Cheap Meal Ideas

Wow...thanks for all the great ideas! 

I cook whole chickens quite a bit and use lots of leftovers.  We usually just eat the meat one day, hubby will use some for sandwiches later, I'll use some in my salads, I'll make chicken salad with some, etc.  I seriously NEVER throw away left over food (unless it's the little bit left on the plate).  I've checked out some of the other links and taking some of your suggestions...plus checking out the groceries on offer and adjusting our meals around that.  My grocery list is now £61 (and I've worked out 13 evening meals plus about 6-7 lunches...not including things like sandwiches or homemade soups) whereas it's usually around £110 so I'm very proud of myself so far!!

I love this idea! I never really knew you could freeze cheese. I'm going to use this tip for sure.

I find it stops husbands from eating large chunks of cheese from the fridge when you're not looking .  And apparently you tend to use less on sandwiches (like cheese toasties) if it's grated, but I've never tested this theory by weighing the difference or anything.

Also with cheese - spend the little extra on a mature cheddar (rather than mild), as you'll use less since the taste is stronger.

Wow...thanks for all the great ideas! 

  My grocery list is now £61 (and I've worked out 13 evening meals plus about 6-7 lunches...not including things like sandwiches or homemade soups) whereas it's usually around £110 so I'm very proud of myself so far!!

Wow that is really good! I'd be damn proud of myself if I did that. 

A lot of food for thought, so to speak. Some of the links are ace. Thanks for the thread. I know there are old threads but it doesn't hurt to bring some things back to the surface.

Potato top pies. The underneath can be whatever you have to hand, leftover veggies, cheap fish or whatever. My favourite is brown lentils cooked with onions and herbs in a thick gravy. Mmmmmn. 

Another good website, http://www.beyondbakedbeans.com (or .co.uk ).  It's targeted to poor students, but they really do have some good recipes for all on there.  I've stolen many that have now become staples in our household!

Other suggestions from our house that can be done on the cheap - french toast and a Spanish dish called pisto (tomato based with other veg-y stew like).  We always eat the pisto with a few eggs added to it.

Also, if you are going to last minute shop - I find that going in and having a look at the reduced for sale today items can result in a quick and inexpensive diner choice if you are flexible. 

Another good website, http://www.beyondbakedbeans.com (or .co.uk ).  It's targeted to poor students, but they really do have some good recipes for all on there.  I've stolen many that have now become staples in our household!

Ohhhh I'm going to have to check that website out!

Can give you some samples of my monthly meal plans to give you ideas...though they tend to not be overly glamorous!!

Yes please!!!

I do this too (to a degree)...but I'm getting sick of my usual rotation. I would love to see what one or two of your weekly plans look like.

Maui, I've just picked a couple random weeks as examples:

Sat   lasagne
Sun   roast chicken (freezing leftover chicken)
Mon   jacket potatoes w/ cheese sauce
Tues   sweet & sour chicken (use 1 portion of chicken leftover from Sunday)
Weds   spinach lentil soup with homemade bread
Thurs   cottage pie
Fri   frittata

Here's another:

Mon   mussels & pasta
Tues   chicken curry (using leftover chicken from an earlier roast)
Wed   toad in the hole
Thurs   tuna pasta bake
Fri   sweet onion & bread soup
Sat   sweet chili tofu noodles

I buy on a monthly cycle, so it's a bit hard to gleem how I 'recycle' things from just posting the odd week, but for instance a package of sausages is designed to last 2 meals, a roast chicken will supply around 4 meals, a batch of tomato sauce + mince will do 4 meals, etc etc.  I'll usually also make a big veggie curry at the beginning of the month that will do 2 meals + 2 lunches.  There's a zillion things you can do!

Mahalo Aless!!

I can already see a few in there I totally plan on ripping and putting into one of my menus.

I was also taking a look at that moneysavingexpert website you mentioned earlier. Holy crap! That menu/grocery planner excel spreadsheet is the bomb diggity!  Talk about a powerful tool.  

Maui - I regularly poach ideas from the Weekly Plans thread on the Old Style board of MSE.  It's great for seeing what other people are eating!

Thanks so much for the tip about checking MSE.  My husband and I just moved out of his parents' house about a month ago so we're quickly running out of meal ideas, especially on a budget.

The spreadsheet they have listed is freaking incredible.  All of the macros and cell equations are entered already, and even a few recipes, so it's so simple to pick the day of the week, pick the meal, and it will automatically display a list of ingredients you'll need.

Also, their list of meal plan recipes (3rd post down) gave me so many good ideas.

That combined with being able to check ASDA's and Tesco's prices online (we don't have a car and worked out that paying £3 or £3.50 for delivery is the same price as the bus and so much more convenient) has made me a really happy camper.

Thank you, thank you again. 

I'm the queen of cheap meals, especially because we don't have any big supermarkets out here, only a smallish Morrison's and an even dinkier Co-op.

I tend to make a roast dinner and a big pot of soup every Sunday, to set us up for the week.

Today, I took an entire packet of streaky bacon I needed to use up as my sort of bedrock for a soup.

I fried all 16 of those rashers. 

The night before, I'd soaked 2 cups of Scotch broth mix and brought up 1.5ltr of chicken broth from the freezer that I'd made from a roast chicken the week before (I make it on Mondays, usually).

Come 5PM, I chucked a bunch of veg about to go off into a food processor to slice.  Fry it in a bit of oil.  Add in the rashers, the defrosted broth, the Scotch broth mix and a bit of garlic and seasoning.  Bring to the boil, simmer about 45mins.

Bob's your uncle!  Soup to go with your 'sangwiches' as DD1 calls them, for the week.

Any leftover rice?  Blitz up veg about to go off, a tin of beans drained and rinsed and an egg.  Make into wee balls or patties, dust in breadcrumbs made from the heels of a bread loaf or bread about to go off and fry in a bit of oil.  Tea's up!

There are 5 of us and we spend about £50 on shopping including sundries like loo roll and washing powder if needed.

Get a food processor and a slow cooker.  You can use them to blitz up veg and bits of meat to make into sandwich fillings.

Scour Ebay or classified for a chest freezer if you're in a rural or semi-rural area and do big shops once a month.  It's worth the extra power to run in such cases, especially if takeaways involve costly delivery charges or using your car.

My other trick is to check out recipe books from the library.  Scan what you want into your computer, then you don't have to buy the whole book (handy if you move a lot, too).

I never meal plan.  I'm too fickle for that and it's just another plate to spin on top of everything else.  Instead I keep a storecupboard that's more than ample for spinning quick, nutritious and inexpensive meals.

Sat   sweet chili tofu noodles

I'd love the recipe for this!  I think my daughter would like it.

For those who might like to read the Budget Pantry Challenge thread:
http://talk.uk-yankee.com/index.php?topic=39493.0