Bulking out Meals?

Mrsbojangles_2

Lentils are excellent for this x

mirakl

When I make a chilli I use 2 tins of tomatos, tons of veg, a tin of kidney beans and a tin of baked beans. It's delicious and creates a huge amount of food so I can freeze it in batches.

KraftyKate_2

Any tinned beans or pulses do the trick, so do tinned tomatoes. Fresh vegetables such as carrots, celery, leeks or shredded cabbage also bulk out a meal. It depends on what you are doing. I make what we call a "Mexican" where I use a small amount of chicken and chopped bacon but pad it out with loads of vegetables. Home made Minestrone soup is also a good bet, you can use spagetti broken into 1" pieces towards the end of cooking (about half an hour before the end) and it really bulks up the food to the extent I have to add more stock.

ChocClare

I'd also go for lentils, but if you're making a tomato-based sauce, eg for bolognese or lasagne or shepherd's pie and you've got a decent food processor, then don't just limit yourself to carrots.

There was a thread on here a while back about disguising vegetables, and it really works: get your veg out of the fridge - that last handful of beans, mushrooms, peppers, courgettes, whatever you want to use up. Whoosh them up in the food processor with onions and grated carrot until they are a paste, more or less. Then fry them GENTLY the same way you would soften onions and carrots before adding the mince/tomato sauce. A great way of getting your kids to eat things they wouldn't normally touch with a bargepole (mine would rather die than eat mushrooms), gets you an extra portion of your five a day, and bulks out your sauce. Add your extra spoonful of lentils, and it'll all go much further.

If you're not making a mince/tomato sauce thing, but more of a "chunky" meat thing, then it depends what you're doing. Left-over chicken dishes - eg curry or something with a white/cheese sauce - can be bulked out with extra vegetables actually in the sauce. If it's chicken in a cheesy sauce, you could wrap it in pancakes, pour extra sauce over the top and add grated cheese, then heat through in the oven - very filling, and you don't need much chicken. Baby corn (special offer from Lidl or Tesco's value baby corn cut in chunks) tastes much better mixed in with chicken in this way than it would as a side vegetable.

Similarly, if it's a casserole-type thing, you can add loads of veg, potatoes and HM dumplings.

If you have whole (small) fillets of chicken, meat or fish, then you can make them look bigger and taste bigger (!) by putting them in a plastic bag (or between sheets of clingfilm), bashing them thin and then dipping in first flour, then egg, then HM breadcrumbs before frying off. If you have cuts of pork then you can make ersatz Wiener Schnitzel by bashing, dipping in flour and egg and then coating in Tesco's sage and onion stuffing mix (21p per packet, if I'm not mistaken). This gives a nice crunchy coating and fills them up nicely.

I'll think of some more in a minute if you're not careful!

billieboy_2

Turnip and swede are good diced up small (bit like potatoes but not so fattening ).

Rachie_B

if making soup i add pasta or lentils and whatever veg ive got also make some dumplings to go in aswell
also add dumplings to stews / casserole ,really easy and filling too

with lasagne / bolognese / chilli etc i add finely chopped celery / carrot / courgette / mushrooms etc or could grate instead also lots of tinned chopped toms / pulses

with a creamy type pasta sauce, leeks / red onion / handful of spinach / mushrooms is nice then i add just a little bacon / chicken / pancetta

Pooky

Breadcrumbs will pad out most mince dishes - I put them onto lasagne and pasta backs too for a crunchier topping.

KK

Like cous cous, buy it dried from any supermarket and a handful added to spag bol or chilli made with minced beef is excellent - it takes about 15 min to cook. Some people also use porridge oats - never tried this though. Finely chopped carrot is excellent added to spag bol, along with pepper and mushrooms.

I also use bulghur wheat as a base for salad (like a rice salad) and it is lovely - can also be used for things like stuffed peppers.

Gentleman_of_leisure

After you've bulked out by adding (hidden?) vegetables, lentils, rice, or whatever you might consider padding out with pastry or suet.

Lift chunky bits out of your stew/soup/casserole (or ladle through on a sieve) and put them into a pie or under suet for a cobbler or in a roly poly. Whizz any remaining solids into the liquids you have left to use as a gravy when serving up.

It doesn't hurt to have bread and butter on the table too to either eat alongside the meal or use for mopping up gravy. Not very slimming, I know, but certainly filling and bulking out meals. We always had bread and butter on the table when I was a kid and I must admit I seldom do it these days - but then, I'm not quite as thin as I was. :-)


This is my first post, btw, though I've been lurking for ages, and I disclaim all responsibility for increasing waistlines.

Hi, everyone :-)

nickij_2

What ingredient do you most use to 'bulk' out meals, to save money?
I thought it would be a good way of swapping recipes and ideas.
Recently, my favourite ingredient for versatility and bulking out meals has been peppers. ATM I am paying about £1.40 for 7 peppers, which I then use to bulk out stews, rice dishes, pizzas, pasta dishes, salads and to nibble on as snacks. It also has the advantage of making up our '5 a day'.:A
I'm just making a chicken fried rice for 2 adults and 2 children (who eat lots!) which has only 2 chicken breasts but lots of rice, peppers, sweetcorn(another favourite bulking ingredient), peas and a couple of eggs.
What do you use?