Hi community! I’m grocery shopping on a low budget and would love some affordable dinner idea/ links.

I’m doing some google and YouTube searches too. I’m hunting for recipes that can be a two day meal or that’s hardy but cheap

Anything with lentils - daals, soups, lentil chilli, lentil bolognese. Easy to batch cook and freeze as well. Start with onion base, add any other veg like carrot/celery/sweet potato etc. Fry off, then for daal add garlic/ginger, lentils, curry powder and preferred spices, tinned tomatoes and stock/coconut milk. Simmer for 30/40 mins until lentils cooked. Bolognese, same veggie base, then add garlic, lentils, tomato puree, herbs (oregano is good) and simmer 30/40 mins. Chilli, veggie base, plus garlic, cumin/coriander/paprika, lentils, tinned tomatoes and black beans/kidney beans/chickpeas. All very adaptable to your taste and can pack with veggies ^_^ can also do half meat half lentils if you don’t want it to be fully veggie but want to make the meat stretch further.

Umm, if you make everything from scratch it can all be used for multiple meals and end up cheap. I always get onions and garlic, starches like potatoes, rice and pasta, meats so for me that’s chicken, mince and beef, some fish and veggies, sauces and stocks… so I get passata and tomato purée. Add in some dairies like cheese, milk and butter if you have those and some pulses like chickpeas, lentils, black beans etc. Recipes like Shepard’s/ cottage pie Chilli con carne Chicken and chickpeas Lentil and spinach soup Steak and chips (with some peppercorn sauce) Beef stew Roast dinner Fish and rice/couscous/ bulgar or even potatoes Spaghetti bolognaise Spinach and ricotta cannelloni/pasta Pie and mash Curry of many kinds Btw I add veg to every meal no matter how simple and if it’s a saucy meal I grate the veggies in (like carrots and courgette

Oh and if you increase the quantities of ingredients used it can stretch for longer than a day

Tacos , spaghetti , Kielbosa and Mac n cheese or scrambled eggs

Black beans in a crock pot over night...+garlic cloves & onion add salt. Serve with sour cream and cheese of your choice. 😋 Roast beef stew in a crock pot too. An enchilada casserole Overnight oats🥳

Plain flour & Greek yogurt make a really quick flatbread recipe you can add herbs and spices too but they are lovely on their own. https://www.easypeasyfoodie.com/easy-2-ingredient-yogurt-flatbreads/ Also one of the best hacks I learnt from my mum for when we were a big strapped for cash was to get a whole chicken. Roast it one night and eat, left overs & strip the carcass for more meat and use that for another meal or lunches. I often left over shredded chicken in fried rice. And then lastly boil the carcass with a stock cube and water, half an onion/carrot/stick of celery and some bay leaves to make a delicious bone broth for soups! Easily make 1-4 meals out of one chicken for the 3 of us! 🥰

Pasta based dishes are always a good one! A cheat Carbonara is literally just bacon bits, 2-3 egg yolks & grated cheese. Fry garlic and bacon, add the cooked spaghetti and some boiling pasta water and then turn off the heat and add the mixed up egg yolks and cheese and the left over heat will cook the sauce until it’s creamy and delicious (if you leave the heat on the eggs could scramble) xx

Shepherds pie is a great option. My mom would make this chicken potato casserole in the oven or even in the slow cooker. She would use chicken or leftover turkey after Thanksgiving and whatever odds it ends of veggies we needed to use up. She even just put cream of spinach in there before to count for the cream of mushroom and spinach. Chicken and potatoes go with almost any veggie. I've made it many times to use up what's in the fridge or when I'm tight on money. Can of cream of chicken and a can of cream of mushroom (or two cans of cream of chicken or swap one for cream of celery) Diced potatoes Cut up or shred chicken (or turkey) Corn, carrots, peas, or anything else you want veggie wise Add water till everything's covered Cover with tin foil then bake at 350° until potatoes are soft and chicken is cooked. If you set everything out and let each of the kids make their own "mini casserole". Just use foil to make pouches they can fill up with what they specifically want. Then bake the rest for leftovers.

Pasta, beans and rice, sandwiches, soups

Anything you can make in really big quantities will keep the price down, especially if it’s full of veggies/cheap meat; Bolognese Chilli Lasagne (anything pasta) Shepard’s pie/cottage pie Casserole Money has been tight for us and food is so expensive, what helped us was meal planning. So decide what to eat for the week, and only buy what you need. It stops you overspending & food wastage :)

Low budget, buy in bulk and make lots for future meals. That way you just spend a lot once and have many meals for future. You also only have to spend one day cooking. Ie make 3 Lasagnes instead of one; a stock pot of chili Shepherd's pie is also great for cleaning out the fridge. All the left over veggies can be chopped up and cooked with ground beef. Whatever doesn't fit in the dish goes in a bag in the freezer.