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!

Cooking bacon 80p for 500g tesco
Cheap pasta
50g butter
1 tbsp flour and milk to make a rue (sp?)
Half tub cream cheese £1 tesco

Cheesy pasta under £5 and you have left over flour, butter, milk and cheese.

To make it even cheaper don't do the rue, buy hard cheese and eggs instead. Two egg yolks onto hot pasta grate on hard cheese add the bacon

Or even cheaper just stir in half pack cream cheese loosened with some milk into the pasta with the bacon.

I think the issue is normally if you got £10 you could get more than three of the above meals from it but £5 might only do one iyswim?

Proper broke cheapest has to be beans on toast. Or toast and tinned soup

Echo the taming twins suggestion- she has a one pot pasta recipe that is lovely and can be adapted, as long as you get the liquid:pasta ratio right. Cooking the pasta with the other stuff makes such a difference, flavour wise

Pasta with cream cheese
Omelettes
Veggie soup and garlic bread
Cheesy mash

Dal and rice with chapattis, mixed bean cassoulet with homemade bread, sausage casserole. A medium pork shoulder can be stretched to feed a family for several days adding veg, black beans, wraps etc.

Use your oven but fill it to ensure you get value.

Waitrose has the best yellow stickered items I find eg got a whole chicken for 80p last week.

We have a free community larder - see if your local community has one, also do check around local churches, we like many have started soup kitchens

For dal ....

150g red lentils
1 can coconut milk
I thinly sliced onion
I thinly sliced chilli (or jarred flakes to taste)
1 cube frozen garlic
1 cube frozen ginger
Vegetable stock cube
1 heaped tbsp curry powder
1 tsp turmeric.

Brown basmati rice

Buy from the world foods aisle mostly, I buy the rice in a 5kg bag from Asda and it lasts a very long time for £7, more nutritious than white. Larger supermarkets stock the frozen garlic and ginger. Lidl is cheapest for coconut milk.

I serve this with sautéed green beans, okra and/or fried aubergine.

Make chapattis using either gram flour or 50% white/ 50% wholemeal wheat flour - kids will enjoy helping with this. Much cheaper than buying ready made.

Once you have the basics, you can vary a bit and make delicious cheap meals, I learned from Asian friends but adapted to coconut milk as can't get creamed coconut for over a year here

Egg fried rice: Cook a large mugful of rice. Finely dice a large onion or bunch of spring onions or a leek or shallots - whatever you have or is cheapest. Fry it in some butter or oil. Add the cooked drained rice and 4 eggs and stir together until the egg scrambles. Serve with peas (you can add the peas to the rice half way through cooking to save on boiling a separate pan.)

Beans on toast
Cheese on toast

Bag of pasta, jar of tomato pasta sauce, finely grated cheese on top.

I know people mock the MN chicken but if you can get one for around £3.50 and roast it, it genuinely can last for three main family meals.

Day 1 - roast - everyone gets a thigh or drumstick or the wings plus a slice of breast served with potatoes, carrots and peas.
Day 2 strip the chicken, including the underside and use some breast meat for sandwiches. Put the rest into a chicken and rice dish: paella or risotto or pilau or biriyani.
Day 3 boil up the bones to make chicken stock, add egg noodles, seasoning and any veg you have to make a chicken soup. Serve with bread.

Agree Jack Monroe. Gets a lot of hate on here but the first person to factor in energy costs to cheap recipes.

Homemade egg fried rice? Stir fry onions, garlic, nuts, mushrooms, and thinly sliced carrot, small pieces of broccoli and frozen peas. ( blanch the last three ingredients for five minutes before using). When softened, add the cooked rice , stir thoroughly and pour beaten eggs on top, cook until eggs are set. Season with soy sauce )and sesame oil if you have any. If using cold cooked rice, make sure it is piping hot before serving.

BBC have recipes for £1 a portion or less. Apologies if someone has already shared- I haven’t read all replies

www.bbc.co.uk/food/collections/1_dinners

A cheap box of own brand stuffing can bulk a gravy based meal out.
Sausages casserole with new potatoes in it - saves using the stove to do mash.
Lentil curry in the slow cooker with rice.
Baked pots with beans and a bit of grated cheese
My DH makes a Jamie Oliver folded flatbread. I think it's just flour, water and baking powder then put anything you have inside. Great for a bread fix and very filling. Recipe is online. I'm not normally a big Jamie Oliver fan but his new one pot meal series has some cheap recipes on it.

I always recommend Thrifty Lesley and her website. She has full week meal plans for about £1 a person a day, £20 needed at the checkouts. Search for Thrifty Lesley meal plans

thriftylesley.com/live-on-50p-a-day/

Is a compilation of her thriftiest meals.

I use her recipes all the time.

I found a recipe that I have been looking for!

The lentil pate is absolutely delicious. I originally made it when I was on mat leave 12 years ago!

It's cheap, tasty and nutrious!

For a really fast, surprisingly tasty dish:
Fry diced Spam.
Add microwave rice and a handful of frozen peas.
And a bit of whatever sauce you have lying around.

Add beaten eggs to the Spam fried rice. The whole concept sounds a bit odd but is very popular in some East Asian countries and also Hawaii. I also make similar with chopped up hot dogs, the Aldi (and possibly Lidl) Herta dupes are the best cheaper ones.

Coconut milk tip - you can often get block coconut in the world foods aisle. One block can be used as a substitute for 4 cans of coconut milk and it lasts forever in the fridge so far cheaper.

Sorry forgot to add about the rice, do the egg fried rice, which is traditionally a leftover dish, the day after curry, chili or dhal and rice day and cook extra rice in preparation.

Ignore all the MN dire warnings about leftover rice, unless you leave it on the radiator all night and day, it's fine. I've been eating badly stored and reheated rice at least once a week for decades and its never made me ill.

Also Aldi and Lidl do a big pack of ham offcuts for about £2 that is good for sandwiches and also omelette, with pasta etc.

Homemade tomato soup and garlic bread. Sauté some chopped onions in some olive oil in a saucepan, then some dried Basil and Oregano (chili too if you like it, and/or chopped red bell peppers too if you wish) when onions are translucent and soft, chuck in some chopped garlic and some tinned tomatoes. Heat up and then add some chicken stock to taste (boullion cubes and water are fine too.) Purée with a stick blender before it turns into boiling lava. Heat up and serve with store-bought or home-made garlic bread and a blurp or either sour cream or fresh cream (chives or fresh Basil don’t go astray either but not compulsory) black pepper on top. My kids luuuuuurve this soup.

Spicy Pumpkin or Butternut Soup. (This makes lots. It’s not hot spicy, but warming and sweet and kids love it.) Can be frozen without the cream.
*This can be made in a slow cooker, or pressure cooker, but add the honey and lentils at the end and adjust the fluid levels.

Saute a couple of onions in a huge pot. Turn the heat right down. Add some grated or jar ginger and a shitload of korma paste. (A whole jar of Patak’s or Sharwood’s.) Hack up about six peeled and rinsed potatoes a chuck them in the pot with half of a peeled and chopped (obviously de-seeded) pumpkin or even better, butternut squash. (Less sloppy) Some red lentils. 1/2-1 cup. Stock of your choice. Boullion totally fine. I like beef in this one. LOOOOOTS of honey. 1-1.5 cups. Or Maple syrup. 1/2-1 cup to taste.
Blitz with stab mixer until thick and creamy. Add in cream or coconut milk if you prefer until desired texture.
Serve with warm naan or roti/ whatever dippety yummy Indian-style flatbread you like

Do you know about too good to go app? You can get cheap surplus food from restaurants, shops etc

Beans on toast
Scrambled eggs and toast
Beans and sausage
Jacket potatoes

Spag bol (blend some onion carrot and mushroom in to a tin of toms for extra veg)
Soup and bread
Whole chicken with potatoes and carrot (use left over chicken in a pasta or curry dish the next day)
Tuna pasta
Veg curry with rice (cheap if u already have the spices)
Add lentils to bulk meals out

Bacon and tomatoes, I sometimes do this when I want something quick.

A few rashers of bacon - any, streaky, smoked, lardons even.

Put in a frying pan a and cook until crispy.

Chop some tomatoes, for me I'd do 2 or 3, you could alslk7o use tinned.

Chop the tomatoes, add to the pan and pour boiling water over. If you are using tinned tomatoes you probably don't need the water.

Cook until the tomatoes are mushy, it turns out like a thick soup.

Bread and butter go well with it.

That sounds lovely

I make a rice that I found on TikTok it’s basmati rice and turmeric, with chicken stock cube you need a little butter. It’s not supposed to be a meal but sometimes it’s all I eat for lunch or in the evenings. I do put frozen peas in it sometimes
vm.tiktok.com/ZMFf3xCA2/

my other go to is using mayflower curry powder from b&m with noddles,cook the dried noddles, make up curry sauce as per packet instruction, add frozen peas and put it altogether, if you have cheese grate some on top

I don't think it qualifies as 'hate' to say, as many people have, that her recipes are not to everyone's taste - odd combinations of ingredients, sloppy end result, not very tasty. Also, the portion sizes given apparently turn out to be very small and low in calories, so not as economical or nutritious as the recipes seem.

Oooh… Risottos are also cheap and easy. Also a great way to use up veggies and leftovers.

I agree with @Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g about Jack Monroe. Tiny portions and not likely to appeal to everyone, but quite good for inspiration on how to use up ingredients