Your cheapest meals please!

[Cantchoosenickname]

I have a very small amount of money for food next week. We’ve already played freezer surprise over the past few weeks so now the cupboards are literally bare!

Would anyone be kind enough to help me with a meal plan and shopping list (maybe adding approx. total to it?)

4 adult sized portions required. 1 vegetarian, others are meat and 2 veg types. Needs to be ALL meals including snacks. Preferably quick as I don’t have hours to spare cooking due to taking on extra hours.

I really need help!

Pasta pesto
Stew and dumplings ( and chicken for meat eater)
Jackets cheese and beans
Egg, chips and beans
Omelette
Frittatas

My gotos for skint times are stuff on toast or baked potatoes, stews, soups, toasties. Sometimes cheaper to do soup then a cheap milk pudding to fill up on rather than a hearty meal.

Have a look at Sainsburys website, go to Recipes and search for "Budget Meal Plans". They have loads of ideas there, with shopping lists and ideas of costs, you should find something your family will like.

My cheap meal is 'mince in the hole'. Like Toad - but it is basically about 250g of mince, mixed with (3 slices) breadcrumbs, tbsp ketchup/brown sauce mixed with one egg.

Mangle together. Roll into balls and drop in oil in roasting dish in hot oven. Give about ten mins. Then pour Yorkshire Pudding batter round and cook for another 45 mins. If you have a bit of cheese you can grate some over the top for the last 5 mins.

Cheap and filling - and could be done with Quorn so all can eat?

Bacon hotpot. Take sliced potatoes, onion and some bacon, layer in a casserole dish. Add a little water to just cover the potatoes. Cover with foil. Bake in hot oven until cooked through, allow an hour at least. Then take the foil off and brown. Eat with crusty bread and butter.

You could do a separate potato bake for the veggie, same method but use milk and cheese instead of water and bacon.

Would the meat and 2 veg people go for meat chopped up to go further and a lot more veg? If so, slice sausages and use 2 less than normal, or chicken thighs, cooked with herbs/spice/sauce to taste and served on rice. Or a bolognaise filled out with grated veg? I use onions, mushrooms and carrot and a small amount of minced beef, about 250g. You make a big batch to do two days, take out a portion of the veg and add red lentils to that for the vegetarian.

What do you normally do for snacks, and would the DC accept fruit and or yoghurt? Or cheese and biscuits? Make sure everything is full fat.

Mushroom curry, big pack of mushrooms and onion with the 19p Tesco value curry sauce in jar, rice and some poppadums?

Carrot and lentil soup with part baked rolls.

Cheesy pasta with a tin of beans and/or handful of frozen peas chucked in at the end.

Pasta with tomato sauce, only the sauce is a tin of chopped tomatoes, an onion (fried first) and any dried herbs you happen to have knocking about.

Anything at all can be bulked out with extra veg and no/reduced meat. If you go to Lidl with an open mind they always have a selection of veg very very cheap - like a big bag of carrots for 19p.

French onion soup.
veg chilli: fry off onions and any leftover veg with spices then tinned beans and toms Serve with baked potato, or in a bowl with crusty bread, or with more beans and salsa in wraps....or all three if you make enough.
Ditto veg curry: same principles.
Baked potatoes
cheese and onion pie (no need for pastry just layer up with mash and bake)
Dhal, chana masala, aloo gobi: all cheap as anything, served with rice or flatbreads/naan.

All these are veggie but we regularly eat them (and are omnivores).
Eggs or porridge for breakfast.
leftovers for lunch (make big portions)

cowboy pie: baked beans and fried onion (and some cooked chopped bacon for the non-veggies) topped with mash.

Get your potatoes by the sackful from farm or market: round here you can get a sack for £5.50 which will keep you going for the3 whole week and beyond.
Cheap protein: eggs and cheese: cheap meat will be either processed or full of additives or water. If you really are on your uppers best to avoid for a couple of weeks rather than compromising.

Shakshuka two tins of tomato some cumin and paprika and eggs poached within the mixture- comfort food

Add coriander and peppers if you have them and feta to

It’s yummy

Pimp your porridge for breakfast every day.
Large bag porridge
Raisins
Syrup
Bananas
Find some jam/peanut butter......vary it.

Or pancakes with the same toppings

Lunches.....ham or cheese sandwiches every day
Apple
Crisps

I would cancel snacks.

Dinners

Broccoli pesto pasta......broccoli, pesto

Jacket potato, cheese and beans......potatoes, cheese, beans

Lentil dhal and rice, poppadums

Sausages, mash and frozen peas with gravy

Roast chicken dinner with homemade Yorkshire pudding

Toad in the hole

Spicy chicken rice from leftover chicken

HTH

My go to cheap meals

I swear by Iceland's frozen mince (less than 5% fat) it's a huge bag and I make a big chilli with spices I have in the cupboard like paprika, chilli powder, cumin add cheap tins of chopped toms, kidney beans, a oxo beef stock cube and some tomato purée.
Cheap and goes along way, I use for baked potato toppings, with rice, with chips even with pasta.

Definitely baked potatoes with multiple toppings.

Make a big veg curry (bags of frozen veg are so cheap now)

I buy a big bag from Iceland of mixed berries and have mini meringues and a yoghurt with them so yummy!

Buy a chicken make a dinner/curry/sandwich filers etc and use the rest to make a big filling soup.

Have you looked at Jack Monroe's website? Lots of cheap meal ideas on there

Our go to end-of-month meals are things like

Pasta bake (use about half the amount of meat sauce you would use for spag bol, stir into cooked pasta, top with cheese and bake)

sausage and bean casserole (twist sausages in half then cut to make smaller sausages, brown, add an onion / other veg, a tin of beans, water, herbs and cook in the oven until thickened)

Baked potatoes with cheese, beans, tuna etc

Toasted sandwiches with cheese, ham, tomatoes etc

Value cheddar isn't terrible, and grated goes a long way.

You can buy one whole chicken then cut it in to the quarters, make chicken broth from the skeletons, roast the quarters and do risotto from leftover meat. Cheap and easy.
You can also buy couple tins of tomato purée and make a tomato sauce, with pasta. That's very cheap.
Or baked pasta, or potatoes with white sauce and some veggies, white sauce is basically just milk, flour, one egg yolk, spoon of mustard and little bit of grated cheese.
And as a snack, you can try oats cookies, that's literally just two ingredients recipe, two cups of oats and three mashed bananas, mix it,
and bake it for 7-10 min, it's very healthy, cheap and easy and you can add some chopped nuts, dry fruit, coconut, or choc chips, whatever you find in a cupboard.

Lentil dhal or chickpea curry served with rice. You can make a Bolognese style sauce with lentils. Omelettes are good.
A trip to the supermarket later in the day when stuff is reduced could be worthwhile.

Baked potato with baked beans
Porridge made with half full fat milk, and half water (always buy full fat milk as you use less of it or even water it down a bit)
pasta with butter/spread and tomato ketchup
Vegetable soup

I've just found this downloadable budget cookbook posted on Hotukdeals. It has some nice recipes in. Hope it helps.

static1.squarespace.com/static/57ea401815d5db35a6482940/t/5a7dbbf79140b784388e5af3/1518189684259/Eat+Delicious.+Eat+well+for+£18+per+week.+Free+cookbook+by+Limahl+Asmall.compressed+(6).pdf

Roasted potatoes with sour cream and garlic dip
Spaghetti Carbonara
Minced meat, you can make meatloaf, meatballs with tomato sauce, stew-at Lidl is very good price for minced meat, around £2 per pack.
Homemade pizza, very easy dough, just flour, water and couple spoons of oil and topping may be basically anything.
Sausages baked with beans, or lentils in tomato sauce
Soups:)

Bean chilli - various cans of tinned beans and sweetcorn - for a cheap alternative to flageolet/ borlotti beans, just rinse the tomatoey sauce off a can of value baked beans and use those - cheaper than the other beans you can buy.

Chickpea and peach curry - gently fry an onion and garlic with some chilli, add a bit of ground cumin & coriander, then tin of chickpeas, tin of chopped tomatoes and chopped up tin of drained peach slices.

Lentil bolognese

Scotch broth - with or without the bacon/ ham - you can buy bags of country soup mix containing a mix of lentils, split peas and pearl barley pretty cheap, boil them up, add onion, carrot, potato all diced and stock and fry a bit of bacon and chuck that in - really hearty and filling and cheap.

Another vote for Jack Monroe's recipes, they are good if you're on a really tight budget.

Or pudding rice, you can get sachet of 500g pudding rice for around £1. Just add milk.