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!

Oooh, also, really recommend the Supercook app.

Free app. You added to the pantry all of the ingredients you have in (including spices and herbs) and it will give you every single recipe on the internet that you can make with what you have. You can search for recipes based on one ingredient you want to use, or by cuisine type.

So, I have about 150 ingredients saved, and have over 10,000 recipes I could make. Easy to add in or take away ingredients, as and when they are used.

Also, makes suggestion for recipes that one need one more ingredient.

Another MN used recommended it in the summer, and I've used it constantly. Brilliant for finding recipes that use up a particular ingredients.

Oh I meant as a person, Gaspode!
Not rating her recipes definitely doesn't qualify as hate 😉To Be fair I haven't tried loads but it's more the way of going about things and particularly the minimising oven use that I think is particularly helpful now.

Just a thought, if anyone has a toastie sandwich maker at the back of the cupboard you can cook other things, eggs work really well.

Also instead of beans on toast make bean toasties, it saves on washing up and you don't need to make toast and beans separately.

Beat some eggs and add veg and cheese to make mini omelets.

I've never done it but apparently you can also cook pastry in one.

Beans on toast
cheese on toast
egg on toast
supernoodles
fridge fried rice (literally whatever’s left in the fridge)
jacket potato
Sweetcorn and pea fritters
cheap tinned hotdogs with pasta
cheap tinned hot dogs on a roll
plain pasta with anything that’s left in the fridge

Use mince to make chilli spag bol or savoury mince .
Day 1 original meal
Day 2 pack of 8 use 5 tortilla wraps stuffed . Add veg or chips of jackets Or use one by putting mince on 1 half. Fold over and seal . Brush with egg if milk and once with fork and bake. Makes like a pasty instead of pastry.
Day 3 bulk out mince with tin of baked beans and have with Jacket.
Or use half tin of Tomatoes in bottom of greased pyrex casserole . Use the bulked up spag bol or chilli in layers with the wraps instead of lasagne sheets. Top with a mix of grated cheese and breadcrumbs (sometimes we mix with crushed weetabix) and bake. All very filling. BTW Pork mince usually cheaper so make up with half beef and half pork mince. Saves a few pennies

I don't have anything to add, but this is a great thread and needs to be bumped back into existence.

Well done bumping it 👍

It’s an old thread but always relevant!!

Anything on bread. Bread is your best friend

Value spaghetti 28p
Shop brand chopped tomatoes 47p
Grated cheese - approx 100 - 150g 75p
Large onion 30p or less

Boil spaghetti separately
Fry up diced onion and add tomatoes, simmer. Season with garlic granules, dried Italian herbs, salt & pepper, paprika.
Mix with spaghetti & grated cheese.

Makes four portions.

@HandyMandy24 I use simply cook twice a week and my H now thinks our meals are positively gastro - !!

Tomato and lentil soup is a good one.
Gently fry an onion and 1 or 2 carrots with about 4 tablespoons of red lentils.
Add a tin of tomatoes and a few squirts of tomato puree. About a pint of chicken veg stock. Mixed herbs and season.
Simmer until lentils are cooked. Whizz it all up it’s lovely with some bread and butter to dip in. A good cheap meal with protein and veggies in. You could add other veggies like celery or anything really.

It goes nice with some cheap garlic bread baguette too

Made an egg fried rice with garlic, spring onions, peas, soy and obviously eggs last nice. Was delicious. Probably cost about 75 per portion.

Look out for yellow sticker tomatoes at this time of year. Got 4 punnets for 50p each today. Chucked in slow cooker with onion,garlic,herbs and seasoning. Mash or blitz to required consistency. This makes several portions of sauce which freezes well and can be used just on pasta,or as a base for tomato soup,pizza topping etc. It's nice to have a fresh pasta sauce on hand in winter.

Spaghetti with garlic, butter and grated cheese

Stir fried noodles with a couple of handfuls of frozen mix veg

Toad in the hole - cut the sausages into 4 or 5 chunks to make them go further