How to cheaply feed fussy eaters?

[NeedSleepNow]

I'm a single parent on a low income with 3 children aged between 6 and 13 and am really bedding to cut the food books down a little. My boys generally eat well, so eat most things without complaint but they are constantly hungry. They are so active and could just eat all day long and still have two portions at dinner followed by fruit and yoghurt after and then something before bed too.

My daughter doesn't eat as much but would graze all day given the chance. She is quite restrictive with food though which is making things really tricky as I'm struggling to find cheap meals to cook that are nutritious and everyone will eat.

She won't eat anything with a sauce so no pasta, pies, curries, chilli, casserole etc which area great cheaper meals. given the chance she would only eat pizza, roast dinner, pancakes, hot dogs or plain fish & oven chips. She also eats fruit, carrots, peas, sweetcorn, potatoes, peppers if raw, hummous and cucumber. I think most of her issues are sensory when it comes to food, rather than just dismissing things.

I'm really struggling now to keep the food shopping within budget and to keep everyone fed and healthy. How do others with fussy or trickier eaters manage? I can't afford to cook separate meals for her and I don't want to serve the same few things over and over as it isn't fair on the rest of us. I would love to hear any ideas any one has on how I can find cheap meals everyone can eat!

My youngest is fussy too. I am impressed with the amount of veg your DD eats though. 🙂

I generally do a deviation of the main for the fusspot.
Pasta bolognaise for the family mean plain pasta, chopped ham and grated cheese for him.
Stir fry or curry for the family means plain rice with either chicken nuggets/pop/strips/left over chicken breast for him.
He will eat a plain shepherds pie. I make a basic mince and onion base (cooked in hidden veg stock and a bit of tomato puree) take out his portion then add additional veg and flavourings for the rest of us. (I need to see if I can use this mince and onion base for anything else)

I need to try and batch cook more things for him like sausages, his shepherds pie, chicken breast to make things easier I think.

My DD is fussy and one of her favourite meals is plain spaghetti, broccoli and peas😅 I've found she likes stuff I wouldn't consider a meal so I try and do variations of what I'm having. She also like sausage, mash and Yorkshire puddings (the cook from frozen ones). If I'm doing a pasta dish she'll have pasta/ spaghetti, fish fingers, some kind of veg. If I'm having a curry, she'll have chips, rice, veg and chicken etc

She will eat a reasonable amount of veg but meal times are painfully slow. It could take her up to an hour to eat a small amount of veg. She would eat a pizza in minutes though!

Replying a bit late, but OP how often do you do your food shopping ? If you can switch the meat at least to once every two weeks, hopefully if you have a shop that does deals on about to expire meat on a certain day certain time (show up first!), that’s how I get my roasts (it can be very large sizes and eye wateringly expensive still with the reduced price, but the reductions are usually quite good and batch cooking as you know is much more cost effective.

Does depend on the size of your freezer, but that can also be helped : if it’s large, you can pop the meat in for whenever ; if it’s smaller, need to cook it that day as it will reduce the space it takes (just roast it, cut up, then the day you eat it adapt accordingly with extra spices or whatever, as it will taste best if you pop it back in the oven to reheat (I usually have something else ready for the oven at the same time, nothing too complicated, it can be just a load of chips (as you have 3!) to go with the meal, to save on energy).

I don’t even have a fussy eater, just a small budget and I feel much better this way as I do stress about proteins. Luckily mine likes eggs, but I feel guilty anyway if too much. Also lentils, pulses stuff in general are sadly out.

Anything homemade I also feel better I admit, it’s great she loves pizzas, as, as PP have mentioned, you can ‘cheat’ loads with the sauce, and as she seems to like veg she’ll do fine likely with the toppings (you can suggest a bit of roast as a topping also, it’s really an advantage to get the huge ones).

Veg I buy in bulk again large bags of frozen ones, so I can vary a little, and they tend to be cheaper and no spices

Sounds like you know all this though really☺️, you just need to get out of the ready made meals temptation and get back to home cooking. I personally don’t do the ones that take huge amounts of time to be honest. If in a rush and you don’t know what to do for her, your fajitas suggestion is great, and also you can get a panini etc maker for really cheap, same for smoothies makers (less than £10 at home bargains type stores and those can make for equivalent of pizzas, and very nutritious for smoothies if that happens to work. For the boys stuff like buying a ready made korma sauce for rice as those can be cheap and quick to make if you have to make 2 meals that day. (I think if I home cooked absolutely everything I’d go insane!)

Best wishes, you can do this!

Couldn't you just give her a jacket potato at the same time the others are eating bolognese? It's not that hard to whack a potato in the oven?

Also the idea of dishing everything up separately is a good one, then she can get what she wants. WIth bolognese she might just have some pasta, cheese and salad without the sauce for example?

Do you know that it is a sensory issue and not just fussiness - does she have ASD?

I personally try not to use the oven unless I’m using it for a decent amount of elements, for the energy bill.

But agreed with checking out the sensory issues cause.

The main issue I see is her protein tastes (I mean I know vegetarians etc manage fine without meat, but then that’s a whole new list of replacements, you could always give those a try, but unsure given her tastes), they’re the more expensive ones really. I should have mentioned I don’t do the roasts bulk buy every two weeks systematically, more once a month, the rest of the time they do get the regular beans and mash etc

My daughter is 12 and very picky. Her go to food for ages was just plain pasta cooked and some cheese grated in. Would often put peas or mixed veg in it as well.

I'd cook a load of jacket potatoes and freeze them and get one out on the mornings you will need one for dinner so it's defrosted by dinner time.

Make a load of pizza sauce with hidden vegetables. The rest of you can have it on pizza or pasta.

I'd do a roast dinner once a week and I'd keep her some back for an identical dinner the next day.

I agree that you should do your lovely bolognese and she should have a baked potato.

1. Roast dinner for everyone
2. Roast dinner for dd something she hates for everyone else

3.Bolognese for some -potato for dd 4.fajitas

1. Pizza
2. Oven chips and fish

7.

OP seemed to say she couldn’t afford the roasts her DD likes anymore, so only has some occasionally at nan’s. Hence my suggestion for buying a roast less often but the big size ones at reduced prices they’d usually do on an end of week at some supermarkets. (I couldn’t afford a smaller one every week, and her tastes aren’t the least expensive really). Does require a change in organisation but I don’t find it that much of a faff either once you get used to it.
Otherwise I like your plan!

This. And honestly, whilst we appreciate everyone likes different things, we don’t tolerate ‘fussy’.

The fussy might be helpful to be investigated medically at this point I guess. Easy for me to say though, maybe OP has already tried

OP seemed to say she couldn’t afford the roasts her DD likes anymore, so only has some occasionally at nan’s.

I thought she meant she didn't buy lamb.

No real recipe suggestions but wonder if you got her to be chef and helped to make the spaghetti bog and some sauces, if that would help her aversion, by giving her control over making the food and understanding what’s in it

Use plain Naan breads with passata and oregano and basil and the kids can to their own toppings and cheese.

I think this is an old fashioned approach and it's not necessarily going to work for OPs child.

My mum took your no tolerance approach. If I didn't eat my dinner I would get it for breakfast, then lunch, and then dinner again. It never worked. I would simply starve myself.

I was often collected from outside my headmaster's office because I would refuse to eat:

Mashed potato that sticks to the roof of your mouth

Gravy that was bitty and greasy

Lumpy custard

And so on

Particular mum memories

Beef wellington with blood dripping out of it

Stir fried with packet sauces

She once made me eat a Cornish pasty till I was dry heaving

This has not made me a more tolerant adult. Far from it. If I don't like the flavour of something or I have cooked something badly, I have a mouthful or two, tell the OH this is not worth the calories and chuck the whole lot in the bin.

And yes, I probably am autistic.

Food trauma memories don't really go away you know. I was probably 7 when I ate that pasty and I am 48 now.

I'm a recovering childhood picky eater, and one thing my parents often did was make meals that were easy to build on. For example, rice and chicken with veggies I'd eat, hand me that plate, then they'd go ahead and add whatever sauce, spices and extra veg they wanted to the rest of it for them. It takes a bit of planning but it was less effort, dishes and expense than wholly different meals like you mentioned avoiding, plus that way everyone gets what they want and your meals are all still kind of "connected," which is nice for a family dinner. Good luck!

Thank you for all of the suggestions. I have just meal planned for the week and am going to have everything in dishes on the table for the kids to serve themselves in the hope that my daughter will feel less pressure this way. I've picked a couple of meals that I will get her involved with cooking in the hope that encourages her to try a few new things and there are meals where I will save her some leftovers to have again the next day and the boys will then have a meal that she wouldn't normally eat.

@moderationincludingmoderation my daughter is the same and I do very similar to you, she will not eat sauces, so if I am making a curry I just keep aside some chicken, put a small amount of seasoning on it and she will eat it dry with the rice. I also do my own fried rice with egg and bacon in it, she also like noodles with asian dumplings. I do wraps with meat and rice. She is also fussy about roast dinners so I put the meat in a bun with veg and potatoes on the side. She will eat salmon/fish/meat but I try to bulk it out with rice/wraps/noodles etc as otherwise it is expensive.

There really is no way you can produce a variety of cheap nutritious and interesting meals with those kid of restrictions-I'd feed the daughter a sausage, or fish fingers while the rest of the family get on with it . I cook a whole tray of sausages in the oven then batch them up in meal lots in a couple of crisp bags (so I don't have to label them and they can be tucked around other things.) Just get a bag out and give them a go in the microwave.
What's wrong with sauce if she'll eat roast dinner and gravy? Or pasta sauce on a pizza?
I went through a plain food only stage, she'll probably grow out of it-but be careful it doesn't turn restrictive because she is frightened of putting on weight.