What have you substituted to save money?

chinagirl

I was looking to buy some diced chicken to do a curry for 4 people tonight in my local Lidl. The price £2.99. I then picked up a bag of Quorn chickenlike peices, the price £1.19. " Weeeell" I thought to myself, "could I get away with it?"
I went home and cooked up the curry using the Quorn and a jar of Lidl Balti sauce, and the result was delicious. One of my sons asked me what I was cooking and looked in the pan. "Chicken curry!" I said. "Oh goody" he said.
The resulting clean plates told me I HAD got away with it.
Not only had I saved almost a third in money, the Quorn is packed with protein, so I had not compromised on nutrition either. :T

Kittenkirst

I tried substituting some of my mince for soya mince- used it in lasagne and was delicious :0) going to try half n half & half next time. Money saving & healthy too :0)

Flibsey

lol well done!!!
I substitute dairy in things a lot as we're a lactose intollerant family.

tessie_bear

good one...im going to try that myself

Memory_Girl

OK so this one is a little tongue in cheek - but substitute chicken at £2.99 for 2 tins of red kidney beans at 19p each. Saving £2.61!!

Actually DS1's favourite curry.

MG

mummyroysof3

ive started using quorn just recently and we really like it

roobers_2

Must go over to Lidl if they're doing Quorn that cheap...

adelight

Subbing quorn/soy is a good move, but not all the time. Do note that whilst quorn still has protein, it has much less than chicken for the same weight. Also there are a lot of negative effects in males linked to excessive soy consumption.
Vegetarians and soy lovers, please don't get mad, but people do need to consider all the possiblities when deciding what to feed to their families.

You can make it even cheaper by making your own curry sauce (in bulk, i'm sure someone even knows how to bottle it too!). If you like the value stuff then you can thin your own down with water and add corn flour to replicate it.

prettypaula

i agree adelight, there are many studies looking into soy and the way its heavily processed actually making it carcenogenic.

turkey is cheaper than chicken for another idea

lisakay_2

I'm a veggi myself and I only occasionally use quorn and other meat substitutes. There is protein in it, but like another poster has said it has less weight for weight and it's a different 'quality' so to speak. iirc it's less complete than real meat. It's recommended that us veggies eat a big variety of protein foods to get the full amount of all the amino acids eg. beans, lentils, eggs, soya.

after looking into all that kind of stuff i decided not to bring my kids up veggi, because of the volume of food they would have to eat to get complete nutrition. (although i'm not saying it's not possible;)).

if you're going to replace/part replace meat in meals more than just occasionally i would throw in a hanful of lentils/beans as well.

p.s. you got a good deal on the quorn there. i find it to be really expensive normally:)

eta: sorry, i realise i've waffled on a bit. hope i've made sense!!

gailey_2

I like quorn but hubby does not and would be able to tell difference its absolute emergancy food for him which we keep in freezer.

simple curry sauce

chop up onions add either sliced ginger or garlic
whole chillis optional remove once cooked just adds heat
fry with quorn or chicken
add tin chopped tomatoes or passata
salt and pepper
dried or fresh corander
1table spoon or more of curry powder they sell it mild, med or hot

I have bulked out mince with red lentils and hubbys not been able to tell

also he hates cabbages but rather silly last year grew 6
they were huge dident want them to go waste.
kids dont like cabbage either

anyway white cabbage very finely chopped combined with chopped white onion almost passes as onion which went in

curry, lasagne, shepards pie and bolanaise and he dident notice.
he was annoyed when told him and maybe windier than usual:rotfl:

My kids cookbooks say puree veg and combine with passatta so they get the nutrition of they need.

have done veg curry when really skint with frozen veg.