Tinned meal recipes success and disasters

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Has anyone tried putting together tinned meals and had success?
I know Jack Monroe is bringing a book out with tinned food recpies but that's not till May.

I tried Princes mild chicken curry for a £1 in Asda and it wasn't bad but I'm looking for inspiration for weird concoctions of tinned food that people have tried

I make a lovely tuna pasta sauce with tuna from a can and anchovies from a jar. I sometimes add cappers or olives to it.

You need
a bottle of passata
2 cans of tuna
50 gr of anchovies
cappers or olives from a jar
extra virgin olive oil
garlic (i believe garlic can be stocked for months)
ideally fresh parsley but dried will do.

Finely cut the anchovies in pieces as small as you can. Heat the oil in the pan and add 2 crushed garlic gloves. careful not to burn it . Add the anchovies to the oil and using a wooden spoon melt it into the oil. Add the bottle of passata, then the drained tuna, salt and pepper, cover with a lid leaving a 1cm gap, and lower the heat to minimum, let it simmer for 30 min. If adding olives or capper add them drained after 25 min. Meanwhile, finely chopped a very generous amount of fresh parsley and add to the last two minutes of cooking.

Done .

Oh if suing dried parsley , it will need a lot more time to release flavour , add it after 15 min

Thanks @KingIrving .

I'm old so my experience of tinned veg is, open the tin , heat contents and serve next to fish fingers or whatever. Or maybe "drain and tip into casserole ". I am interested to see others' ideas and the tin can cook book.

Shepherds pie works well with tinned peas and tinned carrots. Makes it quite cheap.

Schwatz packet mixes do a lovely tuna pasta mix. You just add tomato purée, milk and tinned tuna to the mix with pasta.

Chicken in white sauce with frozen peas added to it makes a really nice pie filling, or served with rice. Tinned steak in gravy (m&s) also same for a pie filling.

Vegetable curry is nice from Tesco . Lentil soup is great and filling .. in the same section as the veg curry there are various chicken dishes which my mum bits and says they are nice .

I don't think I've got anything I make entirely with tinned food, but I like to have a good supply in of the following:

tomatoes (chopped)
tomato puree concentrate
sardines in olive oil - my husband likes these on toast sometimes, I prefer them in tomato sauce (pilchards also good)
tuna in spring water or brine for sandwiches/salads
baked beans
red kidney beans
chick peas
various other sorts of beans so I can make a mixed bean salad
mushy peas - love these with fish and chips/wedges
Campbell's condensed mushroom soup, makes a good quick cook in sauce for chicken
various sorts of tinned fruit just because I like it occasionally, ditto rice pudding

Meals I make with tinned food as a main ingredient: various things on toast, tuna and bean salad (white cannellini beans for preference), mixed bean salad, vegetable chilli (beans), or similar but with tuna added, ordinary chilli (lots of red kidney beans and chopped tomatoes)

Haven't had it for decades but I used to love tinned ravioli when I was growing up!

1 x tin Chicken with white sauce heated through first
1 x tin peas/sweetcorn/carrots (or a mixture) heat first
1 x pack cheap instant mash on top (make with a bit of added evaporated milk to improve the flavour and a good amount of seasoning.)

sprinkle of grated cheese if you have it

Bake in the oven for ten minutes to melt the cheese = chicken keepers pie.

You could mix in some spam/tinned ham with the chicken in white sauce for variety.

(heating the ingredients through first is faster and more cost effective than assembling cold and baking from cold).

@Bittermints - also a childhood fan of tinned ravioli. Think I'm the only one in our house who is. I also have a secret love of Campbell's meatballs which no one else share in our house. Maybe a secret stash of comfort shite within a stash .....

I have unfortunately discovered that whilst childhood me was quite happy with tinned ravioli, fray bentos pies and spam, old me has become used to slightly different food.

I'll still happily scoff tinned rice pudding or tinned golden syrup sponges though! And if needs must we'll eat whatever is available.

Not a tined meal recipe but this one is good for tortillas (good bread substitute).

4 cups plain flour
2 tablespoons of lard
1 teaspoon of salt
2 teaspoons of baking powder
1.5 cups water.

Rub the lard into the dry ingredients like you would do if making crumble topping. Gradually add the water. Split into 24 balls. Roll each out to a circle and dry fry on each side until golden and bubbly.

There are lots of different corned beef hash recipies about. My DC love stuffed potatoes full of it.

My recipies was made up of whatever kind of seasoning I had in the cupboard (we were skint).

But the basics of mine is.

1 tin corned beef
1 tin bake beans
1 onion
flesh out of baked potatoes
cheese
butter/Marg.

after that whatever we had to add to it. Could have been any of the below or a few of them depending,

tomatoe ketchup
salad cream
mustard
Worcester sause
sage
mix herbs

cook it all in a pan add flesh from potatoes, mix together, stuff potatoes skins, top with cheese then grill of oven.

Sounds gross, but kids like it, and I remember having when I was a child too.

Princes do a tinned chilli. Bulk it out with tinned or dried lentils, tinned carrots and a tin of kidney beans and serve with taco shells or rice. You can even buy guacamole in a squeeze bottle which you can add garlic paste and onions to for a bit of added flavour.

Some genuinely yummy ideas - love corned beef and beans. I used to make it into a week's worth of Cornish pasties with sweet potato and home made pastry for my lunch when I was particularly strapped for cash.

I'd forgotten about corned beef! Love that with baked beans and/or potato waffles or a potato microwaved in its skin.

Talking of corn-beef please someone tell me how to open those stupid tins with a key type thing on!
Can't wait to try corn beef and beans, loving all these ideas

I'd like to know that! I struggle with the key. Usually end up using an ordinary tin opener at the big end and hoiking the corned beef out with a knife.

Key head has to stick out of the bottom. Then twist and the metal strip will wrap itself around the key and the bottom will come off.

Not totally tins but I made this the other day
thecookreport.co.uk/cashew-nut-curry-halloumi-broccoli/
I didn’t use butter (oil) or yoghurt. Halloumi has a date of November at the moment and a tin of green beans would work instead of broccoli.

I have a fab soup recipe from an old Waitrose card, you use a jar of puttanesca pasta sauce, and a drained can of artichokes, with a bit of water to thin it. Blitz smooth or more chunky it if you like. Also good if you add a tin of cannelini beans after blitzing.

That sounds yum @TheBitterBoy

Tin chopped ham and pork, tin sweetcorn with peppers or any other veg, an onion if you've got one, squeeze of garlic paste, packet micro rice, herbs and spices of your choice.

Chop onion and ham, fry with garlic and spices in a little olive oil, add veg and then rice and heat through.

Easy soup - onion and garlic fried in a little olive oil with cumin and mild curry powder, add red lentils, a run chopped tomatoes, some water and a stick cube. Simmer till cooked and blitz with a stick blender.

I quite frequently make a soupy type thing (!) which I read about on a forum many years ago.

You fry up about 1/4 of an onion (I buy frozen chopped due to laziness), then add 2 tins chopped tomatoes, 1 tin baked beans, 1 tin carrot slices (drained) and 1/2 pint chicken stock (made with 2 stock cubes).

Simmer for 15mins and it makes a surprisingly tasty, cheap lunch x4 ☺️

I've mentioned it on another thread but I have started doing my late mum's old trick of pouring any left over bacon fat from frying bacon into a jar - there's a school of that that pours it through a sieve but I don't. Anyway, I keep the jar in the fridge and scoop out a little blob of bacon-y loveliness to fry onions in if I am making soup. Yes, I know it's all sorts of unhealthy but it adds a bit of yum.