Recipe ideas for 5 healthy dinners for 50 quid

[PurpleDisco]

Chatting with a friend earlier about how expensive the weekly shop is now! We both have families of 5 (2 adults and 3 hungry teenagers) and we get through a lot of food! We decided to challenge ourselves to spend just 50 pounds on 5 dinners. So, is it even possible to make 5 weekday healthy dinners for a family of 5 for 50 quid? No one is vegan or vegetarian, or has allergies or intolerance’s. All your idea’s please…

Chicken legs are your friend. (The M and S ones are huge, 2 legs for £1.50!). Last week we were away with our church group of teens (we had access to a large oven). One of our meals was chicken legs baked in rice (we used basmati) with lemon wedges and garlic. Served with green veg and frozen corn on the cob. They loved it. This would certainly come in at £10 for the five of you.

Sausage suprise - sausages, mash, baked beans thrown together in a dish with melted cheese on top.

Jacket potatoes & filling.

Roast chicken

Chicken curry (use the leftover chicken from the roast .)

Bacon, eggs, chips (make these from.the potatoes) and beans.

Easy.

Ooh, nice challenge. I guess the 5 meals for £50 means some can be more than £10 per meal as long as it compensates.

1. Classic roast chicken with roast potatoes and vegetables. An extra large chicken would be about £5.60, plenty of spare for potatoes and veg
2. Hairy Bikers sausage casserole with broccoli and baked potatoes (2× 6 sausages is £5, tinned cannelloni beans and tomatoes about £1.50, pack of baking potatoes £1.80)
3. Beef chilli (750g beef mince £7, tomatoes and kidney beans £1.20) with rice. Sour cream 75p and tinned sweetcorn 55p optional.
4. Chicken and mushroom pie, using chicken thigh fillets £6.50, mushrooms £1.20, half a JusRol puff pastry (60p) with green vegetables
5. Pork loins (£5.75) cooked in an onion, tomato and paprika sauce (about £1), served with couscous and steamed vegetables.

How is that?

Dal is always the answer!

Also: spag bol, other pasta bake, baked potatoes with lots of toppings

Agree on chicken legs! I like to make a stew with them. I take off the skin, pre-season for a day in the fridge. Seal them in a pan, and put them in the slow cooker with potatoes, carrots, onion, a casserole sachet and a few extra seasonings. Then when cooked, I strip them off the bone and shred. If I can be bothered beforehand, I’ll take off the bone before cooking.

Taco mince, served with rice and salad.

Bolognese.

Chicken legs again but in a different form, with rice and corn on the cob.

Jacket potatoes with fillings.

I have just put those meals through ChatGPT based on 2 adults, 3 teens, and asked it to calculate quantities and prices at Aldi and produce a shopping list and it came to £47-50!

Surprisingly, the bolognese was pricey. I was considered it a budget meal but it came in at £12!

I love pulled pork in slow cooker made with cheap pork shoulder steaks, some BBQ seasoning and a squirt of BBQ sauce, delicious with mashed potato.

Toad in the hole is a cheap and filling meal.

I make a big bolognaise ragu to serve with pasta then turn the bolognaise sauce into chilli con carne with some rice or jacket potato the next night by adding chilli powder, cumin, paprika and baked beans (we don"t like kidney beans).

I make pizza from scratch once a week which is very time consuming (the dough takes 90mins to prove), but costs less than £1 per large cheese pizza for the ingredients and it tastes delicious, I can't go back to frozen pizzas.

Tesco do 5 meals for £25 in their magazine. They are for 4 people, but you’ve got double the budget.

Thank you! These are great, and it’s made me think about how we can all reduce spending by meal planning and still eat healthily. I have a tendency to over spend by not having a shopping list. I also always go to the special offers / deals aisles and buy thing we don’t necessarily need. I can see why some people stick to just buying breakfast, lunch and dinner ingredients rigidly. They have a budget and stick to it.

As an aside a poster mentioned roast chicken and then using the leftovers to make a chicken curry the next day. I love that idea but I can tell you now that with 5 people eating there’d absolutely be no chicken left to make a curry the next day! 🤣

Macaroni cheese will allow you to spend a bit more on another day.

Pork steaks are usually around £5 for 5.

Roast chicken and a mahoosive MN salad.

Could you share your dough recipe please? 🙏 I can never seem to get mine quite right

Personally, I dont find dinners the challenge with my weakly shopping. 5 dinners for £50 is relatively sinple. Its all the other stuff - breakfast, snacks, endless replacing of condiments/tea/coffee etc. Cleaning stuff. My core meals is a relatively small part of my weekly shop.

Rhis week we had a lamb casserole one night and pork schnitzel one night - both of which probably cost about a tenner. Pasta is always a good cheap option wjth a tomato based sauce. Fajitas or tacos. And yes to the chicken thighs/legs - great value and easy to prep. I also do burrito bowls regularly with chicken breasts and tacos with mince.

Fish pie... 1pkt smoked bassa (ie 2 fillets) & 1pkt unsmoked bassa poached in milk. take fish out, make white sauce using the milk (butter, flour), mix fish with frozen peas, sweetcorn, and the sauce. mashed potatoes on top. Fish abt £1.80 each, so £3 60, so should easily be under £10 with 4 fillets between 5. Could add more fish if v hungry teens and stilk squeak in on budget Can add boiled eggs. Serve with carrots, broccoli, etc.
Ministrone soup (tinned toms, not fresh), crusty bread.
Slow cooker? Peel & quarter 2 bags onions, sliw cook with teaspoon sugar & butter.l for 8hrs. Put in pie with salad cheese (fake feta) crumbled over top. Serve with salad, finish meal with semolina or rice pudding (ie stodge).
Cauliflower & paneer curry
Saag aloo (use frozen spinach)
Orzo... maybe chorizo, red pepper, courgette, small dollop of cream. Or mushrooms, garlic & parmesan.
Desserts - semolina!! Costs buttons, cheaper than rice pudding usually. Frozen fruit for pies, crumble, whatever. Blackberry season too...

@MageKing ok I need your lamb casserole, pork schnitzel and burrito bowls recipes please! I know I can look these up but I always prefer people’s own recipes where they have tweeted them a bit.

Chicken Parma with spaghetti and marinara sauce and steamed broccoli

Pasta bake

Sausage casserole, jacket spuds, carrots

Fried rice and spring rolls

Spaghetti carbonara, cheap pack cooking bacon and cream

Shish kebab chicken thighs in wraps with salad, diced potatoes in air fryer

For puds I'd do apple /peach crumble or a load of banana bread or chocolate/courgette loaf

I take it that's for the week? 🤣

Buy a 750g pack of beef mince, make burgers in buns with salad and cheese, add potato wedges and coleslaw (can make homemade with half a cabbage, shredded carrot) on the side then the rest of the mince, add onion, courgette, carrot, tinned tomatoes, garlic and seasonings and cheese and make a pasta bake.
buy a kg of chicken thighs and use half to make make chicken noodle stir fry with veg like onions, sliced cabbage (the other half) , mushrooms, sweetcorn and the other half to make a chicken and chickpea curry and rice
thats 4 dinners.

Chicken legs, you boil them and get a fantastic broth, then remove them and add noodles, carrots, and chopped green onions - very filling soup, wagamama-style.

Strip the meat off and make a chicken pasta or potatoes and chicken or chicken wraps or cold chicken salad.

jacket potatoes are also great for being really filling and so easy and can have a selection of fillings

Lots of posters mention chicken legs and I agree. They make a great Sunday dinner with stuffing, gravy and lots of veg. Carrots and cabbage (sweetheart is my favourite) are cheap and healthy.

Sausages definitely! Tesco are currently offering Firepit Sausages, 14 sausages in a pack (72% pork), 2 packs for £8. Big sausages, too.

Of course. I use a bread maker that I got from FB for £10 on the dough setting that mixes and proves the dough, I just add the ingredients which makes 2 large or 3 medium pizzas.

Dough:
300g strong white bread flour
7g pack of dried yeast
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp olive oil
200ml warm water.

I roll it out using wholemeal flour to dust, it adds some crunch to the base.

I use passata with added onions and
garlic for the base, sprinkle on dried basil, oregano and black pepper, then cheese and any other toppings.
Bake for 12m in a 200c oven. 🤌 Delicious.

Lasagna, salad, home made focaccia (1/4 bag bread flour), homemade coleslaw (one batch is 2 meals) approx £10

lamb, chickpea, butternut squash and spinach curry - sounds expensive but you only use £5 lamb, serve with rice, make chapattis (get teens to make them!) using gram flour or 50% wholemeal/ white wheat flour. £10

chicken thigh/leg tray bake - bone in skin on pieces, roast sprinkled with Cajun seasoning with new potatoes, cubed butternut squash, chunks of red peppers, courgette then drizzle honey over 5 minutes before the end, serve with the leftover coleslaw and green salad

Road pork and leftovers 2 meals for under £20 - buy a big shoulder of pork (£10) serve half as a roast with potatoes, veggies etc which will cost under £10 and the other half (1/3 is enough) shed/chop once cold. Following day or two, fry off onions, couple of green peppers with the leftover meat, add can black beans, 2 cans can chopped tomatoes and 2 sachets of Lidl fajita seasoning and cook for 5 minutes, serve with wraps, grated cheese, salad, sour cream, and tortilla chips for a very quick meal.

Healthy bolognaise - loads of veg, lentils and mince. Really stretches the meal out. 500g of mince would easy do 6 BIG portions or 8 smaller ones

Dahl. Very cheap to make but tasty and filling