Cheapest dinners for 5 days?

[Whatillnessgoingaroundnowffs]

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

Any ideas? 🙏

Also- sig up for the Too Good To Go app. I have had some terrific purchases there- real sough dough bread loaves. Our local Co-op do a grocery bag where we had loads of bananas and raspberries. Made a terrific cake that i could then freeze.

I agree with the PP that chatgpt can be really handy for this kind of question. Obviously use as a guideline and exercise caution, as you do get some odd ideas sometimes! This is what it has suggested based on your list of ingredients:

MEAL PLAN 1 – Veggie Pasta Bake
Use: Pasta, cauliflower, broccoli, carrots, butter, spices, Worcestershire sauce
How:

1. Boil pasta until al dente.
2. Steam or boil chopped cauliflower, broccoli, and carrots.
3. Make a quick cheese-less white sauce: melt butter, stir in flour to make a roux, slowly add milk (or water + stock cube if no milk). Season with Worcestershire sauce, salt, pepper, and a bit of spice.
4. Mix pasta + veg + sauce, bake for 20 min until golden.

Suggested extras:

• Add 1–2 tins of chickpeas or lentils (cheap protein).
• A small bag of grated cheese makes it richer and helps kids enjoy it.
• A stock cube to deepen flavour.

🍛 MEAL PLAN 2 – Veggie Fried Rice with Egg Use: Rice, frozen veg, sweetcorn, eggs, spices, Worcestershire sauce How:

1. Cook rice and let it cool a bit.
2. In a pan, fry up frozen veg + sweetcorn.
3. Push veg aside, scramble eggs in same pan.
4. Stir in rice, add Worcestershire sauce and spices (paprika, pepper, garlic powder, etc.).

Suggested extras:

• Soy sauce (cheap, great for flavour).
• Frozen peas or a tin of beans add extra protein and fibre.
• A splash of oil (rapeseed or sunflower) for healthy fats.

🥔 MEAL PLAN 3 – Stuffed Baked Potatoes Use: 2 large potatoes, broccoli, butter, spices, Worcestershire sauce How:

1. Bake potatoes until soft.
2. Scoop out middles, mash with butter, chopped steamed broccoli, and seasoning.
3. Spoon mix back in, bake again 10 min to crisp top.

Suggested extras:

• Add grated cheese or a tin of tuna for protein.
• Serve with a side salad (lettuce + tomato + avocado).
• Greek yoghurt or plain yoghurt instead of sour cream.

🍲 MEAL PLAN 4 – Vegetable Lasagna Use: Lasagna sheets, cauliflower, carrots, broccoli, butter, flour, spices, Worcestershire sauce How:

1. Make a vegetable filling (boil/steam veg, mash roughly, season).
2. Make a white sauce with butter + flour + milk/water.
3. Layer sauce, veg, and lasagna sheets in a dish.
4. Bake until tender.

Suggested extras:

• Add red lentils or a tin of chopped tomatoes for more flavour and protein.
• A bit of grated cheese or nutritional yeast for topping.
• Frozen spinach adds iron and folate cheaply.

🥞 MEAL PLAN 5 – Pancake Brunch / Sweet Supper Use: Pancake mix, eggs, butter, kiwis, tangerines How:

1. Make pancakes as per mix (add an extra egg for protein).
2. Serve with sliced fruit (kiwi, tangerine).
3. Melt butter and drizzle on top (optional sprinkle of sugar or cinnamon).

Suggested extras:

• Peanut butter or Greek yoghurt for extra protein.
• Oats can be added to the batter for fibre.
• A banana (cheap and filling) to stretch fruit portions.

Oh and tonight I am making 'potato schnitzels'. I have large potatos. I have egg and I have breadcrumbs. DS and his friend are having chicken schnitzel. I plan to thinly slice potato, crumb it and fry it like a schnitzel. In Germany they use celeriac so i don't see why regular potato won't work. It's only me eating that anyway so I am willing to try it.

Veg biryani,
Dal and rice ( yummy)

I do a "naked" lasagne sometimes, which is pasta sheets layered with tomato sauce and bechamel, then cheese on top. So no mince or veg or anything else. It's surprisingly lovely!

Ramen is another great way of using up little bits and pieces - make a clear soup base (use a stock cube), add some soy sauce and then put out whatever you have for everyone to help themselves eg cooked noodles, hard boiled eggs, steamed/lightly cooked veg, any leftover meat shredded, beans or lentils etc

Risotto, couple of quid for the rice, leek or onion, knob of butter, half a tin of tomatoes bit of cheese.

Beans on toast.

Spaghetti with whatever you can spare.

Spuds with tuna or cheese or both.

Frozen chicken thighs (Asda £4), red lentils (£1), frozen casserole veg (£1), stock cube. Slow cooker. Gets 2 meals for 4 out of that.

Tuna pasta bake - tinned tuna(£1), tinned sweetcorn(£0.50) pasta twirls(£1), cheese sauce(£1). Makes 4-6 portions

Never underestimate the mighty baked potato! With cheese and beans, or chilli.

This is yum and uses store cupboard ingredients. Cook it down very well.

www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/coconut_dahl_86921

make a tray of roast veg and separately a white sauce. Make a big lasagne with that (for two days) . Don’t throw your veggie scraps. Chop up or grate clean veg scraps with your frozen veg. Boil and chill rice. Make a two egg omelette. Make a curried veg rice with bits of chopped omelette for protein.(1 day). Make pastry and make pasties adding cooked potato cubes to the leftover curried rice and maybe adding some jerk or Cajun seasoning to change the flavour. Just cut pastry circles the size of a side plate and fill with the rice mixture. Bake for 20 mins. (1 days) . If you have a garden or access to land without dog wee, go collect up some fresh new dandelion leaves and use in place of spinach. Dandelion roots can be used as a root veg .

personally I’d get a big chicken and have roast with veg and potato you already have in,can make Yorkshire puddings out of the pancake mix as essentially the same… then I’d have left over chicken in fried rice with the eggs and broccoli and some peas. I’d get in some tinned tomato’s in and use up the rest of the veg ina. Tomato sauce, use with pasta (can add mascarpone / cream cheese and have plain with grated cheese or in bolognaise (I use turkey or pork mince which is much cheaper!) or with sausages etc (my kids like making sausage meat balls! Jacket potato’s good too and imo massively underrated

Stick the list into ChatGPT and ask it for 5 meals?

Corn chowder, based around the sweetcorn and potatoes.

With what you have in the house, plus some onions, beef mince, cheese and tinned tomatoes, AI gives me the following 5 day meal plan:
Day 1
Breakfast:

• Pancakes (using pancake mix, eggs, butter)
• Serve with sliced kiwi and tangerines

Lunch:

• Avocado toast (bread + mashed avocado + spices)
• Side of sweetcorn (boiled or sautéed)

Dinner:

• Pasta with tomato sauce, grated cheese on top and steamed broccoli & carrots

✅ Day 2 Breakfast:

• Scrambled eggs on toast
• Tangerine on the side

Lunch:

• Rice bowl with mixed frozen veg and sweetcorn
• Season with Worcestershire sauce and spices

Dinner:

• Cauliflower and broccoli cheese bake (use butter, flour for roux, milk if available)
• Serve with boiled potatoes

✅ Day 3 Breakfast:

• Pancakes again (use remaining mix)
• Kiwi slices

Lunch:

• Egg fried rice (rice + eggs + frozen veg + spices)

Dinner:

• Simple beef lasagne (lasagne sheets + beef, tomatoes+ leftover veg + butter/flour sauce)
• If no cheese, make a white sauce with butter and flour

✅ Day 4 Breakfast:

• Toast with butter and tangerine slices

Lunch:

• Pasta salad (cold pasta + sweetcorn + avocado + spices)

Dinner:

• Beef mince with gravy
• Potato and carrot mash with steamed broccoli,

✅ Day 5
Breakfast:

• Kiwi and tangerine fruit bowl
• Toast with butter

Lunch:

• Veg stir-fry with rice (broccoli, carrots, frozen veg, spices)

Dinner:

• Leftover lasagne or pasta bake
• Side of sweetcorn

I would also make a big vat of lentil soup.

Thank you SO much 💓

A vat of chilli.
Fry onions, peppers and garlic with tomato puree
Add a filler (can be mince, soy mince, I airfry cubes of sweet potato with oil and paprika and use those)
Heat tinned tomatoes and beans (black or kidney), double up if you want it to last longer
Mix in the pot
Add your seasonings (chilli, paprika, chipotle, salt, pepper, the remains of an old el paso packet, anything you want)

Serve over the next few days on rice, in wraps and on jacket potatoes

Filling, delicious, versitile and can last for days if you make a load of it

The AI meal plan summary was a good idea, the previous poster done good there to take your list of what's in the fridge, feed it into the computer, and have it spit out some ideas.

I was just going to post to beware of making mini pizzas at home unless you've got all the ingredients... of course pizza toppings can vary depending on your personal preferences but I find that you always end up using too much grated cheese, and that can be expensive.
They often turn out kind of soggy especially if you try to use up a lot of veggies.
And if you load them with cheese and meat...well to be perfectly honest IMO, the cheese and meat would be better spent in a different dish which could be stretched further among three people

Good luck and bon appetit

Bake potatoes
Stuffed mushrooms, depending how big they are
Some sort of stew
I saw a good video of someone getting sliced bread, cutting the crusts amd adsing water, then reshaping the dough into bread rolls and baking.
Veg curry and various optioms for pasta plus mixed veg to make a sauce.

Thank you 🙏

Jacket potato and beans

Pasta with Passata, a tin of butter beans and some frozen veg

Baked rice with stock cube, frozen veg, chickpeas

When money is tight every calorie counts. -so you need to avoid filling up on food which has little nutritional value.

Potatoes are cheap and packed with nutrients, a far better choice for eating on a budget.

I think that's an American definition of casserole. I think of casserole as a synonym for stew. Nearest thing I can think of to what you're describing here is a pasta bake. Good idea, though!

Iceland’s £1 range is good!!

Jacket potatoes and mince are your friends here. So plain jackets with cheese. Sphag Bol/ meatballs with pasta. Then combined jackets with the bolognese as a filling. Buy frozen meatballs from Farmfoods. I’d eat this all week every week if I could.

You definitely need to get some protein in, tinned beans/chickpeas/lentils and fish will be cheapest. I would also get in some tinned tomatoes, plain yogurt, milk, a bag of onions, any other veg on offer and if you can stretch it a block of cheese - a ball of mozzarella is 49p and gives a big calorie bang.

Very hard to say exactly with no budget, that's what I would pick up if I only had about £10

Tuna pasta bake
Shakshuka
Bean chilli with oven wedges - made from the spuds
Chickpea veg curry with rice
Veggie lasagne soup

Make up the pancakes either as sheetpan pancakes or as pancake mix muffins - just use water and give as dessert if people are still hungry with the fruit, use the bread to stretch as much as possible

I would double up on the curry.

So, toss the cauliflower in turmeric, oil, chilli and garam masala and roast in the oven. Make a pot of red lentil dhal too (basically red lentils, onion, spices- there are a million recipes). Then you'll get 2 or 3 meals out of it, and it seems a bit fancy and takeaway- ish, because there are several dishes.

More rice I know, but one night can be vegetable egg fried rice- stir fry all the random bits of veg and mushrooms, add the rice and egg. I sometimes add chopped up veggie sausages at this point- that or a little bit of meat is good at this point if you have some.