If you're on a budget - what dinners do you cook?

[lilacsky89]

Trying to be a bit tighter with money as we approach Christmas. Just wondering what kind of meals those of you who are on a tighter budget cook - I feel like I spend a fortune on meal ingredients each week!

Mac and cheese with a tin of sweetcorn and chopped ham.
Jacket pot, cheese and beans
Risotto
Egg, beans and chips
Veg chilli and rice

Mozerralla pasta. Tinned tomatoes couple of basic bags mozerrella and mushrooms. Value mixed herbs and garlic

Cardiff mum on Instagram has some great 3 or 5 meals for £20 ideas so sometimes I take stuff from there.

Things like cottage pie, chilli, jacket potatoes, chicken pasta etc. all about £5-7 a meal for a family of 5 here. I am not sure if that is cheap enough for you.

This week I spent £115 on a food shop and that included £10 on dishwasher tablets and £10 on cokes which aren't an every week payment.

Our meal plan for the week is...

Chicken meatballs (paprika, onion, creme fraise and chicken stock and red pepper sauce also with spinach) with mash

Beef stew with rolls

Cottage pie

Chicken, bacon and broccoli pasta

Chicken fajita

Pizzas

Roast pork

Fruit and yogurts for desserts.

A couple of packs of biscuits, fruit, breadsticks, baked beans and eggs for snacks.

Sandwiches or sub rolls with ham, salami, cheese etc some crisps and fruit for lunches.

I've also got some flour etc so will make some banana pancakes, prob bake a peanut butter flapjack too.

Vegetarian meals like chilli, curry, pasta sauces, risotto or soups.

I made a butter bean dish I saw on TikTok. A bit like French onion soup. Onions cooked down, a beef stock pot then a tin of butter beans. You use less water when mixing the stock so it’s thicker than soup. Enough for a couple of meals. Had it on toast.

It will depend how much you currently spend but we used to eat a lot of chicken breast and turkey breast, turkey mince etc. Now we eat a lot of boned chicken because its bigger packs for a cheaper price. I've dropped the turkey mince. We eat lean mince a couple of times a week because I find it easy to bulk that out into a big dish like lasagne or shepherd's pie.

Opt for veggie recipes with beans and lentils for protein instead of meat. Soups with lentils or beans in are cheap and cheerful. As are pasta dishes with blended veg and lentil sauce. Most meat recipes you can substitute the protein for a plant based source which is always going to be cheaper (and healthier).

After I was on this thread last night, I saw JW is doing a free recipes on a budget download. I downloaded it and it's quite good. There's definitely a few meals in there that would be great for my family. He has the price per portion incl as well.

Quite hard to actually do this well though. Really hard work get enough protein this way, especially without overloading carbs.

It works if you are aiming at only 10% of your calories from protein and don't live that active a lifestyle. Its much much harder if you exercise a bit or aim at 30% (eg important for retaining muscle whilst losing weight) of your calories from protein. Or are tall and/or male.

I use dhal for lunches sometimes, it really only works protein wise if I pair.it with reasonably high protein dinner.

Im sure people do do it. But it takes some planning

corned beef hash

A diet with lots of beans and lentils will provide plenty of protein. There is a modern obsession with protein. You don't need 30% of your diet to be protein unless you are an athlete.

Most nutritional places recommend .8g of protein per kg. Take the average uk wome size as 72kg gives 57g protein

A 30g uncooked (80g cooked portion) of lentils gives 5.8g of protein. To get enough protein you need 10 portions of lentils a day. That's 300g of lentils at 1.14 and 770 cals

3.5 tins of chickpeas gives to 57g of protein for 966cals at £1.92

You need 200g of chicken (mid range chicken tesco) at £1.30 and 200cals

You need 1.5ish litres of milk which costs roughly a £1 and 550cals.

And that's for a 72 kg woman.

I'm not saying it can't be done. But it's hard to get a variety of protein sources at a reasonable cost and calorie count. Its isn't as simple as replacing a portion of lentils for 100g portion of meat.

@Icedlatteplease There's just a huge amount of misinformation out there about protein. Lots of people are eating way more protein than they need - protein shakes, protein bars, etc. They're not necessary.

I recommend giving this ZOE episode a listen.

https://zoe.com/learn/podcast-should-i-eat-more-protein

You can get more than enough protein from a budget friendly vegetarian diet (not saying everyone should do this, just that it's perfectly easy). People are obsessed with protein and they don't need to be. Very few of us aren't getting enough.

Veggie recipes!

@fatrascall

are you telling me this is all nonsense about hitting protein macros?

that protein doesn’t keep you full for longer?

am I being duped by the fitness industry again!!!!

It's not nonsense but a lot of people think they need a lot more than they do. Give the podcast a listen.

I’m too scared 🤣🤣🤣

Im confused enough as it is without making that worse

I eat as clean as possible but I do eat a lot of chicken and eggs because they fill me up

I hate the fact our government allows our food to be pumped with chemicals

I also discovered today that the disgusting smell when I’d get my hair permed as a child was formelhyde- such a bloody dangerous thing

@Quitelikeit If you've found a way of eating that works for you then that's great. There is nothing wrong with eating protein, it's just people can get a bit hung up on it when they don't really need to. And I agree about the chemicals/ UPF's!

Shepherds pie bulked out with lots of veg. I’ll make enough to freeze.

That's podcast doesnt say too much different that what I'm saying.

They state that the RDA calculations give the vast majority of people enough (bell curve) so some will be eating too much.

They work on 40g being "enough". (But dont specify enough for whom. They acknowledge need more if you are a child, pregnant, breastfeeding, exercise regularly etc).

To get enough protein you still need 7 portions of lentils a day. That's 210g of lentils at 50p and 539 cals

Its still 2.5 tins of chickpeas for 40g of protein for 690cals at £1.92

Only 160g of chicken (mid range chicken tesco) at £1.15 and 176cals

Etc.

To put that into context, you need to be eating roughly two portions of lentils at every meal. After that your not necessarily saving money if your eating a variety of plant based sources.

Also note that as your podcast suggests, this won't be enough protein for everyone.

To bring it into (bitter experience😁) real world context of a teen on free school meals who only eats a pizza bread/sausage roll/ portion of chips/sandwich at lunch (because no time/queues too big) and exercises/walks to school 2/3 times a week. Realistically you might have up to half the calorie count for the day down and very little protein. If you want to try and balance off their diet at home you're going to need to work hard at it to make a lentil based diet work.

It takes waaay less thought to do a random choice of meat, 3 root vegetables mash plus brocolli and peas or a chilli or bolognese.

I'm absolutely not saying it can't be done but but to make it work in a real life context and save money and get enough protein you've absolutely got to be committed. Over your entire diet.

Most people will just replace portion to portion which does not work.

There's a lot to be said for reducing your meat consumption and eating from some veg based protein sources as opposed to straight replacement.

(I am absolutely not a fan of protein bars and shakes etc. Very proud of DD when she pointed out to her gym bod mate he could get the same protein from drinking milk and save money!!)

@Frankinbeans who's JW please?

@Ladybird69 Joe Wicks

Shamelessly placemarking 🙈 as I could do with some ideas too!

My meals for four came in at £10 a day this week in Lidl. I did have a 10% off incentive but it's still cheap.

Lots of veg and pulses to add extra portions to bulk out the meat element which is how getting smaller. I think we are becoming vegetarian by stealth.

Our menu this week is

Sausage casserole (2.5 sausages each) with either rice or mash. Extra veg.

Chicken thigh casserole with above veg.

Macaroni cheese with tomatoes on the side. I can feed 6 with this so two lunches/snacks too.

Huge baked potatoes with tuna and sweetcorn

Home made burgers which will come in at £2.50

Smoked gammon (small one serves 4) with cauliflower cheese extra veg and home made wedges.

Hot dogs with onions as an easy weekend supper.

I'm quite pleased and got lots of other bits for lunches and home made snacks. They are big milk drinkers so it also included 12 pints of milk.

I've defected from Tesco as the prices keep climbing. It seems to be about 40p and item more in Tesco now compared to Lidl.

Pleasantly surprised this morning as it was affordable.

Cheapest teas that my kids love:

• beans on toast
• cereal
• scrambled eggs and toast

Cheap but a bit more exciting:

• pasta with cream cheese and smoked salmon trimmings stirred through
• oven baked risotto with frozen fish (a version of this but with frozen peas and fish instead of leeks and posh haddock: https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/smoked-haddock-leek-risotto)
• Pasta with sausage (version of this: https://www.olivemagazine.com/recipes/one-pots/sausage-fennel-one-pan-pasta/)
• frittata with whatever veg you have in (chorizo or smoked salmon trimmings are cheap ways to add protein/flavour)

I’m lucky that my kids don’t really mind if a meal looks like ‘a meal’ if that makes sense? A random selection of whatever is left in the fridge/freezer goes down very well here!