Feeding teenage boys on a budget

tumptyteapot

I cook large, nutritious meals and half an hour later he says he is hungry!
He is 13 so I am guessing this will go on for some years yet, how do people cope?

He snacks on cheese and biscuits, broken biscuits and hot chocolate, pretzles etc. at the moment. I need ideas that don't cost much, are not total junk food and that he will eat to keep him going

Soworried

Toast with chocolate spread or peanut butter
Home made pancakes
Soup and bread

Islandmaid

LOL know that feeling had 2 strapping teen boys here who grazed like cow's on top of their 3 square meals. A bit like toddlers, they go through growth spurts :rotfl:

Keep the fruit bowl full and accessible
Bowl of Tuna pasta in the fridge - always
Cheap instant noodles - lots of, to snack on
Make cheap and filling puddings, cupcakes, sponge puddings, whatever they fancy.
Teach him how to make an omelette - and keep a lock and lock box full of grated cheese in the fridge, and how to make pasta - which, for a teen is a food group on its own

Blackbeard_of_Perranporth

Pancakes with orange bits, ice cream! Cheap easy and you can toss them out, pancakes that is!

WantToBeSE

Haha, i feel your pain.

My 16 yr old and 12 year old boys have hollow legs and they can cost a fortune to feed!

They have a fair bit of fruit, but they also like to eat crumpets, pitta breads sliced up, PB&J on toast/crumpets, breakfast cereal, crisps....really anything and everything.

tighteningthebelt

Same here, its not funny when you are a bit skint.
Couple more suggestions...
Omelette with a fair bit of cooked rice in.

A rule to fill up on cheap stuff and finish off with a biscuit, my lad has been cooperative with that, and drinks water first before juice etc. I did have to lay everything out on the worktops and add it up in money to get through to him, but only the once.

I don't buy much junk food, and when it's gone it's gone for the week. Sounds virtuous but it's more driven by economy.

I taught him a range of cheap meals he could do by himself, mostly high carb, at the pasta, jackets, egg fried bread sort of level.

Put pastry on nearly everything!
Never run out of bread!

My best tip would be to cook too much at each meal and put some by ready for microwave later. We use those glass savers with plastic lids that can oven to fridge to microwave... Ours have red lids so are known as 'red tubs' which has become a code word for his between-meal-meals.

It is really hard keeping up with them. My lad does it in phases of a few months at a time, then it sort of slows down for a bit. And he is so very hungry it's hard for him too.

You are not alone!

bossymoo

My 7yr old is like this at the moment.

It's worth considering some higher-protein snacks (nuts, cheese, eggs and so on) as these can help with satiety. Although carby snacks are cheaper, they can get a bit of a blood sugar crash after, increasing the need for more fuel.

Will they have soup as a starter? That can be quite filling too.

Beyond that, if it's baked / bread things they are after, wholemeal is more filling than white. Wholemeal English muffins toasted with marmite or peanut butter. Or a sandwich with wholemeal bread.

Good luck with those growing lads

monnagran

Oh my goodness, that takes me back. I had two of the little blighters with hollow legs and a very tight budget.
Carbs are the way to go.

The top of my list would be bread pudding. Cheap YS bread, suet or Marge, sugar, a couple of eggs, dried fruit and some mixed spice. Not too expensive and the one thing guaranteed to leave a decent interval between foraging expeditions.
If you Google School dinners you will find some good old fashioned pudding recipes that will double up as cheap cakes. Chocolate Crunch, (chocolate concrete), lemon love cake spring to mind. Flapjacks, cheese scones, Victoria sponge are all pretty filling.
If they like something hot I would cook a load of jacket potatoes that they could nuke in the microwave as and when, some grated cheese, baked beans, spag bol mixture could top them and they could also go with pasta.

Hope this helps a bit.

I wouldn't worry too much about the nutritional content of snacks. If their main meals have the required protein and five a day content the snacks are simply fillers. Teenage boys burn off the calories alarmingly quickly. Of course, if you have a supply of cheap fruit and they actually eat it you will be awarded a Good Mummy gold star.

x

Dustyblinds

My DS was exactly the same, still is a hungry Horace but not as bad now he's finished growing.
I found omelettes or frittatas very filling for him, also poached eggs and or beans on toast. Home made soup with oatcakes. Tinned spaghetti or ravioli on toast.
He's also a fan of making extra main meals and keeping himself a small portion to either snack on later or have for lunch the next day if he isn't as uni or work.
We aren't a sweet tooth family but we always have cereal bars on hand for snacks. I would also suggest cereal or plain yogurt with seasonal fruit, maybe keep some frozen berries to add to yogurt.