Affordable meals

[AnotherBrightSunrise]

As the cost of food is going up so much, and some foods much more than others, I find I’m often not sure what to cook. Things like chicken thighs, cheese and cream are so much that my cheap go-to meals are changing. What are your favourite family meals that are still reasonably affordable?

Please share your suggestions! Mine is spaghetti Bol/ pasta bolognaise. You can bulk it up with extra veg, replace the mince with quorn mince if necessary (I have to cook both as part of the family is veggie) but it’s still a reasonable price and is eaten happily in my house. I need more suggestions though (both to save money and get out of this food rut!)

Spicy bean casserole

Soak half a bag of soup mix or other mixed beans overnight
Next day boil the beans in enough water to cover
Chop up what ever veg you've got (or for a quick meal I use 1/2 a bag of frozen chef mix - onion, carrots, celery etc
Sweat in a bit of oil or butter (or a couple of table spoons of water)
Once soft add a squirt of garlic paste, chilli flakes, tomato purée, any other herbs you like, a tin of chopped tomatoes, a tin of water and a couple of stock cubes.
Bring to the boil
Add the now soft beans
Cook until nice and thick and tasty

All of the herbs and spices are optional but I think at least 1 stock cube is essential. Personally I like it spicy no garlicky

If you want to add meat I would grill or fry sausages (quorn work well too) and then chop up and add to the casserole at the same time you add the tomatoes etc

I do shepherds pie at 51p a portion, freeze the leftovers as individual meals

Lots of stews, soups and baked potatoes here. It's getting ridiculous to buy even basic meals now, sometimes we have breakfast again, so a bowl of cereal, toast, maybe some scrambled egg or bacon with it. My kids have school lunches, and I always make sure they have some fruit or vegetables cut up when they get home from school. Otherwise I try and keep an eye out for yellow label bargains. I've got pretty good at making things like Yorkshire pudding mix (Yorkshire's or toad in the hole), dumplings and cobblers (somewhere between a dumpling and a scone), because they bulk out meals. We eat a lot of bread, noddles, pasta and potatoes, with some beans, lentils, cheap frozen veg and less meat, eggs and cheese than we did.

Had a smile at noddles!

I add lentils to spagbol to bulk out cheap and makes it filling.

We have been eating egg courgette and chickpea casserole with feta a lot.

Heat ovennto 180C
1 onion
1 courgette
2 garlic cloves
Brown in a pan
Meanwhile mix together
4 eggs
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2teaspoon oregano

Add vegetables into greased oven proof dish.
Add 1 can of drained chickpeas
Mush together a bit

Crumble.over
1/2 pack of feta
Pour over the egg mixture
Cook for 20-30 minutes

Sausage casserole, add butter beans and loads of veg to bulk it out (tomato base kind of sauce)

Cottage pie

Jacket potatoes with cheese and beans

Omelettes

Pasta bake with added chicken

How do you make your dumplings?

Oxtail and ox heart have become popular ingredients because they're so cheap and actually delicious when cooked properly. Oxtail soup, ox heart stew, pies and puddings, even burgers.

You can get very cheap smoked white fish and seafood mixed bags, so things like kedgeree, fish pie, fish curries, seafood risotto.

Classic sausage bakes and casseroles with lots of beans and veg.

Veggie chilli, soup, stew, curry etc. all easy and nutritious and a good way to get rid of all the bottom of the drawer veg at the end of the week.

Daughter has been making her own tofu so we've started learning to incorporate that to reduce meat.

Chicken thigh fillets are still fairly cheap if used in a curry with plenty of veg or legumes. I bulk it out to 100g chicken per serving. You can also buy the 1kg packs and freeze half.

I’ve just posted this list onto the Asda essentials thread but I’ll add it here too because M&S have surprisingly good cheap items that might be of use here. All of them are good quality and great value for money so definitely worth considering…

Beans 50p
Sweetcorn 65p
Tinned mackerel in sauces £1
Spaghetti hoops 55p
Tinned tomatos 55p
Tinned soups 65p
Various biscuit packs from 65p
Custard tin 75p
Cup Soups 75p
Tonic water 85p
Dry pastas 95p
6 FR eggs £1
UHT juices £1
Beetroot jar £1.05
Rice pouches 65p
Antibac hand wash £1
frozen peas £1.20
frozen mixed veg £1.20
Various jams from £1

Plus if you want a nice treat every now and then visit the food halls during the day and you’ll find yellow stickered ready meals etc.

Lots of good ideas, thanks, I’m going to write a meal plan for the week with the inspiration. My problem is complicated by having one veggie child plus another one who is a fussy eater and doesn’t like ‘mixed food’, so stews and bulking things out with lentils and vegetables just doesn’t work for her. Then with the cost of food and cost of cooking it increasing it feels like an almost impossible task! But I will set out for the week with more ideas and a plan now! Keep the meal ideas coming please.

Mac and cheese ( either make a homemafe roux and add cheese or stir in a tube of primula/ soft cheese) top with cheese and grill , serve with veg

Use an extra large chicken for two meals , roast one day amd stew / pie from left over meat

Make bolognese sauce bulk out with veg and two lots of value pasatta , use for two meals lasagne , bolognese, topped with mash or bolognese pasta

Jacket poatoe with beans and cheese and side salad

We eat veggie a few times a week , simple dinners like omlette or egg and chips

I can't get over the price of boneless chicken thighs now - used to be £2.80 a packet in tesco last year, now £4.80.

I do wonder if all the price hikes are genuinely due to supply, or whether the supermarkets are profiteering on the back of it.

I noticed in tesco you used to have a choice between their own version of something v a more expensive branded one, they've removed their own brand (this has happened with their rice cakes, rinse aid, cereal bars and caramel crunch bars but I'm sure there's many more)

Anyway I've gone off on a tangent sorry, I'm just here for recipe ideas 😂

I follow Cardiff.mum on Instagram - she does menus for 5 meals for £20/25 and they look great.

I make big pots of vegetarian chilli (kidney beans, chopped up veg, etc), chickpea curry, pasta with different homemade sauces.

I think what is key is not to buy too much ready made stuff and just focus on simple meals with lots of vegetables and pulses. If you make a big pot of vegetarian curry, or with just a small amount of meat, it does not cost that much per serve and much better value and will fill you up more than toast or cereal.

Boneless chicken thighs are expensive. I don’t buy them, I buy chicken thighs with bones and remove them. It’s very easy to do. I use the bones for soup. They give a fantastic flavour and any scraps of meat you haven’t got off deboning end up in the soup adding a little extra protein. I have a cheap pressure cooker which makes fantastic soup very quickly.
Home made pies, pasties, dumplings, yorkies all bulk out the meals.
I never buy rice pouches as you can make savoury rice easily adding whatever you want.
Easy to make chicken curries, stews, or casseroles with the chicken thighs.
I dismantle a chicken as you get two large breast for stir fry’s. Roast or cook of the legs and thighs. Bones for soups and to give flavour to stews.
omelette’s to chuck anything in.
When my kids were young egg chips and beans.
Baked potatoes with leftover stew, or mince, tuna mayo, or egg mayo, cheese and beans, basically anything.
Pasta with tinned tomatoes add veg and garlic a bit of cheese on top.
Homemade fish cakes as you can use cheap frozen fish.
Kebabs, I use the chicken breast from a whole chicken I put lots of veg on the kebabs eg peppers, tomatoes, mushrooms.
Beans on wholemeal toast with a sprinkle of cheese, you could do the same with spaghetti hoops if your kids like them.
You can buy cheap bacon bits and chop up to use for stock for soup or for putting in pasta with a bit of cheese sauce. Into an omelette.

I’ve just posted this list onto the Asda essentials thread but I’ll add it here too because M&S have surprisingly good cheap items that might be of use here. All of them are good quality and great value for money so definitely worth considering…

I'm sure it's meant well but I don't think suggesting M&S for 'cheap' items is very sensible for anyone on a budget...most of the items you've posted are cheaper in Lidl, Aldi or Asda.

Definitely meal plan. I have about 20 easy meals that I have on rotation throughout the month. Friday night is always a pizza party night, that's a given.

Pasta - either I make a lasagna which is huge and I freeze the extra portions, or it's a simple "tomato sauce" spaghetti which is essentially blended veg with some creme fraiche
Shepherds Pie - I buy the frozen lamb mince to try and cut down cost on this, again I make it so we have enough portions to freeze and bring out again
Roast Chicken - usually on a Sunday I'll buy a cheap chicken from Aldi and have a roast dinner, which leads to...
Chicken Curry - I'll add in leftover veg to this but this is always quite cheap in our house

Toad in the hole is filling and economical Use sausage to form the basis of a roast dinner as well

Actually chicken thighs and quite a few bits of veg are cheaper than aldi/Lidl/the big 4. Sure won't get a big shop there so if you'd need to make a super long additional journey then the savings would be negated, but if you're going somewhere nearby anyway lots of people discount M&S when actually the quality is better and some stuff is genuinely cheaper.

We've started to eat more vegetarian meals and bulk meat out with beans and lentils where possible.
Vegetable chilli is a favourite - tinned beans are really cheap and filling (2 teenage boys here) although we still buy a fair amount of meat for them.
I also make any leftover odds and ends of veg into a soup which I can then take to work for lunches.

I agree about M&S - I've been really surprised to find certain things a lot cheaper than other supermarkets. They also do weekly market specials which are great. I regularly buy bread, eggs, beans, spaghetti hoops, salad cream, mayonnaise and other bits and pieces in M&S as they are cheaper and the quality is great. Time it right and yellow stickers are fantastic.

I also like Sainsbury's too as there are lots of different price levels to choose from. The 'Mary's Dairy' value range for cheese and cream cheese is brilliant. All price matched with Aldi. Their Mother Hubbard range is good too. I haven't stopped eating what we normally eat, I've just switched which price range I buy from.

@RandomCatGenerator

I use this recipe from BBC good food, without the parsley because my kids don't like it

www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/dumplings/amp

it invokes a decent pantry but

Potato curry - potatoes, onion, tomato paste, herbs, frozen peppers or carrots, oil, milk, vegetable stock, curry powder

Spinach bacon Mac and cheese (homemade bechamel is just butter flour and milk) can make the a sauce for two batches of pasta then, and use half the bacon chopped up for another meal

chicken pie- chicken fried with veg stock, mixed frozen veg, herbs, garlic, onion then flour to make it a thick sauce, in a tray then mash on top and throw in oven to crisp

chicken wraps - goujons, cheap wraps, lettuce, sweet and sour sauce, tomatoes

tuna pasta

Vegetarian fajitas, cheap wraps, black beans, frozen peppers, onion, garlic, fajita seasoning, cheese

Omelettes are cheap, quick and filling. We eat them a lot, with different combinations of spinach, peas, onions, leeks, different cheeses, sometimes with bacon or chorizo. A decent meal alongside some kind of bread.