Aibu to be sick of eating chicken?

[Teadrinker6]

We are a family of 4. Like most simple foods, nothing too fancy.
We mostly eat chicken, and occasionally fish. I am sick of making food every evening that revolves around chicken. I like all meat tho.

Can i ask you what meat do you usually buy each time you shop, and where do you purchase it from?

I shop in tescos and I'm finding that meat such as casserole beef/mince/ pork joint) salmon fillets etc are not enough to feed 4 people. Only 2. So I need to buy 2 packs of everything. It is so so expensive.

Do you and your children all eat the same meal as each other every day? I'm not a very good cook and like to keep things simple. Any tips?

"Just eat Haggis, neeps and tatties" LOVE Haggis! Really good just on toast with a fried egg too

Agree about frozen meat and fish. I don't find Iceland particularly cheap for plain versions of these though. Most supermarkets will have things like six frozen coley fillets or a huge bag of chicken thighs and drumsticks for really not very much money. Cheap chicken breasts can be a bit meh but thighs and drumsticks are fine because it's on the bone so is more tasty. You do have to make a bit more effort with them eg make a nice sauce - I wouldn't want to eat just a plain coley fillet on its own but used in eg hot and sour soup or in a curry they're fine. Likewise the chicken portions are great for casseroles. If you're not confident with sauces just use the jars or stir in versions and work up to making your own - it's honestly much easier than you'd think.

As for eating less meat but better quality, I used to do that but actually you do need to have a nutritionally balanced diet and there is still half as much iron in one portion of nice chicken than there is in two portions of cheap chicken, so there's that. If you can't afford expensive stuff, you can't afford it but you still need to eat. The easiest way to get the right mix of nutrients for someone brought up in our culinary tradition using the recipes we are familiar with is to eat meat and fish.

@Ducksarenotmyfriends

"Just eat Haggis, neeps and tatties" LOVE Haggis! Really good just on toast with a fried egg too

And veggie which is actually vegan haggis is delicious.

We probably have on an average week
2 chicken meals
1 salmon
1 pork
1 breakfast type meal
1 beef
1 vegetarian

Reading upthread 500g mince does the five of us. A mumsnet chicken has nothing on my pack of mince.

Over the years my beefy spag bol/ lasagne/ cottage pie/ chilli mix has slowly been bulked by more stuff to the point one family pack of mince easily does three meals.

I add lots of chunky grated carrot, shredded leeks, split lentils, sometimes oats, tins toms, herbs, beef stock and worcestershire sauce. I grate up any fridge bottom veg and bung that in. I pressure cook it and then box up and freeze in portions. Any root veg that goes in seams to hold a bit of shape and take on the beef/ tomato flavour of the sauce.

For a Sunday roast I'll quite often buy a small joint and a pack of sausages to bulk it up. I think the DC prefer the sausages, but they have the roast meat too. Sausages cook well on the tray with roast potatoes, the fat from the sausages gives the potatoes an extra bit of flavour.

We buy our meat from a butchers in the market and fish from the fishmonger. We can get the exact quantity we need. We eat all sorts. We've had lamb steaks, mince beef, marinated chicken wings, deboned chicken thighs, sea bream, chicken breast, tinned tuna and pork mince over the last week.
One pack should be sufficient for two children and two adults. 500g of any meat or fish is enough for four adults.

Or you could look at making savings elsewhere if possible and spend it the money on extra non-chicken meat. If you want to eat two packs between you then do so. In the current climate I'm not mad about the idea of denying yourself what you want without good reason as none of us know what's round the corner.

pasta carbonara

• cook some pasta
• fry up bacon (pancetta cubes are v good)
• cook frozen peas
• mix up 3 eggs + a bit of milk

when you've drained the pasta, chunk all the ingredients back in the pasta pan & heat for 2 more mins so the egg cooks.

and that is it.

We try to do 3 meat , 2 veg and 2 fish nights through the week. On our meat night we have sausages ( chicken , pork or turkey usually ), bolognese with lots of veg and red lentils to bulk it up, pulled pork, crispy turkey or chicken , turkey mince to make burgers , kebabs, meatballs, chicken thighs / legs, lamb mince for meatballs or kebabs . Steak

It’s good to experiment with different meat alternatives and see if anything suits your family. Also different cuts of meat can be cheaper than ones you normally buy.

Get the family involved in decision making, it shouldn’t be all on you .

The mince we buy usually feeds 3 of us twice, and sometimes a portion left over which I freeze and either DD has it if we're having something she doesn't like or I take it to my granny. I usually make it into Bolognese so it's bulked out with onions, grated carrot, tinned tomatoes, mushrooms etc, chilli, again loads in it to make it go further, or I just add swede, carrots and an onion, put bisto in at the end and have it with potatoes and veg and next day make the rest into cottage pie. I do similar with casserole beef, add loads of veg and it lasts us at least 2 meals.

We just did our menus for the next week:

Mince with potatoes and veg
Cottage pie
Macaroni cheese
Pasta bake with meatballs
Baked potato, chicken and salad

We've not decided yet about the weekend because DH cooks and is trying something new every weekend so we will shop for that on Friday one Saturday.

I usually buy
Chicken thighs
Beef mince
Stewing beef
Sausages
Prawns
Fish pie mix
Smoked haddock
Chicken kievs
Burgers
Gammon
Bacon lardons
Various quorn/meat substitutes

DS1 is pescetarian (and fussy).
DS2 and I eat anything (beef stew and dumplings is his current fave)
Some meals we all eat the same eg fish pie, kedgeree, risotto. Sometimes we have the same but ds1 has the meat free version/fish instead of meat. Sometimes ds1 eats a different meal altogether. (Spinach and ricotta pasta is his favourite)

@KnitFastDieWarm

i didn’t have any suggestions but i read this as ‘AIBU to be sick of eating children?’

i think i need more coffee

Same @KnitFastDieWarm! and now I have the song from the last CBeebies panto going round in my head on repeat. Hansel and Gretel it was.

p.s. your welcome

Quorn mice chilli.
Slow cooked beef casseerol.
Bean hotpot,
Toad in the holePasta carbonara.
Salmon parcells.
Sweet and sour pork.
Honeyed pork.
Fish pie..

I do pulled pork in the slow cooker quite often, it's delicious. Or lentil dishes and risottos too, I guess we have about 50% meat dishes because we love veggie too.

Chicken drumsticks or thighs are cheaper.

Mince, I bulk mince meals with kidney beans, sweet corn, peas and carrots. Also lentils are good for bulking meals. Try buying one pack and packing it with more veg of your choice, you can still have your broccoli on the side.

No wonder you are bored of you are eating trays of butchers chicken breasts. I don’t understand the love for chicken breast in the UK. They are big, bland, dry lumps of chewy flavourless protein. You might as well eat tofu or chunks of dusty dried soy. All it tastes of is whatever sauce or gravy you serve it with.

I love chicken but the breast is only nice in slices of a well roasted bird. Even then it’s better sliced into a sandwich with some butter or mayo to lubricate it a bit.

If we eat chicken pieces I will always use thighs even if the recipe specified breast. It’s more work to prepare and might need a longer cooking time but it’s moister, has a lot more flavour and a softer texture. It’s particularly nice slow grilled on a barbecue.

Brining chicken breasts in advance of cokking makes a big difference (so my family tell me, I don't eat chicken (or children!))

Cooking.

I don't like chicken breasts these days. Great lumps of white tasteless meat, poor chickens are raised quickly so don't develop much flavour imv.
We have mushroom omelette, cornbeef hash pie, sliced ham and salad, Nasi goreng (ham), prawn curry, salmon, kedgeree, sausages.

we did veganuary this year and ended up reducing out meat intake a lot.
we have 1 meat dish a week and one fish.
the other dinners are all vegetarian.
we teasted ourself through meat 'substitutes' and they are getting really good.
tofu is also great, if marinaded before cooking.

Gammon is relatively cheap and versatile.

my dd are unusually home, pescatarians, and we havent had chicken, even quorn chicken, for ages
we have had:
tuna
cauliflower
aubergine
lentils
mince/quorn
lots of fish

oh and sausages