To have found the best cheap lunch

[Overthebow]

with the cost of living going up I’m trying to find cheap lunch ideas for work.

this week: pot of pate £1, loaf of bread £0.80, bag of apples £1.50. Pate on toast and an apple, cost for the whole week only £3.30 and really filling.

anyone else got any cheap lunch ideas?

Shamelessly bookmarking - loving some of these suggestions!

Microwave baked potatoes. Small ones not massive spuds.

I'm confused, hasn't lunch always been a very cheap meal to put together?

It rather depends on what's for lunch!

Perhaps we’ll eat more healthily as we budget?
It’s not ideal, but every cloud has a silver lining.

Buy a small amount of loose chorizo (if you eat meat, obv) - tiny dice of it can make a huge difference to so many dishes. It lasts for ages, and freezes well. It can elevate a simple omelette, fried and tossed with salad leaves, added to pasta sauces etc.

Also, grow salad leaves. At this of year, and for the next few months, they'll grow fast. A packet of seeds, a few handfuls of compost, and a container with drainage holes (empty tin cans will do). You don't need a garden - a windowsill is fine.

A packet of mixed leaf seeds is less than £1 and cut and come again crops last for weeks - a heck of a lot cheaper than buying, and beautifully fresh.

When people are thinking about how long they can have their oven on for and how many portions they can stretch a single can of soup to, I’m not sure talk I’d silver linings is going to be very welcome.

Jacket potato and baked beans, side salad

Right.. silver lining.. having to choose between using the hob or having the heating on..worrying about how long I can bake a potato in the oven for, whats the shortest length of time and the optimum temperature for energy efficiency. But oh its OK I might lose weight...

Place marking

Would you want to eat the same lunch all week ?

Chunk of bread, butter, cheddar, a raw carrot and an apple.

I have this very often, just because I like it. Can be very cheap or more expensive, depending on how fancy the bread is. I eat the cheese with the apple, not with the bread!

I often do. But I go through phases so I'll have a specific salad for lunch for weeks until I'm sick of it. Currently stuck on ham and chutney sandwiches with salad. It'll be something different in a couple of weeks!
Once it was goats cheese salad, I ate that the entire summer for lunch every day at work

@DinoRock re worrying about using the oven for baked potatoes.

My DD is obsessed with baked potatoes and would eat them every day if she could but im not putting the oven on for one sodding potato!

Yesterday I was cooking a roast chicken. So I already had the oven on so I put in 10 decent sized potatoes at the same time. Wrapped and frozen them when they cooked so I can chuck one in the microwave for her when she wants one and you still get the crispy skin rather than the sad soggy skin when you microwave from raw.

I also put the gammon in that we are having tonight which is now sliced in the fridge ready to quickly reheat so I don't have to put the oven on again tonight.

I don't like baked potatoes that have been frozen/reheated but what I do is start them off in the microwave and crisp up in the oven (or more likely, the air fryer now I have one)

With the oven, I used to put it on to preheat on maximum, put the potato in the microwave for about 5 minutes, then put it in the hot oven for about 5-10 minutes to crisp up.

On the matter of having the same lunch repeatedly, many people do that anyway, and will have something like a ham sandwich every day. With the sorts of suggestions on this thread, you might use up the pack of pate or batch of dhal for a few days but then not have it for a few weeks, as you move on to another lunch choice the next week.

Or if you make dhal, soup etc, freeze some of the portions and then if you batch cook a lunch every Sunday or whatever, you end up with a few in the freezer, then you can use them over time and mix it up day to day.

Thank you for the recipe @Maybebabyno2

However something really spooky happened! I posted at 19:43 and you replied, posted and quoted my post at 19:28 …… UTTERLY SPOOKY. I’m not woo woo at all but this has spooked me 😱 Open up photos to see time stamps 😱

@PurpleDaisies · 04/05/2022 21:50

“”LondonMrsA
“Perhaps we’ll eat more healthily as we budget?
It’s not ideal, but every cloud has a silver lining.”

When people are thinking about how long they can have their oven on for and how many portions they can stretch a single can of soup to, I’m not sure talk I’d silver linings is going to be very welcome.

There is nothing wrong in looking for positive aspects within difficult circumstances … and maybe even learning from them?

This is a pleasant, supportive thread with lots of good ideas. Many of these will help people manage to cook and eat something more healthy and less expensive than a tin of soup.

So imo LndonMiss’s silver lining remark is welcome.

Another idea, which I have often on days when im working from home, is a meat free sausage sandwich with brown sauce.
Richmond meat free frozen sausages are £2 for 8.
2 sausages cut lengthways are perfect in a sandwich. So lunch for around 70p.

Had a colleague who did this - pitta bread/hummus/cucumber/carrots - every day, every week, every month...

Lentil soup is my go to. All it is is 1 chopped onion, 1 tbs oil to sweat onion, add 4-6oz red lentils and up to 1pt water, Bring to boil and simmer til lentils are soft. Add a ham flavour stock cube. Liquidise to desired consistency. Serve with bread of choice. Cost minimal, flavour exceptional.

I must be really greedy, because I wouldn’t find pate on toast and an apple really filling at all. It’s not very nutritious at all either. Couscous and veggies with a bit of chicken (or without to save even more) isn’t expensive, is actually filling and is nutritious. Other examples of nutritious and filling things would be homemade soup, a chickpea/lentil dish, a stew etc. Things you can batch cook and freeze and warm up at work.

paté can be very nutritious. especially if it's made with liver.

liver is one of the most nutritionally dense foods you can eat.

It’s healthy to eat on occasion. As it’s high in fat and cholesterol, it’s not a good choice to eat every day.

Also liver based foods should only be eaten around once per week as you can get too much vit A, which isn’t good for you.

Leftovers from dinner are yummy. Homemade soups, omelettes. Homemade pot noodles etc.