Meals on a budget

[boohoohoo]

Hi, I'm trying to get our weekly shop down in price and wondered if anyone can give me some ideas of cheap meals? I do the usual, ie bolognaises, casseroles etc but am struggling to think of other recipes, total mental block!! Just get fed up of cooking the same meals all the time, any meal ideas recipies gratefully received!

Hi. There are lots of really good threads on here on this topic, so spend some time browsing the food and credit crunch topics. It's amazing what some mums do!!

My top tip (not very original at all and probably taken from here in the first place) is experiment with creating different meals from one big starter meal. For example, a roast chicken. On Sunday, I'll roast a chicken and serve with the usual roast accompaniments. I'll strip the chicken completely of all meat (if you're going to get the most out of a chicken, you need to do this properly - there are probably videos on youtube) and some of this meat will get used for sandwiches the next day. Then, some of the chicken will get used in a pasta bake one night (a little chicken goes a very long way in a pasta bake with white sauce, broccoli and sweetcorn) and perhaps the remaining meat in a pie (lots of veg and gravy in there, too) the next night. This means that one chicken will feed me, DH and DS for 3 main meals plus sandwiches.

We also have a lot of veggie food, such as a vegetable chilli with lots of 'meaty' veg like courgettes and mushrooms, and we often have one night a week where have either beans on cheese on toast or a jacket potato with beans or tuna. These are cheap but filling meals that help us to be more extravagant on other nights.

HTH!!

anything with eggs, espec omlettes. risotto using leftover chicken. beans or cheese or eggs on toast or jacket pots. spagetti carbonara. curry using lots of vegetables and cheaper bits of meat - slow cooked. ribs, sausages. reduced frozen turkey which will feed us for about 4 days

I'm a bean fan personally. The packets of dried beans, chickpeas and other pulses cost almost nothing and, once soaked and cooked, you've got lbs of good quality protein, itching to go into a curries, casseroles, bakes, burgers etc. etc. Cooked beans freeze beautifully too.

Also... I like using chicken breast on a 'one between two' basis in stir-fries. (No need to have one each... halves the cost) Plump out the stir-fry with cheaper ingredients like beanshoots and onions, finely shred the chicken.

i always start spag bol, chilli etc with finely diced carrots, celery and onion which bulks it out a bit and makes it healthier.

Risotto is another cheap meal we have, usually stir in a handfull of cooked prawns that i only buy when on offer.

we usually try and have one 'cheapo' meal every week which tends to be something like eggs and chips or similar.

Pasta with some pesto stirred through it can be done for less than two quid.

Sausages in casseroles are great and cheaper i find.