Cheap dinner ideas

I made this, this morning and DS1 and I had it for lunch. We haven’t had it in a while, but the miserable weather inspired it.

I have added a screenshot as I don’t want to steal any bodies thunder, but it’s cheap and quite tasty and most things you are likely to already have.

I made this, this morning and DS1 and I had it for lunch. We haven’t had it in a while, but the miserable weather inspired it.

I have added a screenshot as I don’t want to steal any bodies thunder, but it’s cheap and quite tasty and most things you are likely to already have.

What a blast from the past!

Cook one handle full of dry pasta per person (we use spirals) adding in 1 carrots diced half way through cooking and 1/2 cup of frozen peas at the end. Stir through half a tin of diced tomatoes and a 95g tin of tuna.

Chicken legs are my cheap dinner this week as our local chicken outlet had them at $1.50/kg.

Not as cheap, but I did notice Aldi advertising them for $6 for 2kg the other day.

There are lots of things that you can do with them from buying a cheap ($2-3) marinade and oven roasting, serving them with veg/salad or even just some rice if you like. I quite often do a soy based home made marinade or there are things like lemon and thyme/rosemary bakes if they are more your taste.

You can use them in lots of casseroles too. Meal bases may be your cheapest way to go (especially if you can find some on special) as you often just have to add things like tomato paste etc.

Raid your pantry for whatever is there and work with that? Do you have rice or pasta in the cupboard? Make a pasta sauce out of whatever vegetables you have, with a tin of tomatoes and add grated cheese to serve. Eat old tins of stuff which have been lying there unloved?

These are from my Mum's Women's Weekly cookbook from the 70's called Dinner for A Dollar.

Pasta Bake

Chop & fry one onion, towards the end of cooking time add a couple of chopped bacon rashers (optional).

Boil homebrand pasta ie spirals or macaroni.

Drain pasta and stir through a tin of homebrand condensed tomato soup a bit of milk and the onion & bacon mixture. Also stir through some homebrand grated cheese.

Tip into a baking dish and sprinkle a little more cheese on top.

Bake until bubbling and the cheese is browned.

Serve with homebrand frozen veg, homebrand brown bread and butter.

It is really tasty, my kids love it.

Tomato Chickpeas

Chop and fry one onion, towards the end of cooking time add a few chopped mushrooms and cook for a couple more minutes until the mushrooms have softened.

Add one drained and rinsed can of chickpeas, two tins of chopped tomatoes, tomato paste if you have it. Swish a little water around the empty tomato tins and tip that in too. Add any herbs you have such as basil, oregano. Simmer for a few minutes until cooked.

Serve with couscous and a little grated cheese on top if you have it.

OP, a lot of good ideas in this thread.

Just wanted to add along the lines of eating lentils/beans as super cheap and super healthy protein source and using what’s in season/on sale.

At the moment Coles has whole Kent pumpkins for 50 c per kilo.

I often cook in bulk and freeze pre cooked lunches and dinners and my cheapest and healthiest and quickest recipe is cooking together

- pumpkin as much as 1-2 kg

- 0-2 carrots if I have any sad old carrots in the fridge

- any sweet potato needing to be “saved” - optional

- red lentils ( handful up to a cup)

- pinch of chilli/ old chilli pepper/ chilli flakes

- salt

- (optional) cumin, coriander, ginger

Everything cooked for 25 mins, mashed or whizzed with a stick blender. Eaten with homemade bread or Nannas bakery flatbread 1.67 dollars per pack of flat breads.

Pumpkin risotto - as pps have pointed out, pumpkin is really cheap at the moment. A few dollars worth of pumpkin would make enough roasted pumpkin for a huge pumpkin risotto (just rice and pumpkin, an onion and a stock cube) , that's a few meals worth. Plus left over roast pumpkin to serve as a side with cooked sausages and frozen peas.

Pasta with pesto, or tuna

Pumpkin soup with home made bread

Do you have any veggies? I really like mixed roasted vegetables - whatever you have like tomato, onion, pumpkin, zucchini, tomato - roast with a sprinkle of herbs then stir through cooked pasta.

Chicken drumsticks are super cheap too

This site, though US based, is one I like for cheap meals.

https://www.budgetbytes.com/category/recipes/cost-per-recipe/recipes-under-10/

Some of my cheapest dinners are hot dogs, pasta bake, pasta, fried rice, frozen pies and tuna and rice. For the tuna and rice sauté capsicum and onion add a tin of tomatoes add rice and additional water depending on quantity of rice. Cook rice in tomato liquid and once cooked stir through a tin of tuna it’s really filling and actually tastes quite good.

Pasta bakes are something that can be made with any leftover. Not necessarily the healthiest, but very eaay to do and tasty. Depending on what ingredients you already have or meals you will make here are some pasta bakes you can make with leftovers. but you can mix and match.

Leftover Bolognese + penne + cheese (I sometimes add peas to this too).

Peas & bacon + cream with fusili

Leftover chicken, mushroom + cream with shell pasta (celery is good in this also).

Mushroom, bacon + cream. + Spaghetti

If you don't have cream you can make a cheesy sauce with milk, flour and cheese.

If you have leftover bread you can cook it on very low in the oven and blitz it.to make breadcrumbs. Sprinkle on the top to make the pasta bake crunchy

Thank you so very much for all the ideas!!

I am going through them bit by bit.

I went through the freezer and found a few random bits of things. Seriously, so random lol.

Anyway tonight I used the one chicken breast I found and 2 rashers of bacon, and I bought cheapo packet gnocchi and a thing of cream, chucked in some garlic and parsley. It was quite nice actually.

I've found bits of various seafood so I'm going to try and spread it over 2 meals, a spaghetti marinara and a chowder. Not sure what the kids will think, but whatever.

I've got tins of tuna so I could do a mornay.

I'm also going to bake some muffins or biscuits for snacks. In my spare time haha.

Thanks for the tip re the pumpkin on sale. I've even got bread making stuff I think. So pumpkin soup is a great idea, so so cheap!!

Thanks also for the tip re the food bank. I did actually used to be a regular recipient of a food hamper from the local church (they prayed for people and my name came up, so sweet and also random lol), but I told them a few months ago that I'd like my spot to go to someone else in need now. But they did say if I needed anything ever just to give them a call. So I could do that too.

Red lentil dahl

- red lentils

- 1 onion

- tomato paste

- garlic, ginger

- ground cumin/coriander/tumeric & cardamon

- veg stock

- chilli optional

fry onions, garlic and ginger. Then add spices, then add stock and lentils - simmer for 15 mins then add tomato paste - done. Sorry recipe is on paper. Msg if you want quantities. DH loves this and he's normally a meat and veg man.

Yep - what is in your cupboard and we will get you fed without outlay for the week!!

If you have onions and tins, you are laughing. Bit of rice? Plenty of pasta? Any leftovers or bones in the freezer?

I didn't grow up poor but I grew up rural, so making stuff out of what you have is a handy skill.

Well.... I must say, that my 'random bits of freezer meat and random fridge veggies' bolognese is very tasty! Tastes almost as good as my usual bolognese.

Well.... I must say, that my 'random bits of freezer meat and random fridge veggies' bolognese is very tasty! Tastes almost as good as my usual bolognese.

Frugality can breed creativity. The first time I out zucchini in my Bolognese (because I didn't have celery in my fridge) it was delicious! So zucchini is now always in the Bolognese

Glad it's going well

I put potatoes in my slow cooker while im at work then just crisp them in the over when I get home.

Easy cheap toppings- cheese, tuna & corn, baked beans

Very filling.

I also make a big bolognaise most weeks then with leftovers I had a tin of beans and serve with rice the next day!