Any cheap food ideas?

[ForFirmBiscuit]

I’m finding that with budget food lists and menus I can find online the portions are tiny, and child sized. I don’t eat huge amounts just normal. Is there a realistic list that feels fulfilling and doesn’t leave you constantly hungry and miserable? TIA

Are you on olio to get free food?
There are lots of other threads about bulking out food and reducing costs. Reducing meat, adding other proteins like lentils and legumes to say cottage pie ad using less mince. Oats are good for breakfast. Also ensure you drink enough water. Majority of hunger signals are actually from thirst.

Is this long term or short term, what kind of budget, any dietary restrictions or food hates and do you have any kind of stock of pantry foods/seasonings or do you need to budget for everything?

Eggs are good, they make a filling quick meal, contain protein and good fats and are versatile

• scrambled/fried/poached on toast
• Spanish omelette/frittata with shredded potato and veg
• spicy scrambled eggs with onions, peppers, spring onions and chilli in a wrap
• boiled egg mayo sandwiches

If you like things like bolognaise or chilli, it often works out more cost effective to buy a bigger pack of mince rather than a serving size, but that relies on having the cash available there and then. Bulk it out with mushrooms or lentils and batch it up to freeze. I make a very bland mince in tomato sauce as a base, then half it, add chilli seasoning to one batch, Italian seasoning to another and portion it up. That way I have a load of mince in the freezer to serve with rice, pasta (as a bake or as sauce over the carb) as burritos or enchiladas, on top of baked potato, you can add passata while it's heating to make a bolognaise soup, put it with nachos, whatever you like basically.

If you have one of those butchers nearby that does the 3 trays of chicken breasts/pork steaks/drumsticks for £12 then buy those and split them into portion sizes. Put them in ziplock bags with different marinades or seasoning mixes (bbq sauce, honey and mustard, chilli and salt) freeze them and then take them out to defrost in the fridge the night before. Then just pour onto a tray and roast for 30 minutes.

Look for yellow label offers in the supermarket and freeze what you can't eat straight away.

I find that eggs and vegetables are best for me rather than carbohydrates. So for example if you have pasta/rice in the cupboard do a meal with 50% chopped veggies and any kind of protein- eggs/tinned or fresh fish/bacon/meat or chicken chopped to sort of match the vegetables.

When I have eggs for breakfast, 2 scrambled and cooked with butter, I’m not hungry again until about 2pm.

Hope things improve for you.

Using every bit up helps
So if I have bits of veg and meat then I turn into a pasta bake
Onions, peppers, tomatoes, half a tin of sweetcorn, few bits of ham, pepperoni, ends of cheese etc

It's not necessarily the cheapest but you can get a good few decent meals out of it by adding some pasta and tinned tomatoes

Potatoes are high up the (I can't remember the name properly) list of food that keeps you full and fairly cheap, even adding some diced fried one on the side of an omelette

At the risk of stating the obvious, you could always just eat more than the suggested portion size?

Budget recipes will tend to be made with less expensive ingredients, eg pulses, seasonal vegetables, eggs, cheaper cuts of meat, canned fish etc.

So just look for recipes that you like the look of and either make more of it or if it says serves 2, eat it all yourself.

You can't get away from the fact that if you eat twice as much, the ingredients will cost twice as much but you don't always have to follow the recipe to the letter.

Eg if its a chicken thigh curry substitute some of the chicken thighs with chick peas and or potatoes. It will still work and will actually probably be nicer and healthier.

Or a tuna pasta bake substitute some of the tuna for mushrooms or peppers.

I'll second the use everything. I make 'stem soup' using the stem of broccoli or cauliflower or both. They taste exactly the same as the florets.

Pay more for 'mature' cheese and use less, it has a stronger flavour so you don't notice.

Protein tends to keep you full for longer so try to have some with every meal.

Buy things like 'cooking bacon' to add to soups.

Do you have a community kitchen / larder near you? The one near me is fab, it costs £5 to join but they give you £5 worth of food.

They get their deliveries on a Monday so that is the best day to get a variety and on a Friday they try to get rid of the stock so will do a 'deal' of a chicken / or a joint of meat with potatoes and veg.

Olio / freecycle / too good to go can be useful.

Plan to have left overs either for the following day or to freeze.

I find having a starter makes me feel more full. I don't mean anything huge, bruschetta made with half a tomato, a small salad, a slice of melon.

I also use packets and tins.

Example of using a tin and planning leftovers.

I have two slow cookers, in the small one I put chicken (equivalent of two breasts but usually thighs). Some sliced mushrooms, a sliced leak, a tin of condensed mushroom soup and a pot of creme fraiche. Sometimes I leave the leek out and use tinned corn. The soup has enough seasoning that you don't need to add any.

I will eat a portion with potatoes or rice or green veg.

What's left over goes into a foil container and I add a pastry lid. This normally goes into the freezer to be eaten at a later date.

If I cook a chicken I eat a portion (or two) I either portion up a couple of 'dinners' with whatever veg I've used or I take the meat off for sandwiches or to freeze. Or maybe to make a curry.

I thin put the carcass back in the slow cooker and add water to make stock.

It's not quite the legendary MN chicken but does a few meals for me.

It won't help to suggest buying extra gadgets for the kitchen , but if you already have devices for cooking etc. these can be useful for budgeting.

Slow cooker - cook a whole chicken or pack of skin-on/bone-in chicken thighs for 4 hours on high or 7/8 hrs on low and the chicken will fall off the bone and you won't leave half of it on the carcass. Use the chicken for whatever you want, such as curry, sandwiches, roast dinner, chicken salad etc. Put the bones and inedible bits in a freezer bag and when you have a decent amount over the weeks, put them in the slow cooker with veg ends (that you've saved each time you lop the end off an onion or carrot or celery leaves etc), a bay leaf and some peppercorns if you have them (entirely optional) and cook on low for about 12 hours. Leave this in the fridge once cooled and you'll be able to scoop off the fat off the top. This bone broth/stock can be used to pimp up any meal where you'd use stock (or just as a drink when salted)

Tinned potatoes in the air fryer are delicious (with the chicken above for a midweek meal!)

Adding a teaspoon of mustard powder to a cheese sauce based/topped dish makes it taste cheesier so you can use less cheese. Adding a teaspoon of cinnamon to mince based dishes (inc shepards pie) makes it taste meatier so you can then easily add some green lentils. Have tins of potatoes in, add them to bulk things out, or a handful or oats. Make up a Tupperware of cooked red lentils in fridge and add them to anything. Use coconut milk in things to make them filling. Lentil daal is dirt cheap and you can water it down/eat it with bread or rice/add extra cheap veg all to make more (or bigger)portions. Add some powdered potato as a thickener to things.

I made this the other day and it was really tasty, far nicer than I expected. A bag of green lentils goes a long way. https://www.olivetomato.com/greek-lentil-soup-fakes/

My friend made these last night and really recommended them…she did without the olive salsa but the rest was very cheap, tasty and filling. Kids loved it. I’m going to try it over weekend.

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/lentil-ras-el-hanout-date-meatballs-with-olive-salsa

she did without the olive salsa

That's a good point there, that it's rarely necessary to follow the recipe to the letter, in many cases, substitutes are absolutely fine.

I read a thread recently where someone was complaining that 'healthy eating was unaffordable' because to make the 'cheap' recipes they'd started off by going out and buying a load of specialist ingredients (eg coconut oil) instead of just using whatever oil or fat she had in so her shopping had cost far more than it usually would and now she had a load of packs of unfamiliar ingredients that she needed to use up. So very much a trap to not fall into and apply some common sense and critical thinking instead.

Just to add to this, it's cheaper to have lemon / lime juice in the fridge than buying a lemon / lime because it lasts forever. Well not exactly.

Pasta spirals with a cheesy betchemel sauce is hot and comforting food. You could through in some bacon lardons which are cheap if you wanted. I always make enough for dinner on night 1 plus lunch on day 2 and 3. It works out at about 60p a portion or 80p if lardons added.

Homemade vegetable soup is cheap and nutritional. 1 large onion, 3 carrots chopped, 2 potatoes chopped, a parsnip, swede chopped up, seasoning, a stock cube. Cook, then blend. Serve with crusty bread.

Tomato and red lentil soup. Boil half a cup full of red lentils until soft then strain. Blend a tin of tomatoes. Mix together with dried basil and seasoning.

Shepherd's pie with mince and carrots in. Cook pack of mince. Cook chopped carrots then strain. Cook potatoes for mashed topping. Add mince and chopped carrots and mix well. Put in bottom of large tray. Top with mashed potatoes. Sprinkle with cheese on tip.

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/lentil-ragu

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/veggie-shepherds-pie-sweet-potato-mash
it's fine without the red wine

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/red-lentil-squash-dhal

omelette - add any leftover scraps of meat or veg

jacket potato with beans

pretty much anything can be made into soup but I love pea and mint - I don't weigh or measure, I just chuck it all in. Fry some onion, add a jug of veg stock, a bag of frozen peas, any other green veg you've got hanging around (fresh or frozen) and some mint leaves (fresh or frozen), a little salt and pepper, simmer until veg is soft then blend. Leftovers freeze well.