Meals on a budget....help!

[Stonerosie67]

Sorry, not an AIBU but posting here for traffic...

Having been hit with an unexpected bill for almost £1000 we really need to tighten our belts....
Please, hit me with your budget meals, the cheaper and tastier the better please!!! Thanks

It's far cheaper to batch Make a tomato sauce and then alter the sauce to the meal. Dice and fry 2 onions, add 4 tins smart price chopped Toms, a large Passata and a stock cube. Then divide into three. In one, add basil and oregano for a pizza base. In the second add oregano, basil and lentils for a bolognaise sauce. The third add cumin and chilli powder and a tin of Aldi 5 mixed brand for a chilli. Then freeze. Works a treat and is really easy. Then you just need to add pizza base and toppings, rice and pasta. Pizza base made from scratch is a doddle and mega cheap. You could potentially get 3 evening meals for 4 people for less £2-3 per night

@Dontfuckingsaycheese

What's "whoopsie" cream *@Hopeisnotastrategy*

When you buy your "whoopsie"s, it's what one of the leading supermarkets calls their reductions, it says "whoops" on the yellow price stickers. Cream is often sold for pennies when it's going out of date.

Toad in the hole or yorkshire pud filled with roast potatoes and veg and a red onion gravy. Panckes both sweet and savoury. Now is the time to collect blackberries and apple windfalls, a crumble or a pie after any meal feels like a treat.

I’ve mostly been a single mum on a very tight budget my tips are:

Make sauces from scratch - most are really easy once you know how. The easiest to start off with are tomato based sauces - pasta, chilli, Bolognese. Then roux and you may feel brave enough to try more advanced ones

Peasant dishes - these are naturally cheap of course - stovies, ratatouille, dahl, pasta with simple butter or oil and herbs to flavour, stews, soups, rice dishes...

Mince with everything - chilli, shepherds pie etc

I discovered during lockdown it’s SUPER easy and quick to make your own flatbreads. Just plain yoghurt and flour!

Follow the “old tricks” of our foremothers - soup starter, bread and butter on the side and plenty to drink (water or milk ideally but a large pot of tea is also easy and cheap) to fill up on.

Cheap carbs as the base for most meals, my Dd can’t eat potatoes so I’ve become accustomed over the years to using different carbs, mainly pasta, cous cous (I buy a kilo at a go and store in a plastic tub) and rice - there’s no rule says you HAVE to have potatoes with a stew carbs are neutral flavour wise so will go with anything.

Eggs 100 ways - I recently rediscovered baked eggs which are so easy. There's also omelette, frittata, shakahuka...

Cheaper fruit for snacks/dessert - forgo the berries and melon for apples, bananas, oranges etc shop seasonally

Meal plan so you’re buying stuff that’s suitable in several of the dishes you like to make, eg I’ll use peppers in pasta, casseroles and stir fries too. Same applies to herbs and spices choose versatile ones

Batch cook and then on days you don’t feel like cooking from scratch you have home cooked “ready meals” that just need reheated.

Keep an eye out for GENUINE bargains when shopping BUT don’t buy things you know deep down you won’t use.

Non food but could be applied to non perishable food - I never pay full price for my preferred original fairy liquid I stock up whenever it’s on a special offer. I’ve just done the same with baked beans recently - they were on a “4 for” which really is too many for me but they’re tins! They’ll last! So I’ve stocked up and now they’re not on offer any more (for a while at least these things tend to be cyclical) I don’t need to buy for a while.

Pack chicken thighs
1 cup rice
Mushrooms
1/2 grated onion
2 cups stock
Pepper
Salt, but depends on the stock

Brown thighs, put rice and stock and mushrooms into an oven dish, "artfully" arrange thighs on top of rice and stock, cover in foil and bake for 1 hour

Depending how many of you there are (we use two packs for 3 people and have some left over for lunch) www.aldi.co.uk/golden-vegetable-savoury-rice/p/047638003851200 we add lentils/and left over veg, and a tin of mackerel

Beans. I started using beans after reading some Jack Monroe recipes and they’re so versatile, cheap, healthy and you can flavour them lots of ways.

Just replace your meat with a mix of kidney beans, butter beans, black beans and rinsed baked beans.

Spag Bol, casserole, chilli, curry, tasty rice dish. Cook the sauce base as you would usually and then add your beans towards the end, in place of meat.

It honestly works! They just taste of whatever you flavour the sauce with, they suck the flavour up. Bean chilli and bean bolognaise are a firm favourite in our house now and they cost pennies to make.

This is so helpful....thankyou all very much x

Whatever your cooking add chickpeas, lentils or kidney beans and lots of green veg/ mushrooms. In curries, spag Bol ect I end up with 1/3 meat 1/3 lentils 1/3 veg.
Bulks the meal up and cheaper than all meat.

From that make a massive spag bol, have some with pasta, make a lasagne and keep some to have with jacket potatoes and salad.
Turn the rest into chilli, again have with rice and have rest later in week with jacket potato's.
You can make 5 different dinners from 1 large pack of mince and lots lentils and veg.

Oh and never buy pasta sauce. Buy the big glass jars of pasarta for 30/40p and season yourself

At the moment, I'd advise you to pick up every free courgette you can. Grate and add to pasta sauce.