Cheapest dinners for 5 days?

[Whatillnessgoingaroundnowffs]

Skint at the mo and need cheap dinner ideas from Friday to Tuesday this week

Any ideas? 🙏

Yes what have you got in already? If you have a few potatoes and eggs or veg, then either Spanish omelette or bubble and squeak.

Red lentil & tomato soup, pasta with tinned toms & a veg stock cube, rice & veg cooked in soy sauce & chicken stock. A bit of chilli powder or flakes if you have them really peps up most things.

White cabbage is a huge amount of veg for the money. Carrots also good.

I make a big lentil dal. But the spices and onions, garlic and ginger are alway in the back of the fridge / cupboard so Im not paying for them each time.

So literally cumin, turmeric, cinnamon, onion, garlic, ginger... lentils + stock. If you have tinned toms and/or coconut milk chuck those in too.
Serve with rice.

What budget have you got to spend on food? And are breakfast and lunch taken care of, even this weekend’s lunches?

Also, it's ok to eat packet noodles once in a while... x

Egg fried rice.

Fry a couple of eggs, add garlic and soy sauce, cooked rice, peas and spring onions.

Checkout the Supercook app, you pop the ingredients you have on hand in and it’ll give you some recipes. It’s a great tool for using up what’s in the freezer/cupboards

Chips egg and beans

It depends on what you have in your cupboard, I live on a tight budget but always make sure I have herbs and spices in (I buy in bulk one at a time so I never have a lot to buy at once). So my go to are:
Bean Chilli (add a tin of cheap baked beans to make it go further),
Beans (and cheese if you have some) with jacket potato, useful to chop and freeze cheese for when things are tight.
Pasta and sauce (you could add a bit of protein if you have any),
A toast night egg, beans, mushrooms, cheese or tomatoes,
A rice meal we often make savoury rice and add left over meat to it. https://www.nhs.uk/healthier-families/recipes/super-mixed-veg-rice/
I actually substitute all the veg for mixed frozen vegetables which is 99p for 1kg in Tesco.
Potatoes, mixed frozen vegetables and a protein you have if we're really tight i do Tesco cheap fish fingers (10 for 80p) and any left over the kids have in a sandwich.
I make a batch of vegetable soup each week with left over vegetables, potatoes, chicken stock cube and herbs or spices. Like this one
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/carrot-coriander-soup.
Sometimes we'll have soup as a main meal and we'll have a sandwich or toastie along side.
Obviously depends on what you have in.

Chorizo jambalaya is cheap and tasty too.

Onions, garlic, red peppers, chorizo (about £2.50), rice, tin of tomatoes and stock. Cayenne pepper if you like the heat but with little kids, I just missed that out.

Make things you can have potatoes with rather than rice /pasta as they have excellent nutritional value and rice /pasta has very little

Eggs, 6 eggs be enough to make something like omelette for you all, add some veg and do Spanish style one? Nice with a salad or chips for a treat, you could use the 2 spuds and do some mini roasties, paprika ones work well with egg.

If can go get a block of cheese, veg lasagne is very nice. Any leftover veg could be used, like others said, a pasta bake.

Could have beans on toast one day, if can get a tin of beans, and have the pancake mix and fruit for pudding.

Really?

If money is tight (or even if it's not), then rice and pasta are great ways to fill hungry tummies. Add in veg or whatever is around, and the OP and her family will be just fine.

Thank you so much everyone!

i’m thinking definitely a sort of vegetable stir fry with rice, I have chicken stock and a small amount of teriyaki sauce left
Also could do a vegetable lasagna, which I’ve never done before
I was thinking homemade pizzas one night?

Another one is a tin of mixed bean salad, with spices/chilli sauce, and a bit of grated cheese in wraps.

To start get some cheese, couple of potatoes, tinned tomatoes, extra veg, beans, kidney beans, lentils:

you could have:
vegetable and lentil lasagna
vegetable and lentil soup with cheese toasties or cheese on toast (with Worcestershire sauce)
mushroom and cheese omlette and home made wedges
beans and cheese baked potato
pasta with a tomato sauce with veg
veg chilli and rice

I'd base each day on a type of carb - so potatoes one day, pasta the next and so on (in our house, Yorkshire Pudding makes a very welcome carb that's actually protein rich as well).

Then use your veg to make toppings/sauce/fillings and if there's spare cash buy some meat/fish/cheese to sprinkle on the top.

Fruit is fine for afters if it's not over-ripe, but if it is, blitz it to make a topping for ice cream. Or use it as a base for milkshake.

Mince with whatever you have in the cupboard chucked in the slow cooker
Tinned tomatoes
Veg
Tinned pulses
Stock cubes
Herbs
Spices
Also home made soup and a big loaf of crusty bread
Carrot, leek, lentils and stock akes a nice soup if you blend it

Also bread pudding. I don't put any suet in mine it's still amazing

Mushroom risotto
if you can afford sausages- use pancake mix for toad in hole
You can do quite a nice pasta bake with caulifower if you can get some cheese
Caulifower also makes a nice curry
Vegetable soup
Frittata or quiche (once again a bit of cheese would help)
If you have stock cubes and cornflour sweetcorn soup is filling
Sweetcorn fritters- use pancake mix to thicken the corn to make a thick batter
bread and butter pudding

Based on the ingredients you already have in:

1. Egg fried rice with broccoli/sweetcorn
2. Sausages (to be bought), mash, gravy and frozen veg
3. Tomato pasta with homemade sauce
4. Omelettes with frozen veg
5. Veggie lasagna

See if you have any community fridges or pantries in your area. They can really help with bulking out what you already have or you can see what they have and work out what you can add to it.

Only things I can think of not mentioned already are pastry , pasties and pies can have tasty cheap fillings (spicy chickpea, cheese and beans, veggie pies) and corned beef, make a hash with lots of root veggies. A tomato risotto, with bacon added if funds run to it, is also filling and tasty

Tins of lentils, beans and tomatoes.
Wonky/discounted veg.
Own brand pasta, rice, noodles.potatoes, onions, garlic
Nut butter
Bread.
If you have veg stock cubes, chilli flakes, orange juice, oregano and curry powder you can have:
Pasta with tomato sauce and veg
Lentil shepherd's pie
Veg curry and rice
Satay noodles with veg
Meatless chilli con carne

Two of the eggs, use them to make sweetcorn fritters. Need some flour, milk and oil too.
Use the other 4 eggs for some sort of quiche another day.

Don't spaff all the eggs on one dish, they're protein, and relatively pricey.

I am a huge fan of breakfast for dinner. Which tends to be beans on toast and scrambled eggs. With grilled tomatos if I feel the need for more veg.

But I will say that I have been vegetarian for a few months now and my bills are SO much cheaper. Yesterday I bought chicken as DS1 is having a friend over and the £5 price tag for Aldi chicken thighs shocked me.