"Normal" people who cook from scratch everyday - tell me this gets cheaper

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By normal, I mean excluding those who can feed a small African village with one can of chickpeas, an egg, and a tomato. Normal people, who eat normal portions of normal foods.

We've canceled Hello Fresh to save money, so we've started meal planning with a recipe-building app instead, otherwise, we just cycle through the same 5/6 meals all the time.

One child is away this week. The remaining child has picked;

Cheesy broccoli pasta bake, Piri piri chicken wrap “fakeaway”, easy creamy chicken curry, penne arrabbiata with roasted peppers and pancetta, easy chicken jalfrezi curry.

£75 fecking quid.

It's not even a full shop. I'm not eating breakfast or lunch coz the price now just for evening meals is way too much. I've added a couple of yoghurts and crappy pizzas for the kids lunches and breakfasts and we already have cereal in.

I bought cat litter and cat food earlier or that would have been added too.

Admittedly, we had to buy a lot of spices because Hello Fresh used to send them in handy little packets and DD has used most of the ones we did have jazzing up her instant noodles. But, the spices only added around £10ish. That's still £65 without breakfasts or lunches.

Obviously, next week we won't need as many spices and should have some butter and oil left but still...

If this is the best we can do I am going to have to consider rehoming a child.

I get that we all like different things , but to claim it’s not a proper meal or a bizarre thing to serve for an evening meal is odd.

I always cook from scratch. It definitely gets cheaper. My freezer is my best friend. Although there is only two of us I buy large packs of meat. Most weeks some will be frozen raw or already made into meals. I always keep frozen fish in the freezer and frozen prawns (uncooked). I usually have frozen breadcrumbs in there from when I have bread that is not so fresh and frozen homemade soup. I buy fresh, usually in season, veg but keep frozen peas and sweetcorn in the freezer. I buy butter, milk, yoghurt and a pot of cream every week. I have all the usual staples in my cupboards. I make panfuls of soup twice a week as my husband likes it for lunch. This week leek and potato and also tomato and basil. I usually decide what we're having for dinner the evening before, depending on what is in the fridge or if I need to get something out of the freezer to defrost. There was no fresh meat or fish in the fridge last night so some of my options that came to mind for today were:

1.Braising steak out of the freezer to be cooked in the slow cooker and either served with Yorkshire puddings or dumplings or put in a pie dish with pastry on top. All to be served with veg.

2.Prawns to be defrosted and made into a prawn, sweetcorn and pea risotto OR added to a spicy tomato sauce and served with rice OR made into a curry.

3.Chicken thighs either cooked in the slow cooker with veg and a sauce OR cut into strips dipped in egg and breadcrumbs and served with salad OR made into curry with sweet potato in the slow cooker.

4.Fish pie made with frozen fish. Fish cooked in milk to be made into a parsley sauce and topped with mashed potato with a few capers added, a good sprinkling of cheese and slices of tomato.

5.A quiche. Shortcrust pastry takes less than 5 minutes in the food processor and there are usually veg in the fridge that want using (mushrooms, onions, tomatoes) and cheese. Maybe served with jacket sweet potato or couscous or a few new potatoes.

There are so many meals that can be made cheaply without a definite recipe. I have an extensive range of herbs and spices but it has grown slowly over time and some herbs I grow and dry or freeze myself. Things like whole nutmeg cost very little in the local Asian supermarket.

I've arranged a lift to the "big butchers" tomorrow (Bolams if anyone here lives in the NE).

I'll probably pick up a few packs of chicken thighs and bone, skin and dice them then portion and freeze them.

Dogs can eat chicken bones as long as they are raw and they can't swallow them whole. Looking at the size of a chicken thigh bone without the meat he probably won't be allowed them. DD's chihuahuas can have a couple and I'll look into how to make stock with the rest.

The dogs do not need bones now they're on a complete dry food but they do like them and they help keep their teeth clean so I'll pick up a couple of marrowbones and stock bones for the big dog while I'm there.

I know it might not be for everyone but I know that being vegetarian is helping keep my food bill down.

I also grow my own vegs, herbs and fruits as much as possible.

Actually using Sainsbury's prices (as that's where I shop), 2kg of chicken thighs are £4.30 (2.15/Kg) and a 1.9kg whole chicken is £5.50 (2.89/Kg). I'm not quite sure what the relative ratio of meat to bone in each is, but personally I find it much easier to make multiple good meals (mostly traybake style) out of 2Kg of chicken thigh than a whole chicken. After feeding our family of four a roast from a chicken we wouldn't have anything like enough left to make a family sized pie etc. Maybe a single sandwich, or a chicken stock/broth, or maybe a chicken pasta that quite light on chicken but that would be about it. 2Kg of thighs would give us 3 or 4 (depending on the sizes of the thighs) traybakes each feeding a family of 4.

Thats your thoughts, not my husbands nor my mothers

I tend to do a variation of the following each week:

1 x minced beef meal (lasagne, chilli, minced beef hotpot, bolognese)
1 x chicken meal (curry, Spanish chicken, roast chicken etc)
1 x pasta with garlic bread) carbonara, Arabiatta, pesto & veg)
1 x fish (fish pie, Italian white fish, battered fish & chips)
1 x gravy dinner (pie/mash/veg, sausages in giant yorkshires, pork chops, stew etc)
2 x cheapish meals (sausage casserole, pasta bake, gnocchi, tortellini)

Excluding pets, I spend about £95 at Lidl each week which includes 3 meals a day and snacks for 2 adults and 2 teen boys, plus all cleaning products and toiletries.

It does get a bit easier once you’ve bought some staples for the cupboard. But also you need to look at the recipes you are cooking and think of ways to make them cheaper/go further.

So for instance you said chicken curry, I would do in the slow cooker and use cheaper cut of meat (so thighs rather than breast) and also bulk it out with some vegetables through the curry- I love cauliflower in a curry, but if want something with a bit more substance chickpeas are good just added at end and heat through.
Also you said penne with roast peppers and pancetta. Just buy some bacon and use that cut up. Also don’t buy roast peppers from a jar, they are very expensive. Obviously pancetta is more authentic/tastes better, but bacon works just fine too.

So it’s having a look at ingredients and seeing any cheaper substitutes, but also adding more veg makes the dish go further. Also avoid brands- supermarket own is good.

food is horribly expensive at the moment, so it is awful when you total it all up

+1 for Jacket potatoes. 10 mins in the microwave; brush with oil; sprinkle with salt and pepper then 20 mins in the oven at 200 to crisp up.

I agree they are more of a "lunch" than "dinner", but so great with chilli, curry or beef bourgeon for dinner.

Hi

Those meals don't look expensive to me. Lots of pasta. Personally I'd take the recipes as guidance only and do swaps. Just off the top of my head get non branded pasta, use chicken thigh fillets rather than breast, swap pancetta for bacon, roast the peppers yourself if the recipe requires jarred. I cook similar meals all the time and most come in about a fiver a meal.

Already-filleted thighs are incredibly expensive per gram compared to skin-on, bone-in thigh you prepare yourself. I have a knack for it now and can debone a couple of kilos in 20 minutes 😁

Buy whole chicken breast instead of strips.

Basically if your meat has been prepared in any way it'll be significantly more expensive. Avoid.

I cook from scratch everyday. I reckon I spend £100pw for a family of 4. I budget £500pm but this includes wine/beers so if we take that off I think I spend about £25phpp which is pretty good.

Indeed @BruhWhy. I used to buy M&S Oakham Gold thigh fillets until I realised they were £11 a kilo.

But if you buy the ones with skin and bone in, they're about £4 a kilo and the skin and bone is probably about a third of the weight, so still a significant saving.

I either marinade and roast them in the air fryer for a 'fake Nando's' type meal or peel the skin off and cook them in curries or other slow cooked meals as it's then really easy to lift them out, take the meat off the bone and put it back into the dish to serve.

Stop letting your children pick fancy meals!!! Get the basics like potatoes and veg from Lidls... shop around... Sainsburys had bags of potatoes for 15p the other day.. look what's on offer and build your meals up around that.. If I was wanting a cheap meal I would buy those 15p potatoes- bake them and serve with baked beans and cheese for instance. Find the two for one offers on meat and freeze them. Do veggie meals or pasta meals a few times a week to cut the cost of meat

What's the difference between, say, savoury mince served with potatoes and a vegetable or two on the side, and a jacket potato served with spicy mince (chilli) and a vegetable or two on the side?

Surely jacket potato, chilli and veg is just a variation on mince and tatties with carrots and peas?

I cook from scratch, two adults, two kids (12 and 6) and a dog (I cook for him couple of times per month too). I'd say £100 per week is average for us but that includes everything breakfast lunches etc. I love Jamie Oliver's "Save with Jamie" book. It's not exactly super cheap but I love the ideas of how to use up leftovers. For example last weekend i made roast pork shoulder on Sunday and we had roast dinner with it (home made yorkies, seasonal veg etc). Next day I made dim sum buns with leftovers, there was a piece of meat left still and I made pasta sauce with it (all Jamie's inspo). Fresh coriander I bought for dim sum buns was used to make sweet chilli chicken wrap for lunch. I buy frozen chicken fillets. We utilise pork which is cheaper for example for swedish meatballs, meatloaf with spicy tomato sauce and pasta. Yesterday I made lasagne with larger portion of mince and it will last us two meals (served with garlic bread and salad, I might make chips too today). I work from home everyday apart from Thursday and will often make huge portion of filling soup (cuisine from my home country) that will feed us two days and i don't need to worry about cooking on Thursday. Frozen white fish fillets make beautiful fish tikka masala (with frozen cauliflowers and red rentils) or nice homemade fish finger sarnies for Friday dinner. I also don't drive, I plan all the meals and make shopping list and my partner does our weekly shop in Aldi on Saturday.

Just to sau very quickly do NOT give chicken bones to your dogs! They splinter and will choke your dog, possibly fatal or extremely large vet bill at best!

Are you asking me or my mother and husband?

If you are asking me about my dislike of mince and potatoes but will happily eat shepherd pie - the exact same ingredients - I can tell you truthfully that its a hangover from school dinners from the 70's. I do not like seeing mashed potato on my plate, clean turns my stomach

Why they don't think jacket potato is an evening meal ( a jacket potato to them is a side, to a steak say ) I dont know

So lets turn your argument around. If I am going to be making spicy mince and veg to serve with the potato, I may as well mash said potato and serve up mince and potatoes - whats wrong with that?

Really can not understand why people do not understand that people are not all the same and try to brow beat you into conforming to their ideas

Really can not understand why people do not understand that people are not all the same and try to brow beat you into conforming to their ideas

I think it's more about asking people to justify illogical behaviour that makes life more inconvenient or expensive for others.

Basically, we are happy with eating 5/6 of the same meals on rotation. Beggars can't be choosers.
In a typical week I may cook a large pot of chicken curry lasting 2-3 days, a large pot of chicken stew (another 2-3 days) and a chilli. £4.99 packet of frozen chicken breast from Lidl will make both curry and stew, so effectively 4+ days worth of dinners and the rest are copious amounts of veg, tinned tomatoes and spices.
I made a soup with chicken, miso broth, potatoes, carrots and noodles last night. A total cost is about £6 for 5l pot and we have some left for today.

Freeze everything you can is my tip - especially herbs. Culinary experts will tell you there are some you shouldn't freeze, but I think most of them - provided you're just crushing them into a sauce or a curry - freeze pretty well and it saves you buying them every time. Grow your own of anything you can too - if you plant some courgette seeds now, you'll have about a million courgettes to eat over August/ September and you can make loads of meals from them. And you can grow them in a pot - they don't take loads of space.

I average £120 a week, down from nearly £200 every week so I’m very happy with that! We do buy dog food monthly from tails for £40 though and I tend to do a bulk run of tins, cleaning products etc but I’m gluten free and cooking healthy and balanced meals is important to me so I see what we spend on food as essential.

Regarding the pizzas...
We do Pizza Friday every 2 weeks.
We get the £12 meal deal from sainsburys which is 2 x 14" pizzas, one 10" garlic bread (or garlic with cheese), a small dip and bottle of fanta. Friend brings carrots, cucumber and humous.
That's less than £20 for 6 people (3 teens so basically adults) - we usually end up not eating the garlic bread so that goes into the freezer.

Thighs are tastier and less dry than breasts anyway.