Meal ideas under £1

BigMummaF

allybee101 wrote: »

How about liver and onions? ....
I think ox liver might be even cheaper but lambs' liver is more tender. I bought British too, there was NZ liver available which might have been slightly cheaper too.

I prefer pigs liver as is is a stronger taste to lambs & ox is stronger still. My grannie used to buy the cheapest & soak it in milk over night before cooking as it helped to tenderise & tone down the flavour...

one2escape

2 quick and easy meals which feeds the 6 of us for £3.50.

Spag Bol

Value Mince 600gs around £2
2 bottles of Tesco Pasta Sauce 40p
Dry Spaghetti Value 20p

Fry off the mince horse in the sauce and then put the spaghetti on.

Turkey Stew

Turkey Leg diced £2
Add whatever you want we usually just add Potatoes and Carrots kids are fussy eaters
Stock Cube chicken

Same as above fry of the turkey add the veggies top up with water add stock cube. This turns out lovely

Nottoobadyet

Cheap meal that is absolutely lush - my work collegues glare at me from over the tops of their £5 bought lunches!

Take a flat topped mushroom (20p or so in the summer, maybe closer to 35p now), fill it with a spoonful of pesto and stick on the grill for 2-3 minutes until the mushroom is done. Stick in a roll and eat with a leafy salad (preferably with homemade vinaigrette - one part each olive oil and vinegar, a crushed garlic clove and freshly ground black pepper), and it will look like you just took it home from the local posh cafe.

lynzpower

Nottoobadyet wrote: »

Cheap meal that is absolutely lush - my work collegues glare at me from over the tops of their £5 bought lunches!

Take a flat topped mushroom (20p or so in the summer, maybe closer to 35p now), fill it with a spoonful of pesto and stick on the grill for 2-3 minutes until the mushroom is done. Stick in a roll and eat with a leafy salad (preferably with homemade vinaigrette - one part each olive oil and vinegar, a crushed garlic clove and freshly ground black pepper), and it will look like you just took it home from the local posh cafe.

Agree! If your not keen on pesto ( im not) a spoonful of philidephia ( Sainsburys basic one is good) and a handful of breadcrumbs, and a smidge of grated cheese if youve got it. This gives a lovely crispy finish and a use for those breadcrumbs you are all saving in a tupperware in the freezer

cottage cheese is also nice in this.

beautiful_ravens

lynzpower wrote: »

...and a use for those breadcrumbs you are all saving in a tupperware in the freezer

:rotfl: :rotfl:how did you know I had tons of breadcrumbs in the freezer that I dont know what to do with?! :rotfl:

I like this thread, I'm now armed with lots of new cheapie meals to try - we are all getting rather sick of our current rotation!!

Wickedkitten

stamppot boerenkool

Its dead cheap and dead easy too. Get some potatoes, chop them, add them to a big pot and add enough water to them to cover, put a lot of curly kale on top of that, then put a smoked sausage on top of the kale then cover and simmer over a medium heat. After about a half hour, take the sausage out, add some pepper, butter, milk and salt, then mash, cut the sausage up and serve it all with some onion gravy.

jbreckmckye

The above benefits from extra garlic and smoked paprika.

Rebekah24

Some great ideas on this thread, I have been having the following a lot, for much under £1!

1 can rice pudding, ASDA Smartprice 18p
1 cuppasoup - less than 10p
Squash - £1 per ltr... works out v cheap
Orange juice - 56p per ltr

"Chilli" - 1 tin lentil/tomato soup -50p, handfull quorn mince, dash of tabasco- less than £1 a serving

amberene

Some really great suggestions, have updated my list to remind me it's easy to not spend a fortune on food. Thanks everyone!

A couple to throw in.

Pate
A couple of people have mentioned liver, and pate is an easy extension from there. You are pretty much cooking some liver and onions and butter and then food processing. There are so many variations, worth a google if that could work for people's lunches. Bit of pate on a roll with some left over cranberry sauce from christmas day? Nom!

Other thing I discovered was cheap by accident is making spring rolls and samosas. You will need to get the filo wrappers, but they are pretty cheap (£2 max) for 50 sheets, from a specialist oriental type shop, we have a cash and carry not too far away. They are sometimes on industrial states and you would never know unless you were on a mission! Google "See Woo".

Spring Rolls
For spring rolls you can decide what's inside to suit, but for me it's a bit of a mince and stir fry mixture (or just veg on its own is obviously fabulous too). Roll up in the filo (just like wrapping christmas pressies!), instructions are on the packet but it's quite easy. Quick deep fry. You might think that would make them very unhealthy, but you would be surprised, I googled calorie content a lot and so long as you have a wad of kitchen towel, it's surprisingly not too bad. I find they are perfect for a quick lunch on the go, bit of a change from sandwiches.

Samosas
I prefer the vegetarian ones, so the mixture is cubed, cooked potato, cooked peas (from frozen) and as much curry powder as you like. I cannot get the knack of making them in triangles, so I end up making them spring roll shaped after a fit of arghhhhh.

So costs, guesstimating highest it could be, £1.50 for 50 wrappers, mince and stir fry veg for spring rolls (£2), potato, peas, curry powder for samosas (£0.75) and (sadly) quite a bit of oil (£0.50). If you make 25 spring rolls and 25 samosas <quick bit of maths> less than 10p each! Personally one samosa will do me for lunch, but boyf would have 2. Though a 20p lunch, not too bad. Oh and they freeze nicely (be careful microwaving them though, they can get searing hot and fall apart very quickly!)

kerrypn

Ingredients

Elmlea Double Cream 74p
Sainsbury's Pasta Shapes Basic 500g 43p (1/2 bag)
Sainbury's Barn Eggs Basics 91p (1 Egg yolk)
Sainsburys Mild Cheddar £1.40
Sainsbury's wafer thin smoked Ham 70g 65p
Salt
Pepper

Total £4.13 Serves 4 (as you will have 1/2 bag of pasta and 5 eggs left-thought that would qualify as £1 per head??)

Cook the pasta until soft.
Grate all cheese and stir into the drained pasta
Chop the ham into strips and stir in to pasta and cheese.
Pour in cream.
Add one egg yolk and stir until combined with the mixture.

Return to the heat until the sauce is thickened.

Add Salt and pepper to taste

Voila-and it tastes lovely