To ask for cheap, cheap food ideas

[redandpinkhearts]

£20 to feed family of four for a week!

Do your worst, MN!

Lentil and carrot soup. Hearty, warming and filling. Less than £2 for a big pan.
Corned beef hash. Definitely comfort food.
Asda do a bread mix here that only needs warm water and a bit of flour to roll it out. It’s seriously easy bread that’s surprisingly good for 64p. I’ve always got a couple of packets of it in.

Iceland do a 4 for £10 on cracking joints (each one feeds 3 to 4, though 4 is really if two eating are kids :) ) - they have a few other meats on the offer too, but those seemed the best value.

Sack of cheap all purpose potatoes. I have a 5 kilo pack for £3. I think there are cheaper options though. Good for roasties, but also good for baked potatoes.

Carrots/ cheap frozen veg

Baked beans/ similar. Own brand are usually 20p a tin and tend to be lower on sugar.

Cheap tinned soup - cream of tomato is great. Works well with toasted cheap sliced bread.

Pack of butter/ marg

Pack of cheap own brand Weetabix/ similar. 6 pint bottle of milk

That should give you most of what you need for £20. Do you have much in your cupboard? Flour? Pasta? Rice? Salt and pepper?

Potatoes also good for mash!

All 3 meals? If no lunch I think it's manageable

Porridge for breakfast or scrambled egg

Baked potato with cheese and beans
Noodles with veg and chicken
Sausages with frozen veg and potatoes
Pesto pasta
Pizza and corn on the cob
Pasta with smoke sausage
Omelette with cheese

Google "cooking on a bootstrap", so many ideas. The creamy salmon pasta is especially delicious.

In Sainsbury's they sell a pack of 2 chicken thighs and 2 drum sticks for 1.

You could have this with oven chips, rice or JPs and freezer veg.

Also recommend Jack Monroe's website. Recipes we've tried are :
Carrot, cumin and kidney bean burgers
Mushroom rogan gosh
Chickpea and pea curry
Whirlybuns
If you've got a few herbs in your cupboard and have time to cook, it can be done.

Another vote for Jack Monroe - a couple are a bit of a miss (like the feet tasting mushy-peas-and-cheese-pasta 🤢) but most are lovely!

The best I’ve tried is the Bootstrap Chilli. Literally pennies per portion - I think it cost me about £2.50 for a ten person pot of it - and it’s bloody lovely.

www.facebook.com/groups/651859231575794/
Feed yourself for £1 a day group on Facebook has loads of great ideas and meal plans for a very cheap week x

Also a lentil Bol/casserole - I fry an onion, garlic and any other odd bits of veg or salad that’s on the way out (I put celery, lettuce, anything I have in). Add a couple of tins of tomatoes, some purée, a couple of litres of cheap stock and a bag of lentils. Herbs if you have them and a tin of kidneys/chickpeas or similar.

I’ve had various concoctions of this on rice, noodles, pasta, mash - it all goes well!

Morning : porridge milk sugar
Midday : jam sandwich satsuma
Evening : rice chicken veg
One off : jaffa cakes

Of course you probably have some stuff in, herbs can be added to the rice, tinned fruit to porridge, peanut butter/tinned tuna instead of jam, frozen mystery meat instead of chicken etc etc. If free school meals cover some lunches, jam sandwiches for a snack.

Woolton Pie made with a suet crust

Veggie stew and dumplings night 1,
Warmed up veggie stew with bread night 2

scone based pizza

Hugh fearnley Whittingstall chicken in a pot night 1 Recipe in his first cook book
Chicken from the pot with pasta or rice night 2
Blend the left over veg from the pot up into soup and serve with bread lunch or night 3

No joint roast with sage and onion stuffing, roast pots, carrots parsnips with pigs in blankets only 1 each, only use half a rasher per sausage

Make sausage rolls with the rest of the sausages serve with baked beans
Make leek and bacon pasties for another luck or tea time
Apple pie and custard, use a tin of apple pie filling

Fry up left over roast (or boiled )potatoes, 1 of if really skint half a slice of chopped bacon per person add some milk simmer down and some grated cheese whatever you've got and put on a slice of hot butter toast

Pasta bake with peas, sweetcorn, mushrooms and ham in a white sauce

Quiche is cheap to make and the fillings can be varied: bacon, ham, sausage, cheese and onion

Baking is cheap if you stick to the simple recipes eg the bero book that don't use many ingredients.

I like the 1940s ration book recipes they were extremely inventive with very few ingredients
Marguerite Pattern recipes are brilliant

Toad in the hole, with veggies

You've likely got stiff in the freezer? Could do a lucky dip tea.

If you are going to buy bacon buy 'cooking' bacon.
Depending on which supermarket you go to its around 70p / £1 per pack

Fry it with half a onion , a tin of tomatoes ( or a bit past their best fresh ones ) either a bit of dried herb or chilli powered. Cook a big pan of pasta or rice and mix the lot together ,
It is filling and cheap ( I reckon around £1.50 for a large meal for 4 )
It is also very quick to cook so will keep the bills down to

Dumplings are filling, nice in stews and cheap to make.

Will things improve after this upcoming week?

pppa that’s really thoughtful of you to do that.

Op I recommend cheese on toast/egg on toast as a cheap and filling tea or breakfast, potatoes are your friend too, so versatile and again, filling.

Is this a one off situation op if you don’t mind me asking? I’m just thinking that a food bank would really help you with the staples and give you some flexibility in buying fresh fruit/veg/meat etc that you wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford.

£20 is not a lot to feed 4 people for 21 meals.
I hope you manage to eat well and get sorted

Baked bean soup. Cook a chopped onion until softened then add a tin of beans, a tin of chopped tomatoes, diced potato (to taste or what's available) and stock to generously cover. You can get away with water if you have to. Summer until cooked. Nice with a bit of cheese sprinkled on if you can.
Cheesy veg mash. Cook whatever veg you have, mix with mash and cheese, place in a dish with a bit more cheese over the top and grill.
Lemon juice adds a lot of interest to lentil soup if you have any.
The recipe I lived on when money was tightest was fried dough balls. Flour and water made into a dough, rolled into balls and deep fried. Don't recommend that.

This week I made a big pan of French style green lentils , basically a bag of frozen ready chopped carrot , celery and onion a bag of green lentils and some chicken stock - it’s so delicious and great by itself or with sausages etc

Shopping-
Large bag of potatoes-£3
2x fruits (apples/bananas) £2
2x Carrot packets £1.20
A onion 20p
2x bread- £1
2x pasta-£1
Cake/Swiss roll -50p
Tins-
2x baked beans-60p
1x Corned beef £2
1x tuna 25p
1x sweetcorn 30p
Jam-20p
Pasta bake sauce 50p
Frozen-
Pizza-£1
10 pack of fish fingers- £1
12 pack of sausages- £1
peas- £1
12 pack of yorkshires 50p
Fridge-
Butter-£1
Pack of ham-£1
Cheese-£1

Breakfast- toast/butter/jam
Snack-fruit
Sunday dinner-
Potatoes/mash
Roasties
Sausages
Peas carrots
Yorkshire’s
Dessert cake
Dinner 2
Pasta bake
Dinner 3
Pizza and chips
Dinner 4
Tuna pasta sweetcorn and ham with pasta or jacket potato
Dinner 5
Potatoes/Mash/chips 2x fish fingers beans/peas/sweetcorn
Dinner 6
2 fish fingers left and 4 sausages left and four Yorkshire’s left to make meals with remaining potatoes and veg
Dinner 7 corned beef stew (corned beef, carrots, onion and potatoes)

@Makesmilingyourbesthobby, where are you buying 25p tuna from? Cheapest Tesco has it is 65p a tin and I've never seen it less than that!

Whole Milk
4 pints 1.09

Strawberry Jam
28p

Chopped Tomatoes in Tomato Juice
4 x tins 1.39

Mixed Beans in Tomato Sauce
49p

Tuna Chunks in Brine
59p

Tomato Soup
24p x 2 = 48p

Cheese & Tomato Pizza
2 x 70p = £1.40

Frozen Beef Mince
£3.20 800g

Chicken Thighs
£2
1.5kg

Spaghetti
20p 500g

Long Grain White Rice
£1.55 1kg

Square Cut Medium White Bread
55p

Chips
90p 1.5kg

Mature White Cheddar
£1.79

White Potatoes
£1.00 2kg

4 for £2 spice mixes
Chilli Con Carne Recipe Mix
Garlic & Herb Wedges Recipe Mix
Shepherd's Pie Recipe Mix
Lasagne Recipe Mix

Corn Flakes Cereal
£1.34 750g

Shopping total:
£20.25

Cornflakes or Toast with jam for breakfast

Cheese sandwiches for lunch

Evening meals/ alternative lunches using the spice packets in inventive ways sometimes

Jacket potatoes with cheese or tuna
Spaghetti bolognese
Pizza night
Chilli con carne with rice
Shepherds pie
Cornflakes Chicken thighs and chips
Flavoured chicken thighs and rice
Chicken thighs and tomato bake with chips
Tomato Meatballs and Chips or rice or spaghetti
Chicken kebabs and chips
Tomato soup and toast
Cheese on toast with chips

Not much veg but you could add frozen peas in to a lot of it too if you could spare an extra £1.

If it's only temporary the above will be filling for a week without making people feel like they are missing out.

If you could do without meat and use lentils instead then there's obviously a bit more budget...

Vegetarian Indian must be the cheapest way to eat I can imagine. You can eat like kings for pennies.

Red lentil dhal + onions fried in oil
Chick peas + tomatoes + ginger + coriander leaves
Diced potato + frozen peas
Cheap root vegetables make surprisingly delicious curries: carrots, swedes.
Spinach is not that cheap but is amazing with lots of garlic and chilli.

Serve all of these with rice and yoghurt. Learning to make your own chapatis will save even more as flour is way cheaper than rice. It's a faff if there are four of you, I admit.

Get your spices + fresh coriander + ginger from an Asian supermarket to keep the costs down. Don't go buying loads of unnecessary spices. When I was a student I knew a girl who made amazing curry bases with just margarine, onion, chilli and salt.

Pancakes
Omelettes
Jacket potatoes
Cheesy pasta w tomatoes
Fried rice with veg (peas, carrots)
Baked beans
Eggy bread
Roast cauliflower + broccoli cheese

this might sound ridiculous, but can you get any apples from anyone who has a tree? You can make crumbles, stewed apple for breakfast, pudding etc.

padding meals out with pulses,

Soups.