At the moment I am Majoring On Mince. I figure I can get the most expensive (grass-fed where Lidl does it) with a decent fat level (10-15-20%), and that way we are still having decent quality protein, but in the cheapest possible format.
Bolognese, with spaghetti/any pasta & cheese on top.
Make a double batch of that, when you re-heat add ground cumin & coriander & cloves to the other half, add some kidney beans and you have chilli con carne. We eat this with rice in tortilla wraps, and you can zshuzh up with tzatziki/salsa/plain yoghurt as preferred.
Keema (Indian spiced mince) google for recipes, v easy, includes frozen petit pois which is the only veg ALL my kids eat happily 🙄) eaten with rice, yoghurt/raita.
S.E.Asian stir-fried pork mince (with apologies to all SE Asians!) Fry up a couple of onions chopped small in coconut oil if you have it, with several cloves of garlic and some minced ginger. Add a tablespoon of brown sugar. When soft, push this mixture to the side of the pan and add pork mince. DON'T break it up too much at this stage, the idea is to hard-fry till almost burnt caramelised. It will only need 10ish mins frying. Then add a few glugs of a few/all of the following: fish sauce, soy sauce, sesame oil, mirin, rice wine vinegar, hoisin sauce (basically any Chinese/Thai condiments you have knocking around) - even ketchup/Worcester sauce at a pinch. Serve with rice, raita, chilli, cucumber salad.
Then there's meatballs, and
Burgers (mine love these. In fact they love anything you have to assemble at the table 🤷🏻)
The Eastern Europeans do lovely things with mince stuffed into cabbage leaves, or peppers, but personally I'd find that too much faff in the quantities I have to produce 😅
The first three I make in the Instant Pot, cook for 35 mins under pressure and it tastes likes it's been simmering for hours. Get one! HTH.