Any ideas for quick, healthy and cheap meals

scotgirl

Lentils and beans make great soups, chillis and stews - they are low in fat and very very cheap and filling. There is heaps of recipes on this site if you have a browse/

melaniec_2

kedgeree is cheap and you can have many meals from it. Also low fat.

smoked Haddock, poached in the microwave with enough water to cover I also put some lemon juice on the top of the cling film to prevent smells.

then cook rice with an onion in veg stock add the flaked haddock once cooked and keep adding water / stock until rice is cooked. Add some cooked peas and serve with hard boilled eggs which really make a difference.

I can get at least 4 meals from this, you could fill up by serving with bread.

EagerLearner

Hi all - I want to improve our meal plans - right now they are something like:

- Salmon, cous cous, salad
- Spag bol
- Pork fillets, rice, vine leaves
- Quiche and salad
- Roasted chicken leg, marroccan cous cous, vine leaves
- Tuna pasta salad

I think this is healthy and our aim is to spend no more than £120 a month for 2 of us, generally it's more like £130.

I want to reduce this spend but not eat beans on toast/sausages & mash/cheese on toast etc as they are not so healthy and are also heavy meals for summer.

Last week I went to local market and got loads of veg, roasted them and made cous cous with roasted veg for lunches but the veg cost quite a bit so now I am despondent... try to be healthy but it's so pricey!

Any ideas?

lynzpower

hi EL

the reason why your bills seem to be so high, are you buying seasonal?

Stuff like vine leaves of course are expensive in any case.

Could you make light summer soups for lunches?

Pasta salads are cheap as well and filling

Im not too sure why you are spending so much here- could you do abreakdown of what you bought & how much it cost?

Fivenations

One way would be to eat less meat - I try to alternate meat and veggie meals. And when you do have meat cut back on portion size - 2 to 3 oz of animal protein is usually enough. You can pad it out with pulses. 500g of lean mince makes enough bolognese to feed 8 Italian style (not drowning in sauce and paiired with a good quality pasta followed by a salad) and freezes very well.

You could cook a whole chicken and get 3 or more meals from it.

Find a friend with a grapevine in their garden!

Dals, minetrone, pasta fagioli - all cheap and can be packed with extra veg.

I use lots frozen veg when my hands play up - nothing wrong with that and reduces waste.

EagerLearner

Hi guys,

Well here's an idea of what I got from Tesco for the 'big shop' for April - I then top up weekly locally:

Flora light 500g £0.97
Tesco low fat hazelnut yoghurts x 4 - £0.14 each
Tesco German Salami 125g £0.87
Tesco Pomegranate juice 1ltr x 2 - £1.29 each (special treat as we don't normally get any juice at all)
Roquefort cheese 100g £1.38 (special treat to go with pears as a salad)

Tesco value plum tomatoes x 6 - £0.19 each
Tesco butter beans 420g £0.40
Tesco chick peas 400g x 2 - £0.40 each
Tesco tuna chunks in brine x 4 £1.97
Tin of Vine leaves with rice in brine x 2 - £1.27 each (may seem expensive but one tin does 2 dinners for both of us, we use these instead of salad sometimes)
Tesco pear halves in juice 410g £0.41 (special treat to go with roquefort cheese as a salad)
Tesco longlife semiskimmed milk x 12 litres £6.16
Tesco vegetable stock cubes 110g (10 cubes) £0.72
Dried apricots (to add to plain cous cous) 250g £0.99
Tesco fruit & fibre cereal 750g £1.45
Nestle clusters cereal 435g x 2 - £ 1.29 each (only got as special deal)
Tesco smooth peanut butter 454g £0.79
Tesco low cal tonic water x 4 litres £1.29
Bold crushed silk powder 30 wash 2.85kg £5.57

That is it from Tesco, then weekly I sometimes buy:

Butchers:

Pork x 4 or 5 fillets - 3 packs for £5
Lean mince 1kg for around £3.80
Chicken legs - around 8 big ones for £3.99

Veg market:

Tomatoes, cucumber, carrots, potatoes, sweet potatoes, bananas, avocados etc
Eggs - 6 for £0.49p


Local Sainsburys as it's closest and we have no car:

- Bread
- Cheese
- Sandwich meat
- Quiche
- Salmon side for around £4.50 which yields 3 dinners for both of us
- Pasta (only when I forget to get it on the Tesco order, like this month!)

and those sort of things.


Average £40-£50 with Tesco early in the month for staple/heavy items and then £20 a week on local items.

Yesterday I got 2kg of spaghetti at Sainsburys for £0.80 something pence, so that should last a while.

Just feeling uninspired and I don't want to get bored with the food we are having, equally well want to spend less and not eat unhealthily. I am ok with the spend at the mo but of course would be better if it could be reduced. I find it easier to batch cook in winter as you can do chilli / spag bol / stews etc, in summer it is harder...

Also OH eats cheese & salami sandwiches which isn't healthy but is easy, need some help there!

Any ideas? Thanks in advance...

Jayar

We cut our budget quite drastically when we decided to eat meat only on alternate days. So we have a meat meal one day and then perhaps something like cauli cheese or HM soup or veg stir fry etc the next.
It's getting so that we are beginning to enjoy the non meat meals better than the meat ones.

EagerLearner

The thing is we do alternate - fish twice a week, meat 3 times say and then veg twice, but maybe will try meat twice and veg three times.

Any inspiring ideas for veggie meals that are healthy? I love cauli cheese but doubt it's that healthy reeeeeeally, plus does it fill you up? x

Pink.

EagerLearner wrote: »

Any inspiring ideas for veggie meals that are healthy? I love cauli cheese but doubt it's that healthy reeeeeeally, plus does it fill you up? x

Hi EagerLearner,

Have you had a look at Ginghams vegetarian menu planner for Spring? Loads of ideas there.

Pink

lynzpower

Why not get hold of a weightwatchers 1-2-3 success recipe book? Ive had some cracking recipes out of them and they are nice & light. Also Ive usd hip& thigh diet recipes as well. Im not on the diet, but OH has high cholestrol and they are good as they arre low in all fats and light and summery to boot.

MOroccan veg casserole is basically a load of med veg ( courgettes, peppers, onoin, mushrooms etc) with a tin of chopped toms and a tespoon of cumin simmered ( reheats well, god in jackets too) serve with plain couscous. also you dried apriicots- check they are cheaper in the baking aisle than in the "ingredients bit".

Mushroom stroganoff with rice or in a yorkshire pudding -drool-

Loads of light soups. strifrys.

Dot forget your humble egg, do spanish omelettes, again good with salad or jackets for the summer

In the summer I am pretty much boiling so I always go for this sort of combo, something with salad/ jacket. be it home made burger, or a marinaded bit of chicken. tonight we having a HM ciabatta with stirfried turkey, salad, and a bit of bacon.

DO you have a garden there are things you can grow yourself easily, spinach rocket, salad leaves tomoatoes. You can grow these on a windowsill as well . We are doing climbing beans & mange tout & courgettes as well ( in pots & gro bags) and will be doing broccoli ( not that i like it but OH does) and looking to get some mushroom spores and grow those too.