Being on a budget doesn’t mean you can’t eat good food that fills you up. It’s not about surviving on a tin of soup but about being savvy with your money and swapping a couple of ingredients here and there to provide you with a cheap meal that tastes good and fills you up. Whether you’re a family looking for feed everyone for less than a £1 a portion or living on your own looking for recipes to batch cook, all of these recipes will be useful. Here are 7 cheap meal ideas for you to enjoy!
Toad in the hole
This is a favourite in our house, we make it from scratch and it couldn’t be easier. We make a big Yorkshire pudding meaning we’ve got enough for tea and for lunch the next day. We make our own Yorkshire pudding, stick some sausages in it and serve it with some homemade mash and frozen veg. All in this meal makes 4 portions and comes to around 70p a portion.
Turkey curry
We love using turkey mince, it’s much lower in fat and costs so much less then beef mince. A big hit is my turkey keema curry which is packed with spice and bulked out with peppers and peas. I’ve wrote a whole recipe for this because it’s so easy to make. We do it in the slow cooker and find we can usually get 5 portions out of it, which we put into trays and freeze. This comes in at just under £1 a portion.
Gammon joint
Joints of meat can get very expensive but we’ve found a really versatile joint that can be cooked and then used for some many other dishes. We tend to slow cook a large gammon joint then freeze the leftovers. From a large joint we can usually get 4-5 different meals out of it depending on what we make. The variety of meals we have from one joint are, a roast dinner, sandwiches, pasta bake and omlette. As I’ve said, once the joint is cooked you can portion it off and freeze it then just get some out to defrost and throw it in an omlette and a pasta bake. A large joint costs around £3.70 so for two roasts, 4 sandwiches and 2 omlettes you’re looking at around 46p a portion. Also aside from a roast, all the other meals it can be used for a super cheap too.
Pasta bake
You can of course make a sauce from scratch but pasta bake sauces are actually fairly cheap to buy which makes them a great item to have in your cupboard as it’s a quick meal to make when you can’t think of anything else! Pasta bakes are really good to bulk out with any left over meat you have left (see above with gammon) and a tonne of veggies. You’ll normally get around 4 portions out of a jar of sauce so working off using left over gammon and some frozen veg, you’re looking at around 85p a portion.
Turkey chilli con carne
Another recipe we use turkey mince for instead of beef is chilli con carne, again this is one we like to do in the slow cooker and we pack it with kidney beans, baked beans and peppers to make it go further. I’ve wrote a whole recipe for my chilli con carne if you’d like to check it out. We usually get around 6 portions of it making it around 70p a portion.
Omelette
Omelette’s are another super quick meal that you can fill with just about anything you’ve got left over. It’s a great way to use leftovers up like we pointed out with the gammon joint and served with some baked beans or a salad it can definitely fill you up. I like to put peppers, sweetcorn, gammon and a bit of cheese in my omelette so working off that it’d be about £1 per omlette.
Cottage pie
Here’s another hearty meal where we substitute beef for turkey to keep the price down. This usually makes 4 portions which can be frozen. However I’d advise to freeze the meat and veg separately and just make mash up on the day you want it as in my opinion frozen mash never tastes as good as fresh. We like to put carrots, peas and green beans in our cottage pie to make sure we’re getting some veggies too. A portion of cottage pie made with turkey mince comes in at just under £1.
What are your favourite budget friendly meals to make? Let me know in the comments.
Calling all girl bosses! I’ve created a Facebook group where we can all come together and discuss all things blogging, money saving and everything inbetween. It would be great to see you over there. So to be a part of a super friendly and supportive community, hop on over to Facebook and join us!
Pin this:
Great ideas! I could literally eat pasta for every meal if I had to aha! I’m veggie but I love making a veggie chilli because it lasts ages and you can have it with so many different things! x
I’m the same, I could quite easily live on pasta!
Thanks for sharing these meal ideas, the all look easy to make 🙂
Nic | Nic’s Adventures & Bakes
I love omelette! It’s so quick to make and won’t put a dent in your budget! Thanks for this list 🙂
Yes it’s definitely a good budget friendly meal option.
Fab ideas! I loveeee pasta bake, anything pasta related is an instant win for me!
Tash – http://www.agirlwithview.co.uk
Same here, I love pasta!
This is a really good post about meals that are not only easy to make but cheap as well. I love that you have put the price per portion!
The only thing I don’t like on the list, is gammon. But the others are fab!
Thanks for sharing.
https://icanshowyoutheworld5.com/maximize-spending-with-minimal-effort/
Thanks for reading, I’m glad you enjoyed it.
That is some lovely idea and I think omlette is common worldwide..
Thanks!
Can never go wrong with a good pasta bake 😍 I make it twice a week lool x
Nothing wrong with that, pasta bake is great!
Great post! I love toad in the hole and pasta bakes! Thank you for sharing this!
Thanks for reading! Toad in the hole is one of my favourite meals!
As an American I’ve always wondered what a toad in the hole was! I love a good chili on a cold evening. And I keep telling myself I’m going to learn how to make curry at home.
Haha I suppose it is a pretty odd name for a dish! You can’t beat a warming Chilli Con Carne on a cold evening. Good luck with making a curry at home, they’re pretty easy to do!
You really can’t go wrong with any of those! Pasta bake is my go to! 🙂 great ideas Lauren. I’ve shared some tasty Greek recipes you might enjoy in my blog lifepickswithvix.com.
I’ll definitely check those out! Pasta bake is amazing as a quick, tasty meal!
I love all of these meals! I keep meaning to make toad in the hole!
It’s one of my favourites!
I love pasta, I couldn’t live without it haha!
An omelette loaded with cheese is the best!