over matter)

I've had a baked potato with beans and salad for my tea. Quick tasty and nutritious!

Never. They are lunch items to me, not enough food for dinner especially not soup.

Honestly, never. The soup /something on toast options are lunches and light meals, not main meals. The kids don’t like jacket potatoes.

cheap and easy meals for us would be pasta eg macaroni cheese, courgette and bacon spaghetti. Risotto, stir fry etc - one pan meals.

At least once a week, often 2 or 3, eg, jackets one day, stew another, possibly for 2 days if there are leftovers/made too much..

We love Jacket potatoes with beans and cheese, or tuna and cheese. Last week we had cottage cheese and tuna (plus spices) in them.

We all find it very filling as we'll each have a 200-300g potato with it and a tin of tuna and tub of cottage cheese each, or a tin of beans each, with some cheddar grated on top. If I've got any leftover curry, chilli, etc, we would also have that as a topping for a jacket potato.

We also have homemade soup with homemade sourdough bread, or (homemade) stew for dinner. Again, it's a good sized portion and filling.

Last week we had turkey stew with pearl barley and potatoes, which was very filling and cheap (as well as jacket potatoes a different night).

Corned beef hash is also a cheapish, quick meal.

I’m not @headcheffer, but porridge for dinner isn’t completely unheard of here if DH isn’t around for any reason.

DD and I both love it. I make a ‘carrot cake’ porridge with grated carrots, courgette sometimes, grated apple and some sultanas for sweetness, ground almonds or a big dollop of nut butter, cinammon or mixed spice, usually put a bit of one of those ground seed mixes in too. The grating of apples/ veg is really quick and easy as I use the grater function of the food processor which lives on the counter permanently anyway.

Why? Tends to be on days when Dd is shattered and hangry after the walk home from school run, if we’ve been out somewhere and got back late, if I’ve not had time to get anything prepped during the day (I work too) or I just want something quick, hot and filling that we will both enjoy. If I make a big enough batch I can keep some for breakfast another day, or turn remainder into muffins and freeze for future breakfasts/ healthy snacks. For a while when she went through a fussy phase it was one of the few guaranteed ways of getting any veg at all into her.

And again, I’d feel better giving her that than some kind of breaded freezer food although that’s not to say she doesn’t have that very occasionally either. It’s a balanced and healthy meal in my opinion, really doesn’t bother me that it’s more associated with breakfast.

Don’t do it when my husband is around because he doesn’t enjoy it like DD and I do! His version of an easy dinner is always eggs and something - omelette usually which I don’t mind but isn’t my favourite.

Never. I am greedy though. there's nothing wrong with those meals.

Dinner is my fave part of the day and I meal plan well in advance so I know what I'm having.

I probably would have a jacket potato but it would be on the side with chicken or something xx

I think you've answered your own question really op. You gave ds scrambled egg on toast and he went on to eat a load of snacks throughout the evening. That would suggest it wasn't enough FOR HIM. As demonstrated by this thread, everyone's different, for some soup and bread would be fine, for others not enough. If you want to stick with this kind of thing you could try adding another egg, using thick slice, wholegrain bread and adding a portion of veg such as beans, mushrooms or tomatoes. If that doesn't fill him add a glass of milk or a pudding (which he kind of did for himself with the greek yoghurt). I guess what you have to figure out is if what you need to add to these cheaper meals to make them enough, effectively bumps up the cost to an average cooked meal eg spaghetti bolognaise or chicken casserole, meaning in real terms you aren't actually saving any money.

@AliasGrape could you tell me how to make the carrot cake-y porridge please? That sounds right up my street!

We aren’t particularly on a budget but my three secondary aged kids and I would have something like this at least once a week. Those meals are healthy, quick and don’t usually require a trip to the shop. Perfect for busy evenings spent shuttling about, after a full day of work and school.

DC always have the option of a 2 course cooked lunch at school, so I’m pretty confident they won’t starve. And my waistline benefits from a few lighter evening meals.

Well I started when I was weaning DD (which probably doesn’t make it sound all that appealing haha) with this kind of approach -
https://rebeccawilson.com/recipe/carrot-cake-porridge/

But I definitely free style it a bit more now, always add a grated apple as well as the carrots, sometimes courgette usually in summer if we have some to use up (it cooks away to nothing so you don’t really taste it or anything), add in the nut butter and I like mixed spice or allspice rather than just cinammon. A little bit of vanilla extract is nice too. Basically I do whatever is to hand! Just add more oats/ milk depending on preferred consistency. It’s nice with a bit of honey or syrup if you’re feeling indulgent.

This is me. I'm so done with cooking tea Every Single Night.

They would be lunches here too, if I live alone I might have that kind of thing more often but DH wouldn't consider any of those things a main meal.

@Sgtmajormummy theyre 6 and 8!! I dread to think what they'll be like as teens!

I agree with them on cheap sausages, I'd rather not have a sausage....

I put canned beans (cannellini or chickpeas) in to bulk out sausage meals so we have nicer sausages...

Mine have a hot school lunch, so I we would probably have something similar a couple of times a week on a busy evening? That or (homemade) pesto pasta, which honestly I don't see as that different even though it is more of a main meal.

I'm not but only because my husband would think it was mad and claim to be underfed.

When I'm on my own I quite happily eat things like omelettes or things on toast for dinner.

@AliasGrape thank you!

Someone up thread recommended Nigella's marmite spaghetti. Made it tonight. It was delicious. Very quick and easy.

3 out of 4 of us love mushrooms, the fourth treats them like a deadly poison 🙄 (she has few dislikes however, so I can't begrudge it too much). Your garlic mushrooms sound delicious though.

I only use 1 large tin of tuna between the 4 of us bulked out with veg already, but hadn't thought to add pickles - I'll give it a try! Those are loved by all here. They love Polish-style potato salad with pickles, so it has the potential to be a winner.
If I'm feeling generous with the tuna, we have the Ottolenghi tonnato jackets with an egg. That's also a great combo, but a rare treat as JP night is supposed to be one of the cheap eats evenings to bring the overall weekly bill down.