To ask for cheap, cheap food ideas

[redandpinkhearts]

£20 to feed family of four for a week!

Do your worst, MN!

Dinner idea baked potatoes then smash with masher throw on some beans and cheese and heat up again till cheese melts. Yum!

Yes your basic vegetarian diet-porridge,legumes,pasta,rice,noodles etc soups made out of frozen mixed veg&veg stock..giant bags of carrots,frozen spinach..there are lots of cheap bread/marg options. cheese jazzes up spag hoops or beans on toast or just toasties..avoid fresh fruit/seafood/meats etc..buy multi-vits&iron and a calcium/vitD tablet,cheaper than an expensive 'balanced'diet if you simply dont have the luxury of cash..i had to eat like this through2pregnancies&was healthy as hell according to midwife/doc..

Absolutely fantastic ideas here, great recipes, threads like this remind me how feasible it is, thanks 😀

I know people laugh but the famous MN chicken really CAN do three nights of healthy food. Buy the biggest cheap chicken you can (I know it's not the best quality but when you;re broke it's fine. They are often on offer for £3-4.

Day one - roast it with chips or roast potatoes, peas and carrots. Everyone has a drumstick or thigh and a slice of breast.
Day two - risotto - strip the rest of the chicken breast and the medallions from the back of the chicken and cook with rice, peas and mushrooms.
Day three - Chicken noodle soup. Boil up the carcass for an hour to make stock. Lift it out and strip off all the small bits of meat from the bone. Put them back into the stock with fried leek or onion (or fresh chopped spring onion, diced carrots, sweetcorn, peas, soy sauce if you have it and a pack of noodles.

Then eggs and chips or egg on toast and some peas and carrots or salad on the side
Pasta pomodoro with grated cheese
Sausage pasta bake
Baked potatoes with beans and cheese and side salad.

I 1.9 kilos chicken portions £3, rice 1kg £1.20, cheese 1kg £3, baking potatoes 2kg £1.20, milk 6 pints £1.50, frozen vegetables 1kg £1, baby spinach £1, cream cheese 59p, puff pastry 85p, pasta x 2 60p, chick peas 33p, honey nut cornflakes 85p, cooking sauce x 2 £1.18, 6 x crisps 80p, smoked salmon £2.50. Bread 35p, onion and garlic pennies

Monday baked potatoes with smoked salmon and cream cheese
Tuesday Roast chicken with vegetables and rice
Wednesday creamy pasta bake with vegetables
Thursday Risotto with chicken
Friday
Friday chicken korma with rice and vegetables
Saturday vegetable stew with chick peas
Sunday pasta with salmon. You can make cinnamon rolls with the puff pasty of creamy chicken pasties, or smoked salmon en croute etc. It’s a bit carb heavy but having one or two really tasty items will stop the boredom setting in.

I think lentils are good for a budget. Healthy, filling but cheap.

www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/red-lentil-squash-dhal

www.gousto.co.uk/cookbook/vegan-recipes/chickpea-tikka-masala-fragrant-rice This one I don’t use almonds or mango chutney.

I try and add a meal like this in once a week to keep costs and meat consumption down!

Not sure if you want food ideas, or recipes -
but for cheap(er) high-sustenance foods...

peanut butter!
oatmeal
rice
potaoes
frozen veg
cottage cheese
bananas
dried beans
bread
tinned tuna/tinned chicken
eggs
tinned tomato sauce
pasta

I would echo the suggestions about Jack Monroe.

Is this just a temporary situation.

I'm so sorry that you're struggling right now, but o think the advice on this thread has been great.

Olioex - what a fantastic idea!

A friend makes "end of the month pasta bake" with cheapest possible pasta, a tin of value tomato soup and a tin of value tomatoes. It's bloody delicious, feeds 4 and can't possibly cost more than £1, even with the cheese on top. All she adds is some garlic, salt and pepper. Variations include adding a cheap sausage, sliced, mushrooms, if they need using up, kidney beans and some chilli or any cold meat leftover from another meal.

Cottage cheese is vile but you can sieve it to a smooth paste and add it to steamed puddings and heavy cakes. It adds protein and makes very little difference to the taste.

Some really nice sounding meals here.

I'm going to take notes as am in a bit of a rut on the menu front.

Biig vat of lentil soup with extra frozen or reduced(yellow label) veg stirred in.

Eggs are good. Sometimes people give these away if they keep chickens. Ditto allotment veg, though i think we are past glut season.

Bread products often get reduced to pennies and can go in freezer.

I echo people saying a big pan of lentil soup, which you can spice up for Dahl, really cheap, warm and comforting.

Crikey £20 for 4 is really hard going!

Beans or spaghetti on toast is a good one.

Risotto (its about 70p a sachet in aldi each one serving 2 people)

If you like soup aldi do own brand at about 30-40p each.

A bag of pasta and some passata would be under £1, add some herbs and veg to jazz it up a bit.

Jacket potatoes, topping such as beans, coleslaw, cheese.

Omlet with what ever bits you can muster and bit of salt and pepper and/or some herbs for flavour.

Rice is pretty cheap so vegetable rice or something?

I can't tell Aldi tomato soup from Heinz!
I panic a bit about vitamins: you can get them (and loads of other things) in Bodycare for not many pounds.

Side tip: we have an M&S food near is and I popped in last Christmas Day, so much was heavily reduced. Definitely worth a look if possible.

Veggie rice (pinch of nom nandos rice recipe is really nice)
Also made a mild lentil curry for

the OP hasn't come back? I hope she's okay and does what PPs have suggested and at least goes to a foodbank to tide her over.

However as we know from similar threads, if you have young kids, no car etc it's hard to do eg lugging back cheap potatoes, tins etc. And if you only have a certain amount left (eg £10) you can't pay more even if £12 would help you save

This is a cheap Northern meal - known in our family as ‘Bacon, Potatoes & Onions’ (you can see we’re original thinkers 😀). It should easily feed 4 people and cost less than £2.
You need a packet of cheap bacon, potatoes, an onion and a chicken stock cube dissolved in water.
Slice the potatoes and onion. Cut each bacon rasher into two or three pieces.
Layer in a casserole dish, seasoning layers. So, a layer of potatoes, then onions, then the bacon. Repeat. Finish with a potato layer.
Pour in the chicken stock.
Put in oven for a couple of hours. You can place a few knobs of butter on top of the last potato layer.
My DH adores it served with pickled red cabbage.

Another cheap but filling idea: Potato & Cauliflower Curry.
Cut potatoes into cubes. Break cauliflower into florets. Chop onion.
Boil potatoes until cooked through.
Fry potatoes, cauliflower and onions together, then add curry powder.

Wholesome ireland is great for cheap meals, we survived on them for a long time! There's some epic ideas above though (wish I could cook!!)

Go to Lidl , I went the other day to get some extra lean mince but they only had the 10% fat one. I had to drain the excess fat but it was a large pack and mage a shepherds pie for 6 with leftovers. It was £2.20 plus their large chickens are £3.70. So you could potentially have 4 meals from the 2 of them. They had lots of offers on for fruit and veg too, I use our local market for fresh fruit and veg if you have one nearby to you. Like others have said cheap dried pasta and rice are very filling too.