Great 'Best credit crunch work lunch' Hunt: What to make or buy on the cheap.

tootiefrooties

Lightbulbchick wrote: »

homemade butter bean dip - great with oat crackers or RFQS wholemeal bread

Butter bean dip - enough for 10 lunches - 14.8p per meal

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500g butter beans (£0.68 Tescos)
2 crushed cloves garlic (£0.08 Tescos)
250ml yoghurt (£0.39 Tescos)
60 value pitted green olives chopped (£0.32 Tescos)
sprinkle of value herbs + large sprinkle of value pepper (£0.01 Tescos)

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Total --- £1.48 -> 14.8p per meal

1. Soak butter beans overnight
2. Rinse in fresh water. Boil for 10 mins then simmer for 40 mins.
3. Drain. The beans will be very soft. You can mash with a potato masher or blend.
4. When cool add other ingredients and blend.
5. Divide into individual portions and put into pots/freezer bags and put in the fridge/freezer.

Keeps up to a week in the fridge and flavour gets better over time.

That sounds lovely, will have to try it as an alternative to houmous sometime. Thanks!

RoseStevo

My favourite cheapo lunch is Marks & Sparks soup. I know Marks & Sparks for money saving it's crazy! But... They do fresh cartons of soup for £1.99 and for the last year at least it has been buy-one-get-one-half-price so if you stick to the cheaper ones thats £3. Each carton lasts for 2 days and I take a couple of slices of bread from home in each day.

AND it's really tasty

AND some of the soups count as 'one of your 5 a day' yey!

You have to be careful once you've picked up your soups to run to the counter with your eyes closed so you don't pick up any yummy looking cakes!

I've tried some fresh soups from Morrisons and they weren't as nice or as healthy and they were more expensive!

Mr.Generous

Im thrifty - but also a bit lazy. I do sometimes make sandwiches but I also buy a lunch regularly. I work near to a Boots store, with a boots advantage card when you buy a 5 meal deals in a month the 6th is free. Thrifty I hear you say ? - Before I go I ask a few work colleagues if they want anything. I typically buy 3 - 4 meal deals a day. I get the reward points (3 per £ worth 1p each) and I get all the free meal deals. This means a free lunch every other day, sometimes 2 days in a row. When the points are above 600 or so I pay for a couple of meals entirely using the points. I cant be the only tightwad doing this ???

cymro

Loaf of bread from Lidl 45p which has 18 slices giving 3 large sandwices for 3 days. A pot of Luxury Lidl coleslaw covers 6 sandwiches and costs 65pish.

So 3 large sandwiches each day costing a total of 50pish. Day 1 I use foil which I re-use on day 2. Day 3 I use the bag the bread came in to keep overall cost down.

I started doing this when our canteen started charging over £2 for 1 sandwich!

angelflower_2

for me its def soups at the moment (summer is harder). ie. bought a hot cooked chicken the other day. Got four portions of a roast dinner out of it then boiled and the carcass, kept the liquid and stripped off the meat. Bunged in a few carrots, bit turnip, a leak and some celery and then some rice. Made a huge pot of thick v healthy and flavoursome soup. So far it has done 2 teas, 2 lunches and have another 6 portions in the freezer.

I also do the left over chilli etc from the night before. Need smaller tubs for single portions so will store all my butter tubs from now on.

Looking forward to this friday though as I get my free trial of graze with a further 2 weeks 1/2 price. I know I will convert all my workmates too so hoping they come up with some kind of referal deal v soon!!

CreditonJules

A "good value" and healthy meal can be found in Boots (of all places)!

If you have a Boots Advantage card you can get a drink, sandwitch/salad and a sweet for £2.99 and when you buy 5 in one month you get the 6th free! Sometimes the salad on their own costs around £2.80! :j

CreditonJules

serenity34_2

Savoury packet rice can cost as little as 40p ( and often on offer ) and you can easily get 3 lunches out of it - I mix with tinned tuna and / or sweetcorn but you can also chuck pretty much anything in and it's really filling. I make it up at home then you can have it hot or cold at work.

Also, Pasta N Sauce packets are great - again, mix sweetcorn and stuff in and 1 pack will do 2 lunches. This is best reheated.

I too love the end of day supermarket reductions but will definitely be checking out the approvedfood site!

guidarufino

I make soup for lunch in winter. I make a huge batch of it, usually 8 or 10 portions or so, freeze it in freezer bags and bring a portion in each day. Naturally this only works if you have a microwave at work.

My favourites are chicken and veg soup, goulash and 3 bean soup for the veggies. They're all really cheap, healthy, nutritious, filling and warming, especially the goulash. If anyone's interested, I'm more than happy to put up my recipes.

Summer is trickier as I do like salad but that can be quite expensive, unless you grow a lot of your own stuff. I always try to but am limited on growing space and skill! Rocket's usually pretty easy to grow. I'm hoping there won't be many slugs and snails this summer though as I'm hoping this cold winter will have killed the !!!!!!s!

MrsFraggle

I take a combination of leftovers (chilli and rice, bolognese or baked pots if I've made them the night before) to reheat in microwave at work
Sometimes take a tin of soup to heat up and have with homemade bread (I am about to search for homemade soup recipes, haven't had much luck in the past with making my own soup but willing to give it another go - any recommendations!? guidarufino would love to see your recipes especially goulash!)
Hubby takes soup in a flask (no microwave at his work) or sandwiches
Kids usually take sandwiches, vary the fillings, or I'll do pitta breads/wraps with home made flapjacks or a slice of cake if I've made one.
Lots of ideas here though, as would like to vary it a bit but also trying to lose weight!

guidarufino

I think chicken and veg soup is the easiest. Either take the leftover bones and meat from a roast chicken, or just buy some chicken, and boil it like mad for an hour or two until all the meat has fallen off the bones. Season the water well with salt, pepper and whatever mixed herbs you fancy. Leave the skin in for flavour. Then remove the bones, picking off any meat that's left (I love that bit!) and add your veg.

you can add pretty much whatever you like here, except parsnips which overpower the flavour. I usually go for onions, garlic, carrots, celery, leeks and potatoes. Season it generously again, you can even add a stock cube or two if you like and cook gently until the veg are done to your liking. Oh and you can add pearl barley too to bulk it up.