Affordable family lunches: Your best canned food tips!

[EllieSmumsnet]

Summer holidays can stretch the family budget, but we’ve got a potential solution! Partnering with Love Canned Food, an initiative that celebrates everything canned food, as canned food is not only tasty, but also great value for money. It’s also high in quality, convenient to use and helps cut food waste. We're looking for your best tips and tricks for creating the perfect family lunch using canned food. Canned foods can be a great way to cut costs by up to a third, and they offer versatility and convenience.

• Share your tricks for creating the perfect family lunch using canned food in the thread below to be entered into a prize draw
• One lucky MNer will win a £200 voucher for a store of their choice. You can find out more about the VEX gift card and retailers here.
• Don’t forget to vote in our poll below.

Here’s what Love Canned Food has to say:
"Switching to canned food can save families up to 31% on their food bills while still enjoying great-tasting, home-cooked meals, during the school holidays . We aim to show families how easy and tasty canned food can be, while saving up to £160 too over the summer break*."

Share your family’s favourite budget busting meal ideas using canned foods.. One lucky winner will win a handy canned food hamper, plus a £200 voucher for a store of their choice! Let’s make summer lunches easy, affordable, and fun. Ready, set, cook! 🌟🍴

For more inspiration and recipes, check out Love Canned Food here.

Thanks and good luck with the prize draw!
MNHQ
Insight T&Cs apply

Love cannellini beans?
Serves 1
In a frying pan, fry ½ sliced white onion in a little olive oil until soft and translucent. Add 3-4 garlic cloves, finely chopped. Add ¼tsp dried chilli flakes. Add 1tbsp dried parsley. Add the zest and juice of 1 lemon. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Add 2tbsp of water. Drain & rinse a can of cannellini beans add to the frying pan. Mash about 3tbsp of the beans to a pulp and stir into everything else. Heat thoroughly for 3mins. Serve hot with toasted pitta breads.

Love chick peas?
Serves 2
In a frying pan with a fitted lid, fry ½ a sliced white onion in a little olive oil until soft and translucent. Add 1tbsp of ground cumin pepper, season with salt and pepper to taste. Add a large handful of cherry or baby plum tomatoes. Add 1 can of chick peas, drained and rinsed. Add 3-4 'bricks' of frozen spinach and a little water. Place the lid on the frying pan to help the spinach defrost - takes about 4 minutes. Stir occasionally so that all ingredients marry together and the tomatoes heat through and burst, releasing their juices. Serve hot with tortilla wraps.

How do you use coconut milk, I've never used a tin before but notice they sell it in Aldi.

My favourite is a Thai green curry. sometimes I make my own paste but most of the time I use the Ice Kitchen frozen curry paste and follow the recipe on the pack (you can use any ready made paste, but I like this one in particular)

I was torn between tinned fish and pasta, as I use both for cheap filling and nutritious family meals.
Pasta is something I use most of -added to a load of vegetables and a pasta sauce. I think as pasta comes in different shapes, colours and flavours, I can make a different - but same family meal, adding tuna or cubed spam to the pasta dish.
It really is a lifesaver for the school holidays when we don't get FSM.

Canned vegetables can be a quick and easy way of making lunches I find. I always have tinned potatoes, chickpeas, tomatoes, lentils, sweetcorn, spinach can be the base of a great frittata, omlette, mashed into patty's with breadcrumbs and herbs to make veggie cakes. I can whip up a Daal with the lentils to eat with pitta, and as I always have a selection of dried herbs - this makes flavourful food - when the budget is really tight.

Tinned potatoes, drained and tossed in oil and 'roasted' in the air fryer.

I always bulk out with tinned products where I can - add tinned potatoes, carrots, chickpeas, sweetcorn to chilli's or curries

I buy the cheap peach slices in syrup (over third the price of those in juice) and drain and rinse off the syrup. The same principle works for haricot beans - cheap budget baked beans with the sauce rinsed off is a fraction of the price of haricot beans.

A tinned meal staple for me is Jack Monroe's chickpea and peach curry (you'll find the recipe on google)

The cans we go through loads of are tuna steak, baked beans and spaghetti hoops.

Baked beans or spaghetti hoops with toast are easy lunches for the children in the holidays.
I love a simple baked potato with tuna and it's a good one when I'm only cooking for myself.

Leek and Potato Soup.
‐-------
A large sliced leek, a small chopped onion, a medium carrot cut in small batons, a parsnip cut into small batons. Simmer in vegetable stock until tender, tip in a tin of mushy peas (used for flavour and as a thickener) and sliced tinned potatoes. Warm through, stirring to break up the mushy peas.
Season to taste and serve with crusty bread.

You can add a little shredded chicken to turn it into chicken, leek and potato soup.

Ham stock and shredded or cubed tinned ham can be added to make it into pea and ham soup. An extra tin of mushy peas or whole peas can also be added depending on how much you like peas.

Add a beef stock cube and a can of stewed steak at the end, warming through gently, to make beef and vegetable soup.

Canned lentils and pulses can be added for bulk, flavour and additional protein for all three variations. I don't personally use herbs and spices but you can experiment.

Special Rice
‐-------

In a large pot, boil some white rice (how much is up to you but don't go overboard or it will make a colossal amount with too little flavour) till half cooked. Drain and rinse with boiling water in a large sieve.

While rice is part cooking, warm 2 cans of oxtail soup in another pan with a beef stock cube dissolved in a mug of boiling water, a touch of English mustard and a teaspoon of vegetable bouillon, maybe some tomato puree. It doesn't look appetising at this stage to be honest but persevere.

After you have drained and rinsed the rice, place still hot rice into the same big pot and add the soup mixture. Simmer gently stirring frequently with a flat edged spoon or spatula until the rice is fully cooked through. The aim here is to finish cooking the rice so that it can absorb the flavour from your soup mixture. If it becomes too dry add more stock or boiling water so that the rice doesn't catch. When the rice is cooked through, you should have rice that has an unctuous rich meaty coating. Add tinned minced beef and onion and diced vegetables of choice (tinned or precooked fresh or frozen, your choice) and gently heat until hot. Season to taste with ground black pepper. Serve with a dollop of mashed potato. It might sound a little weird but it's really tasty and inexpensive for a large family.

Meat & Potato Pie
------
Take a can of stewed steak, diced potatoes (tinned or freshly precooked), some ready rolled shortcrust pastry.

Stir the stewed steak and the diced potatoes together with a touch of mustard and lots of freshly ground black pepper (to taste). Add a little beef gravy if it appears too dry. Cover with the pastry and bake for approx. 35 minutes on 180c for a quick pie.

I mainly use tinned tomatoes and pulses, but also always keep in tinned fruit. It's such a quick dessert, peaches and custard. Pineapple slices are lovely too, much less hassle than cutting up a fresh one.

Place marking to blatantly steal many of these excellent suggestions

@holsoclock
I actually recommend avoiding the tins and buying the "dry" blocks of coconut cream if you can! It's hard finding tinned milk/cream that isn't lots of filler stuff - I resent paying for that, but the blocks are just pure coconut cream and you can keep opened in fridge for a few weeks or just cut up and freeze.

As it's usually not warm enough in the UK for the block to be liquid form, you chop chunks off. Then dissolve into a pot of curry or soup, or you can blend the chunks with water to make a lighter coconut milk. Don't forget to use up leftovers by blending with tinned or frozen fruit, it makes delicious smoothies! It also makes good overnight oats for easy breakfasts, and my teen DsD likes a bit mixed into instant super spicy curry ramen (the type you make from a cup or packet).

We love vegetable patties with tinned corn, chickpeas, garden peas and mashed tinned potatoes - and a egg - covered in breadcrumbs or crushed spicy Doritos for a kick. Sometimes add tuna or salmon for extra flavour. Make a mayo dip with paprika yum !

Tuna or baked beans. Good with a jacket potato.

I like making veggie chilli's- versatile as you can have with rice or potatoes and a mix of canned beans and tinned tomatoes form the bulk of the ingredients. It's quick, easy and delicious

I make a budget version of a spicy tuna bowl - tinned tuna mixed with sesame oil, soy sauce, sriracha and mayo. I have that in a bowl with some sticky rice and whatever I have in my fridge (mango, pineapple, kimchi, avocado, or frozen edamame beans).
My family also like tinned butter beans cooked down with some tinned tomatoes, lemon, herbs, a dollop of Philadelphia and some spinach stirred through at the end. We have it on baked potatoes or just with bread.

Pasta - comes in so many shapes, and ingredients, gluten free and with wholewheat. I can make a veggie pasta, bolognaise sauce and add to pasta, have tuna pasta, cold pasta added to a salad dish - I think the possibilities are endless, and I can add as much or less 'extras' to suit my children's wishes during the school holidays. I has cost to £5 in pasta, and 11 in mince, veggies (canned and fresh) for the whole school holidays. Thats 50 pence a day !

Mexican Bean Salad

Tinned corn
Tinned mixed beans
Chopped tomatoes
Chopped avocados
Red onion
Chopped peppers
Lime juice
Garlic
Coriander
Salt and pepper

A great side for tacos with a good mix of tinned and fresh veg.

I ate these for several years as student as you can eat them hot (from microwave) in the winter or cold in summer.
So you don't depend on fully blown kitchen.

• Chickpeas, tomatoes, curry on a naan or rice.
• Black beans, pepper and tortilla with mayo.
• Lentil, tomatoes, oregano and bread or pasta.
• Tuna, sweetcorn and pasta or mayo and bread.
• Baked beans on toast or potato.
• Peas and noodles soup.

Above covers six days. One day a week I would eat something nicer. So piece of fried chicken with salad and bread, pasta and ham salad, warmeed up that ready to eaat meatballs in a small pack etc. It was Sunday treat :)

Tarkha Dahl made with tinned chickpeas!

My 15yo son makes himself tomato pasta for lunch several times a week in the summer holidays, and it was my staple meal as a poor student too.
Onion, garlic and whatever herbs and spices he fancies sautéed gently, then add a tin of chopped tomatoes and simmer until thick and saucy. Sometimes he will add some meat if there's bacon or chicken in the fridge, or tinned tuna and sweetcorn. Serve with pasta and lots of grated Parmesan (that's the only expensive bit - but it could be grated cheddar)

Pasta is a food-cupboard staple - I use this at least 2 or 3 times a week during the school holidays for a tasty lunch - that I know they will eat - which is essential when I am trying to keep the household running in the school holidays.
I cook mine with a pasta sauce, tinned tuna and sweetcorn, and tinned cherry tomatoes (out of season), I add chopped peppers and onions which I precook in the wok to ensure that they are soft.

Tinned beans are just the BEST lunch, in a jacket (microwave then airfry) with grated cheese, on toast, with eggs, with a barbecue sauce and grilled sausages for a cowboy tea. We love using pasta many ways too - another cheap nutritious tummy filler.

Veg chill- fry an onion with a green pepper until soft. Add a can of chilli beans . Tin sweetcorn, tin tomatoes and tin of mushrooms. Simmer for 20 minutes. Serve in rice with grated cheese.

Tinned potatoes are great in curry too.

Groundnut Stew

1 tin butter beans
1 tin cannellini beans
1 large onion, chopped
1 scotch bonnet chilli
2 tins chopped tomatoes
2 heaped tablespoons peanut butter

Fry the onion in a tablespoon of oil. Chop the chilli finely, discarding the seeds, and add to the pan. Fry for a few minutes. Tip in the tins of tomatoes, followed by the drained and rinsed beans. Stir in the peanut butter. Simmer until it’s thickened. Season with salt and pepper. Serve with rice.

Favourite tinned food is Chickpeas. They are so versatile falafel, curried, chickpea mayo or my personal favourite is to try and onion add some garam masala, fresh chopped tomatoes, ginger, cumin and chilli flakes if desired and then add the chickpeas and cook for about 10 minutes on a low heat and then add to to a bagel or toast with guacamole or on a sweet potato jacket