To ask for serious cheap meals

[Givepeasachancee]

Bonus points if they can accommodate an autistic 4 year old with preference for bread and bland foods.

At the point where we are visiting the community fridge weekly, with credit cards maxed out and overdrafts at the limit.
Barely scraping change together for the community fridges £3.50 donation. But we are making do.

Waiting on carers allowance to start after losing my caring job as my client moved away.

So, sob story aside- cheap meal ideas please! Slow cooker ones always a winner ;)

Family of 5!

Toad in the hole. or just Yorkshire pudding. The same batter makes pancakes, if you make a stack they can be frozen and then just warmed through so you could have a pancake or two for breakfast.

Google Miguel Barclay- he has some fab ideas for cheap meals ❤️

Eggy bread, baked beans and sausages or bacon.

Cheese toasty.

Sausage casserole.

Cauliflower cheese.

Bolognese, I bulk up with lots of carrot and mushroom then have enough to make a couple of small lasagne for the freezer.

Macaroni cheese.

Omelette.

Any offer/yellow sticker meat with mash and veg.

Cottage pie.

Mince is your friend here .Buy the cheapest (20% fat) Cook first and leave to cool overnight in fridge .A pound in weight. Half use say for Cottage pie .Use with oats to pad out ,add frozen mixed veg.second half spag bol do the same with tinned tomatoes and cheap mushrooms (often cheaper loose). Fishcakes often cheaper than fish fingers.Also egg beans and chips .Frozen sausages often cheaper than fresh

Cheese and potato pie and beans. Or if you don't want to use your oven....cheesy mash and beans.

Make sure you buy full fat everything, milk, yog, etc. No low fat nonsense This.
Cook lots of cheap vegetables if you are making things that are on the hob.

Don't have carb-based snacks and meals, aim for a bit of carbs, a bit of protein and a bit of fat. e,g a peanut butter sandwich instead of jam sandwich

This. Another poster mentioned egg fried rice with peas. Nice and cheap.

A basic chunky soup/stew is very adaptable to whatever you can get your hands on.

Fry an onion until it's soft, chuck in some lentils (rinse first to minimise farting later) and any root veg chopped up into bite sized pieces. I sometimes add spices at this point, or if the community kitchen happens to be giving out fresh herbs something like a spring of rosemary goes in at this point. You could also add a handful of rice to bulk it out. Pour in stock or water, maybe a tin of tomatoes if you have one. Add other veg as cooking time and the cookedness of the lentils and root veg requires. Keep going until all the contents are cooked. Any leafy herbs like parsley go in right at the end.

If you don't like lentils you can use a tin of any beans (drained) as protein instead, just add them later as they don't need so much cooking. Or if you can get hold of it a Scotch Broth dry mix with lentils, split peas and pearl barley is a good base but you have to remember to put in a bowl of water to soak in the morning or you'll be cooking all night.

If you're feeling fancy and happen to have a box of suet and some flour you can make the dumpling recipe on the suet box and sort of float them on the top to steam. Sometimes I add a bit of grated cheese to the mix.

I do variations on this all the time and while some versions come out better than others it's never been so bad we didn't want to eat it, and is more often than not delicious. Very easy to scale up too if you want to have some leftovers to reheat for lunch the next day.

Jacket potatoes - cooking them in the oven takes ages. Much quicker to do them in the microwave. I find one biggish potato takes 5-6 minutes. Not everybody likes them microwaved because you don't get that lovely crisp skin. If you want to do something to provide a crisp texture, you could halve the cooked potato(es) and put them under the grill, cut side up, for a few minutes on high, or brown them cut side down in a frying pan, ideally with a bit of oil/fat to stop them sticking.

Pasta with homemade tomato sauce (fry onions, add value canned tomatoes). If you have any pepper, chilli, herbs, peppers, sweetcorn, tuna, pulses, cheese, these can be added. Your DC could just have the pasta and cheese/anything else added to sauce If sauce too rich.

I love the skin an an oven baked potato, but am too mean to use the oven, so I might try that, @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g .
If you are cooking things in a microwave, you can switch it off for a minute, turn the potato or whatever you are cooking then ping it again. Same goes for boiling pasta or rice, you can turn the hob off and leave it to carry on cooking in the water. Just drain it when it's ready (I don't really care if it is overcooked because I left the water in too long though)

Red lentils almost disappear when cooked in something like a bolognaise sauce. As suggested use half the amount of protein and bulk out with lentils. Do you have a good processor? Chop veg as fine as needed and add to meals.

@badgermushrooms , i think pearl barley is underrated. It's great for bulking out stews, and I eat it instead of rice - orzotto instead of risotto.

I used a lot of the Basics or Value ranges.

Regular meals were

A chilli made with onion, garlic, chilli powder, a pepper and a tin each of basics tomatoes and basics kidney beans. That would be served with either home made potato wedges from baking potatoes or basic long grain rice.

Spinach and Chickpea curry. Similar to the above. I keep a bag of frozen chopped spinach in the freezer. With naan or basic rice.

Tuna pasta bake. Tomato sauce made with basic tinned tomatoes, basics pasta and tuna.

Lentil cottage pie. Like a normal cottage pie but with cooked puy lentils and bistro.

Tapas night - more of a faff. Spanish omelette with potato and frozen spinach. Served with patatas bravas (roasted chopped potatoes topped with a home made spicy tomato sauce and a blob of mayonnaise. Plus chopped iceberg lettuce. Garlic mushrooms too.

Bananas are cheap. Even at Sainsbury they are 12-15p each.

You can get Yorkshire pudding mix super cheap (or make your own with flour and eggs) and do giant Yorkshire puddings, fill them with mash, a sausage, some cheap veg and gravy. Looks like a mountain of food!

Cheesy pasta bake. Tomato pasta bake.
Home made vegetable soup.
Vegetable lasagne with aubergines.

Cauliflower cheese with bacon.

Roast or fry some cherry tomatoes...if you have garlic/chilli, you can add that.

Toss with spaghetti

Toast some breadcrumbs in a frying pan until crispy...(I make breadcrumbs by grating a slice of bread)

Sprinkle on top of pasta.

My children are pestering me to make Stovies again, I learnt about them living in Scotland, they are proper, frugal food!

Potatoes, onions, carrots, stock cube, plenty black pepper and thinly sliced sausage (I used richmond vegetarian) and I added some par-cooked barley, boiled up together until veggies are done.

Pesto pasta with cheese - can add diced chicken but fine by itself, usually buy Tesco garlic bread basic at 35p to go with it, my teens wolf it down.

Definitely porridge for breakfast filling and cheap.

Chiili bean soup - can of kidney beans, can of chopped tomatoes, stock, chilli, cumin and a pinch of salt. Can add toasted tortilla wraps which I cut into wedges and bake for a few minutes.

As PP jacket potatoes are so cheap and filling always a winner.

Toasties if you have any kind of waffle maker - don't worry about the shapes - bread, cheese, ham, voilà.

(Long-running legend in DH family that his grandfather used to make masses of nourishing Yorkshire pudding for his family - 5 boys - with ONE egg.)

Toad in a hole, OP

Tonight we're having pumpkin soup made from the decorative pumpkins with crusty bread and home made croutons.

Baked potatoes usually go down well, eggy bread? Omelette.

Have you got asda near you? I bought their yellow pack of sausages to test and they're actually OK. I've used them in a casserole and for sausage n mash

Pan haggerty (thanks to hairy bikers)

Sliced potatoes, sliced carrots, sliced onion , parsley and a pack of cheap chopped and fried streaky bacon, 1 chicken stock cube

Layer it all up in a wok or deep sided pan - foil over for 20 minutes on job and a sprinkling of cheap grated cheddar for last 5 mins.

It's suprisingly delicious and low calorie , low fat and a big pan can feed 5

Tinned chopped tomatoes with herbs on fried bread is suprisingly delicious