What's the best sort of food to keep in the fridge for teenage raiders?

[Swanhilda]

I mean there's cheese, and there's ham. But how can I feed lots of greedy teenagers and pre-teens who are constantly helping themselves to snacks, cheaply and nutritiously. Friends included?

This may sound like a very obvious question to the initiated, but I'm used to just providing meals rather than endless snacks and the fruit bowl is always empty in seconds..

I very rarely buy biscuits but only because mine eat them by the packet and it's just not healthy. May be once every six weeks I might buy a packet and we have a tin at Christmas.

'I can't imagine a household in Britain where biscuits are a rarity.'

Thank you, we pride ourselves on not being conventional.
It's an easy way to cut down on absent-minded calorie consumption.

Too many biscuit monsters in this house we try to avoid buying them. Occasionally buy a pack of individual 100 x2 packs from cash & carry but mostly prefer to make batches of flapjacks and homemade cakes anything homemade is better than packaged and processed and cheaper.

Crisps.
Cheese
Bread, loads of bread.
Those part bake baguette things.
On Sunday I cook an enormous pot of pasta, and mix it with shredded chicken, bacon, mayo and sweetcorn which will last about 3 days
Cereal. Lots of cereal.
Crackers
Cherry tomatoes
Cheese slices
Cake. But proper cake, big cake otherwise they will eat an entire packet of mini rolls in 6 seconds
Ds1 likes yoghurt and granola mixed together
Dd likes strawberries, blueberries and pineapple mixed with natural yoghurt
Cereal bars

I honestly do not know how on earth people with teenagers spend £50 a week on food either. I think ds1 eats £50 of snacks by himself in under a week.

Bread.
Bacon
Pasta
Noodles
Cereal

Oh yes and cake.

bacon. lots and lots of bacon, waffles as well

This is hilarious.
I thought there was something wrong with my children or my meals because they were always trying to make snacks; I see now it is normal for teenagers to eat loads!! Homemade biscuits and cake is a fantastic tip and the big bowls of pasta to reheat or mayonnaisey salads.

We've given up having casual juice in the house or packets of biscuits, or things like salami as it is too £££. Juice is now for breakfast only or a treat after school, but three cartons of juice in the fridge would be gone after a day when the kids help themselves.

Thanks god for this thread. I was feeling like a wastrel for spending so much on food. My teenager is permanently hungry and snacks are so expensive. I wish I still had my sandwich toaster or those bags that go into each toaster.

Absolutely no juice smoothies or biscuits here. They would be gone in an afternoon. Baking is the best. Weigh 2 eggs, cream equivalent amount of sugar, stork marg and flour, then add the beaten eggs. Add a pulverised half bar of cooking chocolate. Bake in muffin tins for 15 mins. Mine eat these almost everyday and can now make themselves

absent-minded calorie consumption Ha ha as if calorie consumption was an issue to 6'2" 10 stone teenage boys.
sadsometimes I forgot about pitta breads. Split, spread with tomato puree and sprinkle grated cheese then pop in microwave or toaster.

I think cereal and milk makes a good snack - it's quick and cheap and there is only one bowl to wash up. I have stopped buying fruit juice as it all goes on the day of purchase - they have to drink squash now.

I don't have boys but when DD has groups of friends over that include boys I am astonished at how much they can eat, and I think DD eats a lot. You just can't fill boys up. I tend to do pizzas with jacket potatoes and salad (lettuce, tomato and cucumber) for the groups that need feeding. I buy a couple of long French loaves and cut them into pieces and butter the ends and put that out too in case the boys are still hungry. In case...

The year DS grew from my height to taller than DH was the worst - well maybe 18 months - but he literally grew 9 inches in a very short space of time. Hasn't grown for two/three years now and neither has dd so I think it's easing off a bit. They're 18 and 15.

Mine eats chicken noodles.
Half baked baguettes, cooked obviously! Filled with tuna.
Egg fried rice.
Cereal.
Bacon rolls.
Cornish pasties.
Quiche.
As snacks on top of meals.

Not sure if anyone's mentioned large potatoes for jackets in microwave.
DD1 (16) always wants there to be ingredients available to make cookies. - so butter, eggs, flour, sugar, chocolate
DD2 ((11) loves rice, so we have a microwave steamer that cooks it to perfection in 12 mins.

Also for jacket fillings and/or mixing with rice
tinned or frozen sweet corn.
Tuna
Ham
Bacon
Mushrooms
Cheese

Curd snacks or penguin bars, muesli bars

cheap frozen pizza
noodles-not supernoodles just plain ones to which is added lashings of soy sauce
bacon, lots of bacon
never throw away left over rice/pasta/potato wedges etc as will usually be consumed with cheese grated on it later

Three teens here. Year 10 son 6ft 3.

We do most of the above, including biscuits .

Also banana bread a fair bit.

Aldi 17p noodles but without the nasty sachet added- they use salt and pepper and soy sauce or sesame oil. It's like pot noodle but cheaper and healthier

Lots of bread from the bread-maker- 50p a large loaf.

Cheese and biscuits go down well.

I tend to cook a couple of chickens once a week. They have some for a meal, the rest in the fridge for snacks. I use the leftovers for chicken soup.

That's the boys.

DD, more weight conscious, also likes:

Canned tuna with low cal Mayo.

Heaps of hard boiled eggs.

Fruit jelly made in small ramekins.

The microwave steamer is a great idea.

I had 2 teenage DDs and thought they ate quite a bit, but when they had male friends round I was so shocked at how much they ate.

It must cost a fortune having teenage boys.

My girls loved things like humous or cheese and crackers, soup, toast, cake etc.

Another house here who rarely has biscuits. I don't like them and the dc would just eat the whole packet in one go.

I forgot plain noodles, then fry a corner of a stock cube in a bit of oil and add some soy. Mix.

Another of dd's favourites is fruit bread - just remembered that. She also loves jelly and when I can be bothered I make a big jelly with two packets of cubes and it rarely lasts more than 36 hours.

Married, I have to hide the jelly, or they eat the cubes raw.

The fridge? Not the FRIDGE?! The fridge becomes almost useless in the teenage years, because the fridge contains FRESH food >gulp!< and food that requires >sharp intake of breath< cooking!

Snacking staples for my teenage sons include instant noodles, cereal, toast, toastable waffles, bananas, apples, pizzas, baked beans, tinned rice pudding, and bacon sarnies (ds1) or hummus sarnies (ds2).