After reading about stirring Bolognese sauce through pasta to save money, I wondered if there were any "obvious" tips I could use?

[RhubarbThumb]

The thread advised you'd use less meat if you stir the sauce through the pasta and then serve. I did this yesterday and it used maybe half as much meat, maybe less, we still enjoyed our dinner.

I pad out mince dishes with red lentils, as my tip.

Also, make pizza at home with dough from yoghurt and flour, and then minimal toppings, but increase things like spinach in there.

Anything else?

I'm a dolloper.
Other people always serve a huge portion of pasta - so it's easier to leave the stodge behind if the good stuff is semi-separate.

Always serve soup first. Homemade. Cheap as chips. Fills people up. Less of the main course needed. So you can freeze the half of main course you'd usually have for a thief meal with soup next week.

It may well be something done in America (it's certainly how I make pasta with any sauce in America), but it's the way it's done in Italy.

I think what the OP means is that when you dollop the sauce on top, you have to make it look as if the mound of meat is substantial, whereas if you combine sauce and pasta and then serve, your meal is going to naturally look as if there's more visible pasta so you don't have to use the same amount of meat.

No??
You would have to stir it together in the bowl and it would go everywhere

In Italy pasta is often served with just a spoonful of sauce or olive oil.

Turn the hot water dial on your combi boiler to e or until if you run a bath you only need to add a small amount of hot water.

But that is probably nice pasta. Not the cheap crappy supermarket own brand stuff we buy

I was in Italy for three months and it was just the usual dried pasta we can buy in Lidl here.

Use a stronger cheddar on the finest grater for cheese topped dishes.
We like chicken skewers, chicken breast in some kind of marinade threaded on a stick. But that does use a lot of meat. So now I interspersed with veg eg. Chicken, pepper, cherry tomato repeat, chicken, red onion and pineapple also goes down well.
If you shred or pull meat it goes further in dishes such as risotto, pies, stir fries, wraps.
Fritata is a pretty cheap dish anyway but packing it with potatoes and veg reduces the amount of egg needed.

We don’t particularly like lentils but mushrooms work really well in chilli/bolognese/cottage pie etc.

Also, when serving a curry I've taken to making either a dhal, a veg and chickpea curry, Bombay potatoes or aloo gobi to serve alongside. To be honest most of my suggestions are more about getting additional veg in but have the added bonus of reducing cost.

Instead of putting spaghetti on the plate, then a big scoop of meat sauce on top. It uses more meat. If you stir it through the pasta it gets spread out and you can use less.

So instead of 4 ladles of meat in sauce for 4 people, you can use 2. That kind of thing.

Also if we are having salmon I now buy a tail fillet rather than individual pieces. It costs more but I then cut a third off before serving. That third goes into a fritatta with spinach and broccoli later in the week. How to stretch the equivalent of 2 pieces of salmon to serve 4 of us.

A little bit of smoked bacon (from a joint, not a rasher) works wonders:

Potato bake: sliced potatoes, layered with finely sliced onion, a little garlic, and chopped bacon (about 4 ounces shoukd do it), pour over a not too thick cheese sauce. Add a tsp of mustard powder to the sauce it sharpens the cheese. Serve with savoy cabbage and sliced Carrots.

Make suet dough, roll it out, sprinkle on diced bacon, chopped parsley, salt and pepper. Roll it up and steam. Serve it sliced with parsley sauce and green veg and Carrots.

Cheese and pasta bake with some bacon - could be carbonara.

Lightly saute some leeks and mushrooms, add a handful of bacon and stir in a cheese sauce. Top with a puff pastry sheet. Serve with mash and green veg.

A little gammon knuckle goes a long way or you could have a slap up joint of baked gammon, Serve with broad beans in parsley sauce, Carrots and crispy roasties . There will be lots left over to portion up for the freezer to add to all the above.

Some of the gammon will do another dinner. Gammon, egg and chips.

Here we go with the purists

Only Pasta made from angel water in Italy is authentic

No cheddar allowed

Sauce has to be intertwined with the pasta etc etc

Because it's not really the same "bite", and meat is a bit more nutritious than lentils in terms of protein and vitamins... although, saying that, brown lentils are good and have a good texture.

Oh the salmon recipe above reminded me. Half a finely chopped shallot, salt and pepper, add a pckt of smoked salmon pieces (it goes a long way and is economical), juice of half a lemon, small carton of single cream. Heat through and stir, then stir through pasta with a little chopped coriander.

Sauce has to be intertwined with the pasta etc

Erm yes?
How do you eat it then ? separately

We have olive oil pasta with just normal dry pasta. And sometimes butter pasta too.

The more expensive brands in the supermarkets are the same as the pasta you can get in Italy, De Cecco, Barilla, Garofalo... So not sure why you think the pasta is inferior?

I thought this too, I always stir through??

A dollop of sauce on top = often dry horrible pasta that sticks together

You can use the same amount and just mix it before serving. Same volume but tastes way nicer

No, that’s actually the traditional Italian way, stirring the sauce into the pasta before serving.

Not American necessarily, but Italian.

I'm a vegetarian now but I used to make something very similar (with added peas) and it's delicious!

We pad out meat in our house for all of our meals to be honest as otherwise it's so expensive! We also do the bolognese stirred through the spaghetti rather than dolloped on top. You can save half of the bolognese you make for a meal another time and stir the rest through your pasta. Nobody will notice the difference and it saves time and money. Put the rest on a jacket potato with some cheese the next day or something.

Any time we use minced beef we replace half of the mince with oats or green lentils. It adds to the nutrition and is cheaper. Casseroles will be a bit of meat but lots of veg and pearl barley.

Other tips are to freeze sliced bread if it's going to go off before you can use it all. You can toast it straight from frozen and it saves waste. I also save all the odds and ends of different cheeses in a tupperware box in the freezer and when it's full make a load of macaroni cheese with it.