Sainsburys advert 5 meals for £20

[caspered]

Did anyone see the sainsburys ad in the papers yesterday for 5 meals (from scratch) for £20? I know it sounds silly but my basic food shopping always comes to so much more than £20, I wondered if anyone had tried any of these recipes, or if they have run this before,can you actually do all this from Sainsburys for £20, thought I might give it a go next week

Cor, sounds good!

Found this on their website

looks good

Looked fine as long as all your family wants for tea on Friday is two pizzas. Wouldn't go very far in this house!

I wouldn't want to serve up two meals based around minced beef within a five day stretch. I'd make a vegetable soup for a really really cheap meal.

I have done it and it worked out well. I felt there wasn't quite enough veg on the menu so tweaked it (happy to let you know how if that would help) but still came in at under £20. Our boys are still small so the pizzas (plus salad & coleslaw bought in the £20) did us fine but agree that if you have hungry teenagers then it might be a stretch!! The best thing is that there is now a new menu plan for another 5 meals. Will get hold of one this week and see if it will work for us too.

Was wondering if there was a thread about this. DH and I are doing it this week. Just to see if we could make our shopping bill a bit cheaper. I cook from scratch every day anyway and am a pretty confident cook, but we just thought it would be interesting to try for cost reasons, as our shopping bill has been going up and up and up and....

There's only two of us so we're banking on having leftovers for lunches.

I agree MersthamMomma I have added veg as there wasn't the amount or variety we normally have.

Re the pizzas, DH would only normally share a pizza between us anyway, and add salad of course, so that wouldn't bother us.

I agree with bibbity that some of it does look a bit samey - we wouldn't normally have two pasta meals in one five day stretch but I'm not overly worried about it, will see how we get on.

We're actually starting on the newer one, so we have meatballs, bacon & spinach pasta, chicken casserole, sausage casserole and tuna pasta bake this week. I'm doing chicken casserole tonight, only because I had no room in the freezer for the chicken!

So will update when we have done a week. Planning on doing week 1 next week.

D

I'm a bit surprised that there have been no veggie meals so far. We're all veggie but I'm always looking for ways to eat more cheaply so looked at the menus and they all contain meat or fish. Surely one of the best ways to cut costs is to reduce the amount of fish or meat you eat?!

BornTo I was surprised as well. DH and I are not veggie, but often eat meat-free meals (maybe twice a week), not as a cost-cutting exercise particularly, but just because we don't feel the need to eat meat every night.

I'm wondering if it's about 'perceived value', as in some families would look at a meat-free recipe and think 'well no wonder it's only £20 for a week if it doesn't include meat', but I agree it's silly. One meal out of the five could be meat-free and nobody would suffer.

I think cost-wise a lot of the value depends on some of the offers on that particular week on some of the meat products, e.g. two packs of mince for the price of one, so I think that's how they keep the cost down?

D

Is it just me or does it all look a bit unhealthy?

I think it looks good and is quite a good idea. Much prefer Sainsburys,can't afford it but could if I got 5 meals for £20.I also like the way they've done the list so you can just print it out,will save me ages going through recipe books.

Will give it a go and feed back,hope they do it regularly so lots of planners.I don't think it looks unhealthy at all quite the reverse actually.There is veg in every meal,not an awful lot of meat(split 5 ways) and very little additive shite. You could add more veg quite cheaply to make it even healthier.

moragbellingham I know what you mean re unhealthy, but looking more closely at it, I think the quantities mean it's relatively small amounts of e.g. red meat which DH and I don't eat loads of anyway. However, I do think that almost all the meals count as what I would normally call 'heavy' meals, which I suppose is what they are aiming for if they need to fill up a hungry family of 4 for £20 for 5 days. Sometimes DH and I will just have something lighter for dinner like tuna/chicken and salad etc. or salmon and steamed veg with no potatoes, and there is nothing like that, but I suppose a lot of people wouldn't think it was very good value if they were giving their 'growing family' those kind of lighter meals?

I am adding veg though, couldn't eat that menu without more veg/salad.

D

NOt yet looked at the links but these things sometimes assume you have certain cupboardy things in.

Or that you all have the same likes/dislikes.

And no allergies.

ANd no fussy eaters.

Meal planning well reduces your shop and really makes you think about what you are eating Vs what you are throwing away.

I wouldn't like to serve so much meat in 5 days (sausages AND meatballs AND bacon AND chicken). I tend to prefer red meat once a meat & to pay more for it so that it's good quality, and then chicken one more time a week.

And yes, the quantities look smallish.

But to be honest, I'm sure it can be done, to spend 20£ for 5 main meals, the question is what quality the food will be.

Oops! meant red meat once a week obviously

Yes but it's an oz of bacon,2 sausages and 100g mince per person(less for me because we're 5)that is a small amount of red meat for 1 week.I know people who would eat that in 1 sitting.

Red meat isn't unhealthy if eaten healthily ie not fried and huge portions 3X a day .

I agree re quality I wouldn't be buying £1 packs of sausages so that would bump it up by a couple more £s but still reasonable.

I agree with Mila, I think that the meals are quite healthy, actually. It works out at one rasher of bacon, a couple of sausages and about 4oz mince per person. The mince is the only red meat in the plan so it's not much, really. And there's a good spread of different proteins.

All the meals have plenty veg built in as well, so that's quite good. I think that it would be better to change at least one of the meals for a veggie option, but that's just me. I am veggie and the kids eat mostly veggie, too.

I don't really think 20pounds is that cheap for 5 meals for 4 people, though, especially as they are using cheap sausages and the like.

Don't know if anyone is still reading this, but there is a new week of recipes this week, so that's 3 now.

We're still having a go at doing this and to be honest, apart from definitely needing to add more veg, it's been good, and cheap!

D

Not following the plan but this week I have made the sausage casserole thing and the bacon and spinach pasta for the children. They really enjoyed them and the servings were more than ample for them. I only have 4 at home at the moment but they are all BIG kids (18,13,11,8) so the recipes definitely give enough for a family of 4.

I've just done the week 2 menu (i think) and i'm really pleased with how it went.
The sausage hot pot was a big hit with DH and i loved the chicken casserole, DS loved it all!
The meatballs and rice, tbh was horribly bland so i got the herb rack out and chucked some extra things in (and simmered it down for an hour).

All in all, very pleased and as DH said - "5 meals for £20 can't be sniffed at"

Along with this menu, i decided to try and knock up some cheap, quick puddings instead of buying them as i usually do.

In sainsburys they do a 'basics' sponge mix for about 22p, i bought 4 of these and a tin of apple slices.
I laid the apple slices in a dish, knocked up 2 of the sponge mixes, poured it over the apples and baked it as usual. It took me 5 minutes to put together and was very yummy!

For the other 2 mixes, i just made them up and added a tsp of lemon extract (i had it in the cupboard but usually costs 99p from sainsburys). When the cake had cooked and cooled i iced it with some glace icing. (using the icing sugar that's been lurking in my cupboard for far too long)
It was delicious, DH said it was better than my usual lemon drizzle cake!
(Each cake made about 12 large pieces)

As i had eggs, icing and lemon extract all i had to buy were the apples and sponge mixes costing £1.36!

If anyone else has some, quick and cheap pudding ideas to go with the 5 meals for £20 plan - i'd love to hear them.

Cheap puddings:

Make up a batter as for Yorkshire pudding but with a couple of spoonfuls of sugar. Melt some butter in a dish in the oven, when it is hot pour in the batter and bake it. When you take it out the oven drizzle over some syrup melted with a couple of spoonfuls of orange juice. Cut into squares and serve with a little milk/cream poured over

alternative to the above: peel, core and chop a pound of apples. Put them in the oven dish with the butter and cook in the oven for about 10 minutes. Then pour over the batter and bake till done.

baked apples filled with a mixture of raisins, cinnamon and a little bit of butter.

make a basic scone dough, roll it out into a rectangle, spread with butter and sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon. Roll up into a cylinder and slice into 3/4inch swirls. Bake until risen and golden.

War time Recipe - Eggless Ginger Cake

Ingredients
2oz Cooking fat, 2oz. sugar, 1-1½ teaspoon ground ginger, 6oz S.R. flour, ¼tsp bicarb of soda, 6 tablespoons milk, 2 teaspoons vinegar.
Method
Preheat the oven to 190°C Gas Mark 5. Cream the fat with the sugar and syrup. Sift the flour with the ground ginger. Rub in the fat, add sugar and milk. Blend the bicarbonate of soda with the vinegar : the mixture will bubble. Beat into the cake mixture. Spoon into a greased, floured 7/8 inch cake tin and bake for 20 minutes. Serve the cake when fresh. You can leave out the ginger and add a couple of ounces of dried fruit.

bread pudding made by soaking stale bread in tea and then mixing in sugar, dried fruit, mixed spice and an egg. You only need a very small piece of this as it is very rich.

homemade pancake/dropscones with syrup

jelly made with half water half carnation milk.

mars bar cake/rocky road, not really that cheap to make but you only need a little bit so quite cheap per serving. Also coconut ice, 12oz coconut, 12oz icing sugar and a tin of condensed milk. Mix well, press into a tin and leave overnight to set.

They only seem to have 2 weeks on their site what happened to the other one?

I work around £5 ish for the meat/fish per day without all the extras. Hence our teas easily cost £7 each per day. Giving a basic total of £30 per week.

I think its impossible to produce proper tasty interesting and nutricial food too cheap. When the OH comes in late after a tough manual job he wants a good decent portion. A good selection of fresh fruit & veg always costs a good £20 pw.

The cheapest meal I can do is macaroni cheese but usually hubby is sniffing around for a piece of meat/fish. He gets peckish within no time without substance.

Ok Now dont all shout at once but
sainsburys have put on a new weekly menu.

My nearest store is Tescos .
When are they gonna do the same sorta thingy .

Id like if they did plans for different budgets ...and then I wanna be able to just press a few buttons and hey presto my shopping is done