meals on a budget?!

weepinIndigo

I'm signing on currently and looking for inspiration and ideas for reasonably nutricious meals with a budget of about 45 euros per week. Mainly dinner ideas but lunches and quick snack ideas welcome too. Thanks!

Geoffrey Dalton

What age are you?

IvyTheTerrible

weepinIndigo wrote: »

I'm signing on currently and looking for inspiration and ideas for reasonably nutricious meals with a budget of about 45 euros per week. Mainly dinner ideas but lunches and quick snack ideas welcome too. Thanks!

The blog A girl called Jack is very good for low-budget meals.

Neon_Lights

Aldi super 6 meat + fruit and veg, that is all

Skatedude

https://deliveroo.ie/?gclid=CjwKEAiAhaqzBRDNltaS0pW5mWgSJADd7cYDPbsJxhT8LYjIl61HA_cWfXQNz6Al1KXBK4AyMdje4hoCoB3w_wcB

2xj3hplqgsbkym

Look up 101 square meals MABS

weepinIndigo

Geoffrey Dalton wrote: »

What age are you?

20. Why?

Dizzyblonde

Geoffrey Dalton wrote: »

What age are you?

I can't see how the OP's age is relevant.

weepinIndigo wrote: »

I'm signing on currently and looking for inspiration and ideas for reasonably nutricious meals with a budget of about 45 euros per week. Mainly dinner ideas but lunches and quick snack ideas welcome too. Thanks!

I've moved this to the Cooking & Recipes forum, and if you have a look around in here you'll find lots of recipes and ideas. Including...

Easy Peasy Recipes http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054856196

Cooking On A Budget http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056740660

Lots of links here: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055321234

We have threads on What You Had For Dinner/Lunch/Breakfast, a Cooking Chat thread and also the Cooking Club

Have a good look around

Whispered

Well one thing that will slash your food spending is cutting down on meat. Meat with every meal is expensive and unnecessary. We are a family of 3 and most weeks spend €60 on food shopping with maybe once a month spending a bit more on oils etc.
Plan your meals for minimum waste too.

I made a spicy potato and bean stew a few nights ago, 2 very large portions and one small portion for about €2 altogether. If you were to add chicken to it it would be nice too (but again not necessary, beans are high protein anyway).

I find things like a packet of wraps in the freezer brilliant because you can make a meal in seconds out of them.

Always buy the Aldi offers, you'll make something out of it. And make use of your freezer too.
While it looks cheap to buy a jar of sauce for example, you can buy dry herbs and spices for next to nothing. Stock up on them and you always can throw something tasty together with whatever you happen to have in the fridge. Tinned tomatoes are the same really. They're so versatile. Eggs too make great meals and handy to use up fridged leftovers in an omelette or frittata.

squonk

Check out asian shops too for cheap spices and other ingrediant. The bags of spcies will get you a long way and get you further than just buying the small pots in dunnes or Tesco. +1 for Aldi/Lidl super 6 offers and +1 for not doing meat every day. Also, a big batch of soup can be made up and frozen very cheaply. I regularly get 6-7 portions out of a batch of soup. Invest in some reusable containers to portion out your meals and that'll make them go further. Alternatively buy Chinese takeaway containers which will accomplish the same thing but they're obviously disposable and not a one off cost.

Alun

squonk wrote: »

Alternatively buy Chinese takeaway containers which will accomplish the same thing but they're obviously disposable and not a one off cost.

The plastic (PP, type 5) takeaway containers are certainly reusable, they even have the symbol on the bottom to indicate they're dishwasher proof!

Cakerbaker

Chickpea curry is tasty and cheap. Also mince based meals like bolognaise and chilli can be made quite cheaply in bulk when padded out with plenty veg and can be frozen in portions.

Cakerbaker

Slightly off topic but make use of the 10 off 50 vouchers for lidl and Aldi that are often in the weekend papers. Tesco take them too. I stock up on dry / tinned goods like pasta, rice, tinned tomatoes to bring me over the 50 so I get the 10 off. They're things I always use and have long expiry dates so it's handy to have a supply in the press.

hardCopy

Kidney beans are ridiculously cheap and a decent source of protein.

Meat can be an expensive source of protein but you can stretch a dish by adding beans or chickpeas to chillis, bolognese, curries etc. A good way to make four portions into six for little extra cost.

weepinIndigo

Whispered wrote: »

Well one thing that will slash your food spending is cutting down on meat. Meat with every meal is expensive and unnecessary. We are a family of 3 and most weeks spend €60 on food shopping with maybe once a month spending a bit more on oils etc.
Plan your meals for minimum waste too.

I made a spicy potato and bean stew a few nights ago, 2 very large portions and one small portion for about €2 altogether. If you were to add chicken to it it would be nice too (but again not necessary, beans are high protein anyway).

I find things like a packet of wraps in the freezer brilliant because you can make a meal in seconds out of them.

Always buy the Aldi offers, you'll make something out of it. And make use of your freezer too.
While it looks cheap to buy a jar of sauce for example, you can buy dry herbs and spices for next to nothing. Stock up on them and you always can throw something tasty together with whatever you happen to have in the fridge. Tinned tomatoes are the same really. They're so versatile. Eggs too make great meals and handy to use up fridged leftovers in an omelette or frittata.

Thank you! I'll definitely keep all that In mind. Do you have a recepie for that potato and bean stew? Sounds yummy.

weepinIndigo

Cakerbaker wrote: »

Slightly off topic but make use of the 10 off 50 vouchers for lidl and Aldi that are often in the weekend papers. Tesco take them too. I stock up on dry / tinned goods like pasta, rice, tinned tomatoes to bring me over the 50 so I get the 10 off. They're things I always use and have long expiry dates so it's handy to have a supply in the press.

Didn't know about that, thank you!

Whispered

weepinIndigo wrote: »

Thank you! I'll definitely keep all that In mind. Do you have a recepie for that potato and bean stew? Sounds yummy.

It was very simple.

In one pot gently simmer a bag of baby potatoes in stock (I used 500ml low salt veg stock, It's made for babies and has a very light flavour).
In another pot, fry an onion and red pepper until soft, add garlic to taste, then add in oregano, basil, chilli flakes, chilli powder and paprika to taste, toss in a tin of drained butter beans, purée tin plum tomatoes (or use passata but I prefer the plum toms myself) and stir in. It should be quite thick, the Veggies coated in sauce.
Pour in the potatoes and stock, stir and simmer until potatoes are cooked.

Lovely with big slices of crusty bread.

mrsdewinter

I love budgetbytes.com for recipes: afaik she's a US graduate student who, until very recently, was cooking for just herself; she loves her food and utilises her freezer to the max. In the last couple of years, she has spent September following the Snap challenge (Snap seems to be a US form of food stamps), and more recently was sticking to a weekly food budget of $30.
It's quite US-centric (quite a lot of Tex-Mex) but it's given me a fair few interesting meal ideas.
Also, Miss South of the North-South food blog is a Norn Ireland woman living in London. From what I've read, she's on an extremely tight budget but uses considerable flair to stretch every penny. I ended up buying her book on cooking with a slow cooker. Love it!!