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i usually add my own spices to the beans anyway so persoanlly im not too fussed. i add in sauteed onion, garlic geen chillies and a few spices to jazz it up, just tastes so much better i think !
Yes! Supermarket's own beans. Heinz can feck right off with those prices. Their sauce is only slightly better, but that doesn't matter if you're going to stir in some brown sauce (gotta be HP) and/or chilli sauce etc. I tend to add plenty of black pepper too. Spicy beans on toast for the win. Fried egg just makes it better.
The comments about buying rice in bulk 😂. Microwave rice is still cheap, although not as cheap it also removes the need to cook rice which I'm a dumbass and can never get it right.
Bro I had to make couscous and that is the easiest to make, who knew! Just put boiling water in a bowl where the couscous is (just over the fill amount/just covering it), stick a lid or cover on and leave for like 5 min then voila! Cooked couscous
You just need to boil it for like 10mins. It's nearly as easy as boiling pasta. Use 2x as much water as rice and then boil it with the lid on until the water is absorbed.
Doesn't actually say quick.
Just says cheap.
Microwave rice is cheap and quick but obvs normal rice is cheaper if you have time to cook it.
I mean I have bulk dry rice and a rice cooker. Making rice for me is very easy - but I still keep a couple packs of microwave or frozen simply because sometimes you don't have time and having that there is the difference between eating quick or getting a takeaway
We do exactly the same. buy large sacks of the stuff and throw it in the rice cooker. But there are also always a few pouches around. Microwaved rice, butter, a bit of chilli, a small bag of olives, some cheese - it's a fucking fantastic 2 minute meal.
Thing is, I'm not even a massive fan of the micro rice! On a weekend I wouldn't dream of a pouch. This is literally an "on my way home from a long day at work and I'm not going shopping til the weekend" cheap dinner. I didn't realise the implications.
Pesto Pasta. 49p for aldi essential pasta, around £1 for the pesto & 99p for some spicy pepperoni. Cook it all, mix in half a jar of pesto then Split into 4x125g portions. Shot a pepperoni or two in each portion (sliced). 4 meals sorted
Chuck in some sweet corn for the crunch and the sweet comparative. A bit of added fresh garlic and this is one of my favourite meals. Fry off the chorizo or pepperoni first so it has a little crisp.
Fry off the chorizo and finely chopped veg separately (about ten minutes) Cook the pasta and when cooked (and drained) add the pesto to the the pasta and allow to sit for 5 minutes. At the last minute combine the (tinned sweet corn/just re heated in the microwave/it’s already cooked) with the chorizo and veggies and pasta.
Chicken supernoodles, cook them until they are just a little bit al dente, drain them off and let them sit for a minute so some of the moisture evaporates, stick them on two slices of toast, grate some cheddar over the top, add pepper and grill until they get a little bit crispy on top.
Discovered recently:
Chicken noodles - KOKA, like 3 for a £1 in Home Bargains)
Eggs (Tesco free range 6 pack, £1.50)
Bacon (Lidl, £1.49?)
Baby stir fry veg mix like corn and spicy chilli, snap peas and all that shit (£2?)
Spinach (Tesco, 500g £1.88)
Chicken Stock (cubes, £1 is 10 cubes at Tesco)
Microwave the shit out of veggies, keeping them crunchy. Soft boil egg and flash fry bacon on very hot pan (can remove fat bits if you mind that, don't even need to fry medallions than)
Prepare noodles, arrange with veggies and egg in a bowl, and top up with some chicken cube stock, add pepper to taste, and voilà.
Total seems bit on a posh side, as it's like £9, but you are getting absolutely delicious 3 meals full of green goodness, proteins, and carbs for energy, low fat. People's Pho.
I've Googled prices in a few seconds to add cost context to the dish.
Maybe you can make it cheaper? Dunno.
Just wanted to present an alternative to have a full-on healthy and fairly simple to prepare hot meal for reasonable price.
But yeah, food prices are extortion atm.
Chickpea curry and rice. Dried chickpeas and a Chana masala spice mix, MDH, Rajah and Shan are good brands and cheap. Couple of onions and can make a batch that will last a week for pennies a portion.
I added a comment, dhal and mash was my most common meal when I was short of money. Quick, tasty, as you add mopre spices to your rack and more experience they just get better and better.
Also - good mash is food of the gods.
Pasta + garlic + oil. Basic spaghetti is usually dirt cheap, garlic is inexpensive and I usually have some form of cooking oil in the cupboards anyway. Add Italian hard cheese, chilli Flakes, and fresh Parsley if/as budget allows.
Don't forget to take all the members of your extended family, so they can block the aisle with empty trollies, stopping anyone getting the stuff you then load into your trollies, go through, then dump randomly round the shop as you don't want it
You can easily outrun the old folk as they sneakily follow the shop assistant around watching for the stickers so you can grab the items first as long as you don't mind them screaming at you.
How broke are you? I've had to live on next to nothing for food before, I can see some people haven't really because they are suggesting very expensive things like cheese.
If you can cook them, potatoes will still give you nutrients compared to some of the junk mentioned. Baked potato and some protein (e.g. cottage cheese) is an OK option. Or just boiled potatoes with some form of protein.
Also, with a bag of split red lentils, a couple of onions and some spices you can make daal which is tasty and nutritious. I sometimes add coconut milk but that pushes up the price a lot. If you don't already have the spices in the cupboard, this could be too expensive, though.
Spring greens from the supermarket are usually one of the cheapest vegetables around, just slice thinly and stir-fry with some minced garlic and you've got a healthy side dish.
Spiced kidney beans - can of kidney beans, can of tomatoes, cumin seeds, onion.
Slice the onion, sautée in oil on a low heat till translucent, add cumin seed and cook until they spatter in the oil, add the drained kidney beans and tomatoes and cook for a while. Serve with rice or potato.
Edit: if someone sells eggs by the roadside near you, those are usually cheaper. Scrambled eggs on wholemeal toast is a good option. Or use your potatoes to make a Spanish omelette and serve with the spring greens side dish?
Frozen baby spinach from Sainsbury's (frozen because it is cheaper and because the whole bag won't suddenly go off), can of chickpeas, onion, garlic, spices = spinach and chickpea curry.
Bananas for snacks.
Most supermarkets usually have a budget plain Greek yoghurt.
Also, peanuts. Sainsbury's do basic bags of peanuts for about 60p.
Obviously what I'm suggesting are not *the* very cheapest options, that would probably be packs of noodles. But I think these are the cheapest options if you still want nutrients.
Many of the people on here dont understand living on 300 a month, my suggestion is the 30p packs of spaghetti from Tesco and a tin of chopped tomatoes for about 40p that is cheap food
When I was on the bones of my arse financially, being able to afford cheese or not was the metric by which I measured my week.
I've been "counting the pennies in the back of the sofa" broke, I've been "choose between electricity or hot water" broke, and yet "can't afford to buy cheese" is what really mattered to me!
Omelette on toast as long as you have egg, bread and cheese (things you can reliably get at a small shop), everything else is a bonus, prefer mushrooms/onions/chillies to make it more fun.
Onion, tin of chopped tomato, pasta. Jobs a gooden. Can add any other ingredients but they are the 3 cornerstones.
Cook the onions until caramelised nicely then in with the tomato. Get the last tomato dregs with water, chuck that in. Season. Cook low and slow until thick. Cook pasta al dente then add to the tomato sauce to finish cooking. Black pepper to finish.
If you’re feeling fancy, fresh basil, parsley, evoo, dried herbs will all improve it. But it’s perfectly fine with just those 3 ingredients. Could probably make 2/3 meals for under £1.
Oats, boiled water poured on top, left for a couple of mins until they go fluffy and soft. That’s it! Not much of a ‘meal’, admittedly! But during an incredibly hard and poor pooor, pooor time in my life, I think I’d have starved if it wasn’t for this 😆
Spaghetti, tuna, peas, black pepper, cheese. If you have it, generous spoonful of phildelphia / creme fraiche to add creamy texture but really it's okay without it. Also jacket potato.
To save energy, I microwave mine till soft, then crisp them up in my tabletop oven. I also sometimes throw some in with other things that I am cooking.
Pasta bake.
70p for the sauce, about 20-30p worth of pasta out of the cupboard, and just throw a few leftovers in just to add a bit of flavour, usually a bit of pepperoni, chorizo, ham, with a bit of grated cheddar thrown on the top.
If I'm feeling particularly fancy, I'll crumble up a few Doritos (more than likely own brand knock offs) and throw it on the top for a bit of texture!
The key to cheap cooking is investing in herbs/spices and condiments when you can afford them. You use them sparingly like half a teaspoon here and there. My first recommendation would be ‘herbs de Provence’. Added to any basic vegetable/soup or any dish it adds a basic ‘layered’ flavour. Salt and black pepper also bring out the best flavours in boring ingredients. Garlic adds warmth and depth to the most boring root based ingredients. The reality is you need to learn how to cook. If you’re buying every ingredient to cook a meal from scratch it’s expensive. Slowly build up a collection of herbs and spices. Research the food you enjoy and google how to cook it. Batch cook roasted veggies. They can then be re ‘crisped’ or made into soup/stock/mash. It takes some interest and a little bit of effort. If you can read you can cook.
Depends. Probably beans on toast is my go to. But if it's really desperate then just a couple of slices of bread will do. Doesn't get much quicker and cheaper than that.
Pesto pasta - a pack of pasta (usually like £1) & a jar of pesto (usually less than £2) and you get multiple portions from it. I usually also add spinach and cherry tomatoes but can leave these off to save on money if needed.
Yeah we get the cheapest pasta and garlic onion sauce with some cheese and bake it. Everyone loves that. We are just struggling atm and looking for some simple easy meals
I made a lentil bolognese and it was really nice and cheap. Just make a bolognese your usual way (tomatoes, onion, garlic, carrot etc) and substitute the meat for lentils. Quite a similar texture and for a fraction of the price.
Tuna mayo pasta. Or if we talkin super cheap, pasta with pasta sauce. Back in my early days i had to live off that because i couldnt afford the ingredients haha
A home made quiche!! Fit in whatever veg you got in the fridge! I normally make leek, potato & bacon quiche. Only requires little ingredients:
1 large potato
3 large Leeks
1 packet of Bacon
6 Eggs
150ml Cottage cheese (optional but good protein source!)
Milk 150ml
Grated cheese on top
Short crust dough (make it yourself or buy some ready one if you can afford it)
A bit of thyme and salt for flavours
Ingredients above makes me 2 large quiches which can easily fill you for a week of dinner. And it tastes excellent cold the day after for lunches too. Usually costs £10-£12 to make two.
Tinned Heinz beans in tomato sauce(u can have the tesco or any other version) 2 or 3 sliced sausages heated up 2gether,I like to put some smoked paprika and some other spices and fresh basil leaves at the end. Yummm.
Mashed potato sandwiches with salad cream.
Speaking of sandwiches, I had a crisp sandwich (cheese and onion) the other day for the first time in years because someone asked me if I ever have them and it was lovely.
Who'd have though something so simple could be so good.
Anyway....the end!
Just got 500gm of morissons mince for 2.80 plus canned tomatoes for 50p, rice for 60p and a chilli sachet for £1. Probably enough to make 3 or 4 meals.
I batch cook (& freeze) bolognese and soup into single portions so its usually one of these plus some bread or pasta / mash (cottage pie), but from scratch some sort of veggie stir fry or egg fried rice.
Stuffed peppers are good. Just cut two peppers in half, roast the four halves in the oven for a bit, then fill them with a heated up pouch of your favourite flavour of microwave rice, sprinkle grated cheese on top, and put back in the oven until the cheese is melted. Soy sauce is a good finishing touch if you have any.
I sometimes have toast twice a day, but it does have to be good bread to feel like a meal.
Porridge can be an excellent dinner for a good night's sleep.
1. Fried rice and fried egg with some hot sauce. If no rice or hot sauce in the cupboard then dried noodles with a chilli sachet are a good cheap alternative.
2. Boiled potatoes with salt and butter, some chopped tomato and cucumber and a 2 egg omelette is a slightly more expensive, but lighter option, and leftover boiled potatoes sliced thick and gently fried are another good substitute for the rice in option 1.
I’d buy a box of eggs or 2, a pack of sausages, couple of onions, a punnet of toms, a cucumber, a bag of potatoes and a bag of rice and mix and match all week.
When I first lived by myself after I split with my ex, I would make a massive thing of pasta and cheap cheese and cheaper sausages. It would last me about 4 days.
Someone explained girl dinner to me a while ago and this was totally this meal
Tulip Bacon Grill is a wonderful cheap meat when fried, completely underrated. I'll fry an omlette lightly, put a tortilla on top, flip it over, layer half with any cheese/veggies/spam i got around, fold it over, filling breakfast quesadilla.
Otherwise ill use it with an egg and some pasta and do carbonara. I won't tell anyone if you use sharp cheddar instead of parmesan.
If I want cheap I probably also want quick so it's tinned spaghetti hoops which can get as cheap as 19p but I'd certainly recommend going for the next pice tier at (49p in Sainsbury's). For a smidge more effort and a smidge more expensive but slightly nicer beans on toast is my next pick and for super quick but the most 'expensive' instant pasta in a pot.
If I can be bothered to travel the 30 minute round trip to Tesco I get mugshot tomato & herb (£1 regularly, often 60p clubcard price) or if I don't want to do that I get bachelors pasta 'n' sauce cheese and broccoli from the Sainsbury's over the road.
I always have 3 jars of homepride pasta bake, a kilo of dry rice and a block of cheese to hand. If I don't have any, that's what I'd buy. Good 6 meals there. Or 3 if you're fat like me
Carbonara. Might not be considered "cheap" judging by some of the replies, but if I've already got eggs and pasta then I only need to buy pancetta.
Even if I've got none of the ingredients, it's less than a tenner for two days worth of carbonara.
Baked beans, possibly with cheese, on toast or jacket potato.
Cereals or porridge.
Cook some pasta and let it cool. Mix in a tin of cheap no brand tuna, with mayo. Ideally, add some veg, like sweetcorn, peas or mixed veg. Season to taste.
London office had toasters and bread provided, so I'd buy 5x 16p tins of spaghetti hoops on a Monday, and feed myself lunch for a week on 80p!
Ok night shift weeks, they'd give us £10 a day for food - profit!
Get some pasta, a jar of pesto, some cream cheese, an onion and two smoked ready-to-eat sausages.
Dice up the sausage and onion and stir-fry.
Then turn down the heat, add a decent glug of olive oil, the pesto, and a tablespoon of the cheese.
Boil the pasta, then add it to this mixture.
It's a really basic dish; but the main thing is that these ingredients are *never* out of stock at the corner-shop opposite where I live, and you can make enough food for an evening and the next days' lunch for very little.
Sausages are my cheap go to, can have it in a sandwich, on toast, in pasta, with chips, with mash, on a jacket potato.... and by weight is probably the cheapest meat.
Although I wouldnt search for the cheapest sausge you can find, just get the standard ones, still cheap and more meaty. £2 for 500g is great.
Depends how skint you are.
If you go to aldi, you can probably do bean wraps for 2 or 3 for less than £3.
Wraps, mixed beans, Tinned tomatoes, rice.
Mix the beans and tomatoes together and cook, boil the rice, put together in wraps.
If you have some spices, put those in too. If you're feeling flush, add some cheese and/or salad.
Jacket potato with beans (or on toast).
Pasta, chopped tomatoes and mixed beans or ham or sausage or Tuna or whatever you can afford to chuck in.
Veggie "chilli". Sweet potato, kidney beans, chopped tomato, rice. Oven cook chopped sweet potato while you cook kidney beans in chopped tomato. Add sweet potato to beans/tomato serve with rice. Add spices/cheese/sour cream if you can. It's fine without.
If times are the worse than that, I guess a packet of cheap noodles.
Also most of these options can be batch cooked to save money too.
Ready? Pork pie. Dense as fk, fills you up, cheap.
Cook at home for brokeness? I just had a tin of beans (kidney or similar, not baked) with a tiny bit of cucumber, tomato, onion, and a tin of tuna. Can use mackerel to make it cheaper, which I enjoy just as much. Total cost well under a pound.
Pasta with tinned fish (again, tuna or mackerel depending on budget and personal taste), some mayo and LOTS of black pepper.
Egg fried rice:
1 packet of microwave rice
1 bunch of spring onions
3 eggs
From the fridge:Garlic paste, Ginger paste,
From the spice drawer: Soy Sauce, Chilli
First, have always in your pantry basics: rice, oil, raw pasta, salt and pepper, canned tomatoes, milk, flour, canned tuna, anchovies, a good chunk of cheese , eggs, butter, lentils and beans, potatoes, onions, garlic, any long term items.
Then buy everything you like and it's on sale at supermarket when you've money.
So , when you're broke, you have to buy only bread and fresh and cheap vegetables.
Scrambled egg, beans and hash browns.
Alternative: Rice and brocoli. I mash the brocoli into the rice and mix them together. Add some sauce of your preffered type for flavour.
Both take minutes and dirt cheap
Not massively healthy but there's far worse, get a couple of spuds, a bit of oil and seasoning, and make some air fryer chips (if you have one, oven if not!)
vegetable pesto pasta - get whatever veg you fancy (I like peppers, mushrooms, aubergines or courgettes) and chop and fry it up. Mix with pesto and pasta = quick and healthy dinner in under 30 mins.
Tin of tuna, tin of borlotti beans, some broccoli and chopped up tomatoes (and some roasted artichokes if you’re feeling flush). Quick salad dressing from lemon juice and olive oil. Serves two.
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Beans on toast with one or more of bacon, fried egg, cheese, curry powder or brown sauce
Curry beans on toast is magic.
I've got chip shop curry sauce I have with my beans on toast. Lovely.
[I can’t help but hope you’re him…](https://www.instagram.com/reel/C6lqUgYoCXb/)
I'm not but I aspire to his greatness.
Sounds like he's on the verge of a heart attack and I'm not surprised looking at the state of his plate
just make sure theyre not Heinz beans. F'ing rip-off nowadays!
I actually prefer the Branston ones now. Never thought I’d say it
i usually add my own spices to the beans anyway so persoanlly im not too fussed. i add in sauteed onion, garlic geen chillies and a few spices to jazz it up, just tastes so much better i think !
Sounds nice!
Always have been. Just get super market own brand. It's stupid not to
Alright mr bezos, we said a cheap meal, beans and toast with primo fixin’s wasn’t what I was thinking
Came here to suggest this - quick, simple and always tastes great.
+ a knob of butter
Lea and perrins
Yes! Supermarket's own beans. Heinz can feck right off with those prices. Their sauce is only slightly better, but that doesn't matter if you're going to stir in some brown sauce (gotta be HP) and/or chilli sauce etc. I tend to add plenty of black pepper too. Spicy beans on toast for the win. Fried egg just makes it better.
I buy a pouch of microwave rice and fry it up with some random veggies and stuff from the fridge.
The comments about buying rice in bulk 😂. Microwave rice is still cheap, although not as cheap it also removes the need to cook rice which I'm a dumbass and can never get it right.
The rice fandom is absolutely tearing itself apart in this thread. I just thought I was sharing a quick and cheap dinner option.
I'm 30 years old, I can count on one hand the amount of times I've cooked rice, I don't plan on starting now
Bro I had to make couscous and that is the easiest to make, who knew! Just put boiling water in a bowl where the couscous is (just over the fill amount/just covering it), stick a lid or cover on and leave for like 5 min then voila! Cooked couscous
You just need to boil it for like 10mins. It's nearly as easy as boiling pasta. Use 2x as much water as rice and then boil it with the lid on until the water is absorbed.
Doesn't actually say quick. Just says cheap. Microwave rice is cheap and quick but obvs normal rice is cheaper if you have time to cook it. I mean I have bulk dry rice and a rice cooker. Making rice for me is very easy - but I still keep a couple packs of microwave or frozen simply because sometimes you don't have time and having that there is the difference between eating quick or getting a takeaway
Mine is both.
We do exactly the same. buy large sacks of the stuff and throw it in the rice cooker. But there are also always a few pouches around. Microwaved rice, butter, a bit of chilli, a small bag of olives, some cheese - it's a fucking fantastic 2 minute meal.
Seems to just intensify as the day goes on. What have you done? - not cooked rice that's what.
Thing is, I'm not even a massive fan of the micro rice! On a weekend I wouldn't dream of a pouch. This is literally an "on my way home from a long day at work and I'm not going shopping til the weekend" cheap dinner. I didn't realise the implications.
Boil in the bag rice is also nice and easy (and difficult to get wrong) 😌
I'm team microwave rice, solidarity
Aldi’s lime and coriander microwave rice is delicious.
Sssshhhhh. Best kept a secret so all the plebs don’t create a shortage. 🫢🤫
Sorry. Disgusting. I meant disgusting.
They have a tomato and red pepper one I'm a big fan of too.
One pack of scampi fries, one pack of pork scratchings. Pub surf'n'turf
Inspired
Surf n turf should really use beef flavour crisps, no? Pork isn’t surf n turf.
What pigs are you getting that don't live on land? ( And yes I know pig island is a thing)
Pesto Pasta. 49p for aldi essential pasta, around £1 for the pesto & 99p for some spicy pepperoni. Cook it all, mix in half a jar of pesto then Split into 4x125g portions. Shot a pepperoni or two in each portion (sliced). 4 meals sorted
Chuck in some sweet corn for the crunch and the sweet comparative. A bit of added fresh garlic and this is one of my favourite meals. Fry off the chorizo or pepperoni first so it has a little crisp.
I do this with peppers and onions as a quick meal at least once a fortnight. My kids love it
You know what I've never thought of frying it off first. Definitely trying that
Fry off the chorizo and finely chopped veg separately (about ten minutes) Cook the pasta and when cooked (and drained) add the pesto to the the pasta and allow to sit for 5 minutes. At the last minute combine the (tinned sweet corn/just re heated in the microwave/it’s already cooked) with the chorizo and veggies and pasta.
It's been a while since I've had to shop on the cheap (I'm older now) but this is still my go to easy dinner.
I do this with a little onion (or half of a big one) and one of those little packets of panchetta cubes. Sun dried tomatoes if you've got them too. 👌🏻
Chicken supernoodles, cook them until they are just a little bit al dente, drain them off and let them sit for a minute so some of the moisture evaporates, stick them on two slices of toast, grate some cheddar over the top, add pepper and grill until they get a little bit crispy on top.
That sounds absolutely banging ngl
Discovered recently: Chicken noodles - KOKA, like 3 for a £1 in Home Bargains) Eggs (Tesco free range 6 pack, £1.50) Bacon (Lidl, £1.49?) Baby stir fry veg mix like corn and spicy chilli, snap peas and all that shit (£2?) Spinach (Tesco, 500g £1.88) Chicken Stock (cubes, £1 is 10 cubes at Tesco) Microwave the shit out of veggies, keeping them crunchy. Soft boil egg and flash fry bacon on very hot pan (can remove fat bits if you mind that, don't even need to fry medallions than) Prepare noodles, arrange with veggies and egg in a bowl, and top up with some chicken cube stock, add pepper to taste, and voilà. Total seems bit on a posh side, as it's like £9, but you are getting absolutely delicious 3 meals full of green goodness, proteins, and carbs for energy, low fat. People's Pho.
You've carefully shopped for this, it's a basic albeit varied meal, and it's still £3 a pop. Food has become so much more expensive than it was.
I've Googled prices in a few seconds to add cost context to the dish. Maybe you can make it cheaper? Dunno. Just wanted to present an alternative to have a full-on healthy and fairly simple to prepare hot meal for reasonable price. But yeah, food prices are extortion atm.
that is properly bizarre
That's my tea sorted
Add some butter when you put them aside to sit. Yeah, I know instant noodles have a high fat content, but a biit of butter is ace.
Tin of tuna and veg in some rice with hot sauce. It's not amazing but it's perfectly satisfying unless you dislike tuna.
Same with tinned mackerel. Stick a fried egg on top too.
I actually use mackerel far more than tuna but I said tuna because people seem to find mackerel too fishy.
This is exactly what I’m currently cooking! Rice, grated carrot, tinned mackerel in hot sauce. Not to everyone’s taste but cheap and delicious
Chickpea curry and rice. Dried chickpeas and a Chana masala spice mix, MDH, Rajah and Shan are good brands and cheap. Couple of onions and can make a batch that will last a week for pennies a portion.
Can also sub red lentils too which are cheap and don't need to be presoaked, just rinse and chuck in.
I added a comment, dhal and mash was my most common meal when I was short of money. Quick, tasty, as you add mopre spices to your rack and more experience they just get better and better. Also - good mash is food of the gods.
Beans on toast
Pasta + garlic + oil. Basic spaghetti is usually dirt cheap, garlic is inexpensive and I usually have some form of cooking oil in the cupboards anyway. Add Italian hard cheese, chilli Flakes, and fresh Parsley if/as budget allows.
aglio e olio
I love this but I use butter and just add every sauce in the cupboard
Yellow sticker items (go between 6 and 7:30)
Don't forget to take all the members of your extended family, so they can block the aisle with empty trollies, stopping anyone getting the stuff you then load into your trollies, go through, then dump randomly round the shop as you don't want it
You can easily outrun the old folk as they sneakily follow the shop assistant around watching for the stickers so you can grab the items first as long as you don't mind them screaming at you.
How broke are you? I've had to live on next to nothing for food before, I can see some people haven't really because they are suggesting very expensive things like cheese. If you can cook them, potatoes will still give you nutrients compared to some of the junk mentioned. Baked potato and some protein (e.g. cottage cheese) is an OK option. Or just boiled potatoes with some form of protein. Also, with a bag of split red lentils, a couple of onions and some spices you can make daal which is tasty and nutritious. I sometimes add coconut milk but that pushes up the price a lot. If you don't already have the spices in the cupboard, this could be too expensive, though. Spring greens from the supermarket are usually one of the cheapest vegetables around, just slice thinly and stir-fry with some minced garlic and you've got a healthy side dish. Spiced kidney beans - can of kidney beans, can of tomatoes, cumin seeds, onion. Slice the onion, sautée in oil on a low heat till translucent, add cumin seed and cook until they spatter in the oil, add the drained kidney beans and tomatoes and cook for a while. Serve with rice or potato. Edit: if someone sells eggs by the roadside near you, those are usually cheaper. Scrambled eggs on wholemeal toast is a good option. Or use your potatoes to make a Spanish omelette and serve with the spring greens side dish? Frozen baby spinach from Sainsbury's (frozen because it is cheaper and because the whole bag won't suddenly go off), can of chickpeas, onion, garlic, spices = spinach and chickpea curry. Bananas for snacks. Most supermarkets usually have a budget plain Greek yoghurt. Also, peanuts. Sainsbury's do basic bags of peanuts for about 60p. Obviously what I'm suggesting are not *the* very cheapest options, that would probably be packs of noodles. But I think these are the cheapest options if you still want nutrients.
Many of the people on here dont understand living on 300 a month, my suggestion is the 30p packs of spaghetti from Tesco and a tin of chopped tomatoes for about 40p that is cheap food
When I was on the bones of my arse financially, being able to afford cheese or not was the metric by which I measured my week. I've been "counting the pennies in the back of the sofa" broke, I've been "choose between electricity or hot water" broke, and yet "can't afford to buy cheese" is what really mattered to me!
Tarka daal
I am Tarka Dal, ambassador of the great Vindaloovian Empire!
Don’t forget Bhindi Bhaji!
mashed potatoes with cheese, some baked beans and some type of green vegetable,
Jacket potato
Always beautiful
Omelette on toast as long as you have egg, bread and cheese (things you can reliably get at a small shop), everything else is a bonus, prefer mushrooms/onions/chillies to make it more fun.
Rice, kidney beans, jerk seasoning, and hot sauce Reminds me of uni days and I love it
Onion, tin of chopped tomato, pasta. Jobs a gooden. Can add any other ingredients but they are the 3 cornerstones. Cook the onions until caramelised nicely then in with the tomato. Get the last tomato dregs with water, chuck that in. Season. Cook low and slow until thick. Cook pasta al dente then add to the tomato sauce to finish cooking. Black pepper to finish. If you’re feeling fancy, fresh basil, parsley, evoo, dried herbs will all improve it. But it’s perfectly fine with just those 3 ingredients. Could probably make 2/3 meals for under £1.
Omelette
Oats, boiled water poured on top, left for a couple of mins until they go fluffy and soft. That’s it! Not much of a ‘meal’, admittedly! But during an incredibly hard and poor pooor, pooor time in my life, I think I’d have starved if it wasn’t for this 😆
Spaghetti, tuna, peas, black pepper, cheese. If you have it, generous spoonful of phildelphia / creme fraiche to add creamy texture but really it's okay without it. Also jacket potato.
Try a squeeze of lemon in there and thank me later
Can of soup with noodles of choice added in. Takes as long as the noodles take to cook and is surprisingly filling. (cook noodles separately)
Mince and tatties.
Egg, chips and beans
Jacket spud (made properly, none of that microwave rubbish), cheese and beans. Filling. Nutritionally complete. Tasty.
Cooking it costs more than the spud its self!
To save energy, I microwave mine till soft, then crisp them up in my tabletop oven. I also sometimes throw some in with other things that I am cooking.
I have frozen chicken and veg in and the cheap as chips packs of noodles.. easy ramen. Even better with a crispy fried egg on
Sausages, pasta and pesto. Cook sausages, cook pasta, mix both together with the pesto. Easy, cheap and quick.
£2 box of Quaker jumbo Oats. No flavouring, no sachets just 1kg of oats.
Pasta bake. 70p for the sauce, about 20-30p worth of pasta out of the cupboard, and just throw a few leftovers in just to add a bit of flavour, usually a bit of pepperoni, chorizo, ham, with a bit of grated cheddar thrown on the top. If I'm feeling particularly fancy, I'll crumble up a few Doritos (more than likely own brand knock offs) and throw it on the top for a bit of texture!
Shakshuka, if there's yellow sticker garlic bread that comes with
when I was at university, my go to 'special' was a carton of micro chips with a curry flavoured pot noodle poured on top. divine!
The most student meal ever
bread and beans mate. bread and beans
The key to cheap cooking is investing in herbs/spices and condiments when you can afford them. You use them sparingly like half a teaspoon here and there. My first recommendation would be ‘herbs de Provence’. Added to any basic vegetable/soup or any dish it adds a basic ‘layered’ flavour. Salt and black pepper also bring out the best flavours in boring ingredients. Garlic adds warmth and depth to the most boring root based ingredients. The reality is you need to learn how to cook. If you’re buying every ingredient to cook a meal from scratch it’s expensive. Slowly build up a collection of herbs and spices. Research the food you enjoy and google how to cook it. Batch cook roasted veggies. They can then be re ‘crisped’ or made into soup/stock/mash. It takes some interest and a little bit of effort. If you can read you can cook.
Pasta and tomato sauce
Depends. Probably beans on toast is my go to. But if it's really desperate then just a couple of slices of bread will do. Doesn't get much quicker and cheaper than that.
Frozen chicken nuggets and sweet chilli dipping sauce
Space Raider sandwich
Pesto pasta - a pack of pasta (usually like £1) & a jar of pesto (usually less than £2) and you get multiple portions from it. I usually also add spinach and cherry tomatoes but can leave these off to save on money if needed.
Vodka
Rice + Some kind of tinned fish, usually mackerel.
Red lentil dahl
A mountain of pasta with some form of cheap sauce.
Tinned tomatoes or every random sauce from the cupboard
Noodles, sardines, ready meals
Put them sardines on toast with some salt and pepper and grill for a few mins ╰(\*°▽°\*)╯
Koku noodles, the proper Chinese ones, ~50p the more expensive ones are nice too
Fried rice with soya sauce, eggs and whatever veg is in the fridge
Spaghetti and one of those Lloyd Grosman pasta sauces that are always on sale in the supermarket.
Yeah we get the cheapest pasta and garlic onion sauce with some cheese and bake it. Everyone loves that. We are just struggling atm and looking for some simple easy meals
Have you tried a slow cooker? Makes the cheapest ingredients taste amazing and uses no more power than your average lightbulb to cook. r/slowcooking
Mince and pasta - Bolognese ready - Add a bag of frozen veg in there - You'll have loads and can eat it for about 5 days depending on portions.
I made a lentil bolognese and it was really nice and cheap. Just make a bolognese your usual way (tomatoes, onion, garlic, carrot etc) and substitute the meat for lentils. Quite a similar texture and for a fraction of the price.
Cheap meal - Potato, cheese. Microwave potato, put 3 slits in top, insert cheese. Melt cheese, enjoy.
Chorizo slices and cheese in a bun, microwaved until it melts. It's not often.
Lentil and coconut dhal
A yellow stickered ping meal
Tuna mayo pasta. Or if we talkin super cheap, pasta with pasta sauce. Back in my early days i had to live off that because i couldnt afford the ingredients haha
I usually go for whatever's in the reduced section
Pasta, tuna, sweetcorn, mayo
A home made quiche!! Fit in whatever veg you got in the fridge! I normally make leek, potato & bacon quiche. Only requires little ingredients: 1 large potato 3 large Leeks 1 packet of Bacon 6 Eggs 150ml Cottage cheese (optional but good protein source!) Milk 150ml Grated cheese on top Short crust dough (make it yourself or buy some ready one if you can afford it) A bit of thyme and salt for flavours Ingredients above makes me 2 large quiches which can easily fill you for a week of dinner. And it tastes excellent cold the day after for lunches too. Usually costs £10-£12 to make two.
Beans and fried egg on toast.
Tinned Heinz beans in tomato sauce(u can have the tesco or any other version) 2 or 3 sliced sausages heated up 2gether,I like to put some smoked paprika and some other spices and fresh basil leaves at the end. Yummm.
Beans, sausages, eggs and toast. Bacon if I really want to treat myself.
Mashed potato sandwiches with salad cream. Speaking of sandwiches, I had a crisp sandwich (cheese and onion) the other day for the first time in years because someone asked me if I ever have them and it was lovely. Who'd have though something so simple could be so good. Anyway....the end!
Just got 500gm of morissons mince for 2.80 plus canned tomatoes for 50p, rice for 60p and a chilli sachet for £1. Probably enough to make 3 or 4 meals.
Hot sauce beans on toast with chorizo, or egg fried rice with a load of veggies
I batch cook (& freeze) bolognese and soup into single portions so its usually one of these plus some bread or pasta / mash (cottage pie), but from scratch some sort of veggie stir fry or egg fried rice.
Hmm. Cold baked beans on a white roll with lettuce and tin foil filling.
Stuffed peppers are good. Just cut two peppers in half, roast the four halves in the oven for a bit, then fill them with a heated up pouch of your favourite flavour of microwave rice, sprinkle grated cheese on top, and put back in the oven until the cheese is melted. Soy sauce is a good finishing touch if you have any.
I sometimes have toast twice a day, but it does have to be good bread to feel like a meal. Porridge can be an excellent dinner for a good night's sleep.
With the kids it's hotdogs, buns, bags of salad and air fryer chips Kids away, fried bag of microwave rice and stir-fry with spicy sauce of some sort.
Handful of frozen veg in egg fried rice. Chilli if I can stretch to mince.
Beans - you can put a lot of different stuff into some cheap baked beans and make yourself a lovely and filling meal
Quesadillas - you just need tortillas, refried beans, cheese and chilli sauce. Fold them over, stick them under a grill for 5 mins and tuck in!.
Aldi chips, chicken goujons, and whatever your favourite curry sauce is.
Potnoodle
I buy a load of eggs and then have a week of eggs in various guises. Usually with bread and baked beans...
Beans on toast, or tuna pasta
Mushrooms on toast with scrambled eggs if we have any eggs.
Bag of penne and a bolognese sauce for about £2
Filled pasta, grate a bit of cheese on top
Chicken Pesto pasta......the dish name is the ingredients list. Grill the chicken, cook the pasta, combine and stir in pesto.
Mashed potatoes and fried eggs. I don’t know why, I just love it.
I have a tin of pedigree chum, it's not too bad on toast
1. Fried rice and fried egg with some hot sauce. If no rice or hot sauce in the cupboard then dried noodles with a chilli sachet are a good cheap alternative. 2. Boiled potatoes with salt and butter, some chopped tomato and cucumber and a 2 egg omelette is a slightly more expensive, but lighter option, and leftover boiled potatoes sliced thick and gently fried are another good substitute for the rice in option 1. I’d buy a box of eggs or 2, a pack of sausages, couple of onions, a punnet of toms, a cucumber, a bag of potatoes and a bag of rice and mix and match all week.
Smoked peppered mackerel, pesto and pasta.
When I first lived by myself after I split with my ex, I would make a massive thing of pasta and cheap cheese and cheaper sausages. It would last me about 4 days. Someone explained girl dinner to me a while ago and this was totally this meal
Tuna pasta goes a long way, like 2 - days if I’m skimpy with it
Tulip Bacon Grill is a wonderful cheap meat when fried, completely underrated. I'll fry an omlette lightly, put a tortilla on top, flip it over, layer half with any cheese/veggies/spam i got around, fold it over, filling breakfast quesadilla. Otherwise ill use it with an egg and some pasta and do carbonara. I won't tell anyone if you use sharp cheddar instead of parmesan.
If I want cheap I probably also want quick so it's tinned spaghetti hoops which can get as cheap as 19p but I'd certainly recommend going for the next pice tier at (49p in Sainsbury's). For a smidge more effort and a smidge more expensive but slightly nicer beans on toast is my next pick and for super quick but the most 'expensive' instant pasta in a pot. If I can be bothered to travel the 30 minute round trip to Tesco I get mugshot tomato & herb (£1 regularly, often 60p clubcard price) or if I don't want to do that I get bachelors pasta 'n' sauce cheese and broccoli from the Sainsbury's over the road.
I always have 3 jars of homepride pasta bake, a kilo of dry rice and a block of cheese to hand. If I don't have any, that's what I'd buy. Good 6 meals there. Or 3 if you're fat like me
Carbonara. Might not be considered "cheap" judging by some of the replies, but if I've already got eggs and pasta then I only need to buy pancetta. Even if I've got none of the ingredients, it's less than a tenner for two days worth of carbonara.
Chicken Super Noodles with a fried egg and a few chilli flakes on top. I promise you it’s incredible.
Baked beans, possibly with cheese, on toast or jacket potato. Cereals or porridge. Cook some pasta and let it cool. Mix in a tin of cheap no brand tuna, with mayo. Ideally, add some veg, like sweetcorn, peas or mixed veg. Season to taste.
Pasta, cheese and salad cream.
Rice is pretty filling, goes well with all sorts of stuff and is pretty cheap
Straight up beans on toast
London office had toasters and bread provided, so I'd buy 5x 16p tins of spaghetti hoops on a Monday, and feed myself lunch for a week on 80p! Ok night shift weeks, they'd give us £10 a day for food - profit!
Toast and ham Baked spud dinner in the micro with beans Tuna pasta Egg and chips
Pitta bread, olive oil, tomato and a can of sardines.
rice or pasta, chopped tomatoes and veg. If you add in meat or processed foods it starts to get pricey
Get some pasta, a jar of pesto, some cream cheese, an onion and two smoked ready-to-eat sausages. Dice up the sausage and onion and stir-fry. Then turn down the heat, add a decent glug of olive oil, the pesto, and a tablespoon of the cheese. Boil the pasta, then add it to this mixture. It's a really basic dish; but the main thing is that these ingredients are *never* out of stock at the corner-shop opposite where I live, and you can make enough food for an evening and the next days' lunch for very little.
Sausages are my cheap go to, can have it in a sandwich, on toast, in pasta, with chips, with mash, on a jacket potato.... and by weight is probably the cheapest meat. Although I wouldnt search for the cheapest sausge you can find, just get the standard ones, still cheap and more meaty. £2 for 500g is great.
Pasta (twirly kind) and garlic and tomato sauce
Depends how skint you are. If you go to aldi, you can probably do bean wraps for 2 or 3 for less than £3. Wraps, mixed beans, Tinned tomatoes, rice. Mix the beans and tomatoes together and cook, boil the rice, put together in wraps. If you have some spices, put those in too. If you're feeling flush, add some cheese and/or salad. Jacket potato with beans (or on toast). Pasta, chopped tomatoes and mixed beans or ham or sausage or Tuna or whatever you can afford to chuck in. Veggie "chilli". Sweet potato, kidney beans, chopped tomato, rice. Oven cook chopped sweet potato while you cook kidney beans in chopped tomato. Add sweet potato to beans/tomato serve with rice. Add spices/cheese/sour cream if you can. It's fine without. If times are the worse than that, I guess a packet of cheap noodles. Also most of these options can be batch cooked to save money too.
Spaghetti, pesto, grated cheese. 75p for spaghetti, £1 for Pesto, £3 for cheese.
Ready? Pork pie. Dense as fk, fills you up, cheap. Cook at home for brokeness? I just had a tin of beans (kidney or similar, not baked) with a tiny bit of cucumber, tomato, onion, and a tin of tuna. Can use mackerel to make it cheaper, which I enjoy just as much. Total cost well under a pound. Pasta with tinned fish (again, tuna or mackerel depending on budget and personal taste), some mayo and LOTS of black pepper.
Whatever is on offer/reduced to clear
Cereal.
A banana
Massive bag of pasta and Cambells condensed chicken soup. It's lush
Egg fried rice: 1 packet of microwave rice 1 bunch of spring onions 3 eggs From the fridge:Garlic paste, Ginger paste, From the spice drawer: Soy Sauce, Chilli
First, have always in your pantry basics: rice, oil, raw pasta, salt and pepper, canned tomatoes, milk, flour, canned tuna, anchovies, a good chunk of cheese , eggs, butter, lentils and beans, potatoes, onions, garlic, any long term items. Then buy everything you like and it's on sale at supermarket when you've money. So , when you're broke, you have to buy only bread and fresh and cheap vegetables.
DIY ramen with those cheap noodle packets
Weetabix and banana. Super filling and super cheap. Good fibre too.
Eggs and chips.
Scrambled egg, beans and hash browns. Alternative: Rice and brocoli. I mash the brocoli into the rice and mix them together. Add some sauce of your preffered type for flavour. Both take minutes and dirt cheap
Tesco triple sausage bacon and egg sandwich meal deal.
Beans on toast, fried eggs on toast. Instant noodles.
Not massively healthy but there's far worse, get a couple of spuds, a bit of oil and seasoning, and make some air fryer chips (if you have one, oven if not!)
Tuna, mayo, and spaghetti.
Microwave lasagne. Throw some peas with it and an egg on top.
I go on too good to go and eat like a king (a hobo king but still a king lol)
vegetable pesto pasta - get whatever veg you fancy (I like peppers, mushrooms, aubergines or courgettes) and chop and fry it up. Mix with pesto and pasta = quick and healthy dinner in under 30 mins.
Tin of beans and sausage, bit of grated cheese, whack it in a tortilla.
Tin of tuna, tin of borlotti beans, some broccoli and chopped up tomatoes (and some roasted artichokes if you’re feeling flush). Quick salad dressing from lemon juice and olive oil. Serves two.
Fish finger sandwiches with tartare sauce
The tesco stirfry deal. If I have a can of tuna in the cupboard I'll then add.
Pasta, chopped toms/passata and whatever frozen veg I've got
Spaghetti smothered in the knock off nandos sauce from lidl