Cheap , quick and healthy meal ideas

[MimiBeee]

Looking for quick , healthy and low cost meal ideas ! Baby due on Friday and would like ideas for quick dinners for my other children :)

DH made a simple but lovely dish last night, basically a carbonara. Cut up left over gammon, cooked some pasta, put both into an oven dish with some cheese sauce (made of left over cheese) and threw some peas in it. Into oven for 20 mins and it was delish!
I live making chilli chorizo risotto which is super easy but takes time stirring all the time.
Stir fry veg with chicken and noodles is a very quick meal and good for getting the veggies in.
Good luck with the baby!

Stuffed peppers. Roast peppers in the oven, meanwhile boil the rice. Chop any veggies I use mushrooms, broccoli florets, tomato and onion.
Fry onion till browned, then add other veg, add the boiled rice and crack an egg into the mix. Keep mixing so the egg scrambles.
Stuff the peppers, add a little grated cheese on top and cook in the oven for a further 5-8 mins. I do half peppers for my dc and a whole pepper for dh and myself.

Mushrooms on toast with veggie sticks on the side.

Omelette (cheese and herb/ cheese and ham / cheese and tomato etc) I have an air fryer so do home made chips with the omelette.

Scrambled eggs on toasted muffins with a salad.

Chicken and veg tray bake

Cook a whole salmon side, freeze it in portions to add to pasta.

Anything thrown into a casserole or, more cheaply, a slow cooker.

Tray bakes of any kind.see what you have and roast or.yum.
Make big always.so if it mince make double.then you can have it with jackets one night then pasta the next.
Chicken and bacon pie.use thighs for cheaper and tastier.white sauce.bung ready rolled jus rol pastry on top.
For things like fishbpir or meat pie that usually have mash on.instead for quickness just top with slices of potato or quick chopped up chunks of potato.works and tastes just as nice.
Also using garlic bread slices for pie top
Cheesy pasta with ham and peas
Egg fried rice with ham and prawns.
Look up oven cooked risotto
Big dish.chicken thighs.rice.peas.spring onion.stocks to cover.oven cook.stir occasionally.yum.
Fish foil parcels. Or chicken
Pasta and pesto
Tuna.sweetcorn.white sauce in a puff pastry envelope
Pasta.jar of dolmio.frankferters
Garlic sausage,sweet potato,red onion,carrots,mustard and honey traybake
Make their own pizzas
Curry.stick chicken thighs in the paste and yoghurt in the morning to marinade until needed.

Fajitas are pretty quick also quesadillas and you can use up stuff from the fridge .

Baked potatoes are always a good go too.

Also second the one letter suggestion.

Pasta with various sauces - you can add in extra protein with meat / cheese / veg substitute and get lots of veggies in there

Homemade soup can be filling especially with nice bread or dumplings and you can freeze it for a quick meal

*go to

Jesus one letter = omelette

Fish finger tacos
Tuna spaghetti
Sesame chicken noodles
Enchiladas
Burgers
Naan pizzas

Personally, anything that involves chopping and mixing etc goes into the "not that quick and easy" pile for me. My minimal effort meals are things like:

1. Roasted tomatoes and onions with pasta and goats cheese (not all DC will eat this though and it does take a bit of time to cook. It's a good one for tossing in oven then leaving to cook while you bath baby etc).
2. Fried steak or lamb chops or salmon with new potatoes and boiled broccoli/baby corn/frozen corn/frozen peas/other frozen vegetables that don't have to be peeled or chopped.
3. Chicken tray bakes of any sort. even better if done with veg in the dish but seldom do that because of fussy DD so usually do chicken then cook regular veg on side.
4. "No cook" pasta sauce - cook pasta. While cooking, mix tub of ricotta, zest of one lemon, bit of olive oil and some garlic (or, cheat with the use of garlic-flavoured oil), bit of grated parmesan. Add bag of spinach to pasta just before draining. Remove cup of cooking liquid. Drain pasta an spinach. Toss pasta in ricotta mix, adding a bit of cooking liquid if necessary. Serve with more parmesan, salt and pepper.
5. If I am doing in a break from work, spaghetti bolognaise - I find chopping onion (and sometimes use frozen chopped onion for speed) and cooking the mince is fairly quick and it can then sit on the stove bubbling for rest of afternoon. Doesn't work if I come in at 6 and need to eat at 6:30.
6. Chicken burgers - sometimes I used crumbed chicken breast fillets cooked in air fryer, sometimes I fry chicken breasts I've cut horizontally so they aren't too fat and just serve with avocado and pickles with cucumber and peppers on the side.

When DS was little and we were functioning on almost no sleep, we also did quite a few of those "straight to oven" type things from M&S. Things like parma ham wrapped chicken breasts or similar. I couldn't face heavy, high fat ready meals but needed something easy. I could stick that in the oven and we'd eat it with rice or boiled potatoes or something. Maybe a few extra veg.

Have a look here

https://www.tamingtwins.com/category/collections/meal-plans/

I also follow http://www.instagram.com/cardiff.mum

https://groceries.aldi.co.uk/en-GB/recipes/cardiff-mum

Similar situation. Older kids. 8 week twins. Haven't been too strict on the cheap aspect though.

I always have backup meals in freezer: fish fingers with chips and frozen veg. Supermarket soup and part-baked baguettes. Pizza. Any leftovers from batch cooking.

Then I have a 3 week rotating plan of what I aim/hope to make. So I don't spend time thinking. It's organised so on days my toddler is home I'm doing simple things like reheating leftovers. On weekends, we batch cook. On nursery days it's stuff that can be prepped in the day and bunged in oven once older children home.

Sat: batch cook veggie curry/stew/chilli
Sun: roast/fajitas/lentil bake
Mon: pasta with pesto+veg/tuna+tomato/salmon+cream sauce
Tue: jacket potato with beans/tuna/chicken
Wed: traybake of salmon+veg/ sausage+beans/ gnocchi+veg
Thu: rice and leftovers from Saturday
Fri: Soup chicken/lentil/root veg

Padded out with chopped veg, or bread, where necessary. Dessert of greek yoghurt or ice cream, with tinned or fresh fruit if still hungry. Porridge or weetabix allowed for small children who randomly decide they hate what's on offer.

I should say, I use a lot of pre-chopped frozen, or tinned veg. Saves so much time.

@kateandme please can you explain more about the mash topping alternative. Do you boil the slices, parboil and bake? Or ... how do you do that?

Do your children like fish?

If so kedgeree is quick, healthy and if you buy frozen haddock relatively economical

Chicken tray bakes

Chilli meat/ veg
With rice one night and make extra
Can have with baked potatoes or nachos the next night.

Ham and mushroom pasta - 10-15 mins max

• put pasta on to boil with stock cube with some frozen peas
• chop up chestnut mushrooms, bung into a pain with some garlic purée and butter. Cook down and add seasoning if you want (pepper / salt / herbs etc)
• when pasta is cooked ladle into the mushroom pan with a little of the stock of and add a big dollop of cream cheese
• add some chopped ham or chicken

It was lovely and a good all rounder

So I'd par boil for about 8ish minutes.
If the casserole is going to be 40 ish minutes alltohetgether anyway this is plenty.
If I'm going for the slices I will just chop the potatoes into slicable chunks to boil(if small potatoes leave whole).then slice after boiling and lay on top slightly overlapping.a couple of knobs of butter here and there is extra luxury bit dont worry if not.

If I'm doing the rough chunky top I will cube them as I want them to be on top.boil, and again just topple them on to the bottom.and a sprinkling of cheese on top goes very nicely. This is a great go to for sausage and bean casserole. Or when a mash top for shepherd pie is just too much faff. Actually it's great on any bottom and really expand the meal.
Plus I've found gets them eating potato nicer than serving it "boring" or "plain" on the side lol.

Hard boil a lot of eggs - you need protein for recovery from childbirth and you can easily just gobble an egg to keep yourself going.

You can also make an egg salad sandwich or chop and toss with veggies, chickpeas, spinach, dressing, scallions or red onion, and brown rice, for a salad that will last a few days.

Also pasta salad for yourself and the children, made with chickpeas, olives if they like them, cherry tomatoes, chopped hard boiled eggs, slices of cooked chicken breast, red/ green onion, red/ green/ yellow peppers, feta or other cheese plus dressing.

Tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches which you can bake in the oven.

Pasta bake with chicken, peppers, onion, tomatoes, sundries tomatoes, herbs, melted cheddar

Chicken breaststroke slathered with a mix of hellmans mayo, parmesan, topped with grated cheese and the whole lot topped with chopped bacon, baked. Serve with rice or pasta. Takes only a few minutes to put together if you buy ready cooked bacon, and if you want to pay more, prosciutto on top is nice too. The oven does all the work here.

Breasts, not breaststroke lol

Stirfrys and fajitas are always my go to lazy meals
Nowt wrong with jacket potato’s/egg and chips/beans on toast etc

Will they eat marginally spicy stuff?

I recommend the chickpea curry recipe on the pataks spice paste tube. I use frozen chopped veg / spinach for speed and have a rice cooker (which takes time but no effort apart from measuring the rice/ water).

It's quickly become an "oh shit, we need dinner quickly recipe".

I've never eaten so much vegetarian curry before. I would always have made chicken before.

I also like the indonesian fried rice recipe on the BBC website so often make a super big rice portion one night to make this the next. The recipe suggests serving with smoked mackerel and it's yummy. Again it's quick. But it does depend on other kids not being fussy/ you being able to modify to their palates.