10 Cheap & Easy Ways to Stretch Your Food Budget – #frugalfood #frugal #tips #menu
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I show you my top ten tips for stretching your food. Here are some links to food I mentioned: Lentil Wraps shorturl.at/nsBIK Falafels …
Great share, Jane. We love recipes that stretch like many that you mentioned. 👍
Yes all around the world we are stretching our dollars. Thanks for your tips. I'll try to remember to make a pie….maybe with a bunch of leftovers!!! 😀. OMG your doggies are so cute!! Ciao for now.
I love all the advice and experiences you share in n all your videos. I do not eat meat or dairy but there are so many substitutes I can do to make your recipes. Making the lentil wraps this weekend! Can’t wait to try them. thanks for sharing 😊
Just thought! Never ever throw your veg water away. It's a nutricious base for soup.
As a cheap ingredient I would add tinned fish. 1 small tin of pilchards or sardines in tomato sauce 40-50p males two lunches for me mashed on toast with a side salad. You can also make great fish cakes by adding them to cooked potatoes and maybe an egg costing with homemade breadcrumbs. People can get scared of the bones, but canned fish has really soft bones that just just mash up so you wouldn't know they were there, plus you get added calcium. Tinned salmon and tuna can be very cheap too.
Great blog! If I may just add. I make Humus with all beans, regardless of colour. I thicken my soups with a good dollop of home-made Humus. I thicken soups with a handful of oats aswell.
For those in the UK who have a Home Bargains shop near them, they have packs of part baked bread at a good price. There's a particular pack that's excellent value and as they have a very long shelf life so great as a store cupboard standby.
Rice pudding- yum.
Good
I love the many suggestions of oats, but Id like to add other cheap dry grains to the list! Barley(pot or pearl) is great in many soups, it can be boiled and eaten as a side, fried with onions and herbs, or boiled and eaten like rice pudding with a little dried fruit. Cornmeal-muffins and johnnycake, easy, filling, also can be eaten boiled like cereal then when it gels cold, sliced and fried, as cornmeal mush. Couscous, quinoa, lovely replacements for rice, less starchy, can be added to soups, fried, made into salads. Chia seeds! Bulking, can be added to breads, drinks, make chia pudding, lots of nutrition. Great fibre. And one last easy thing! Garlic bread soup! Fry stale bread cubes in butter and garlic, and onions, add some chicken stock(water and boullion cube if needed). 4 cups for about a small loaf. Simmer 10 minutes, add 1/4 c of cream. Blitz with stick blender to make creamy. Serve with some grated cheese of choice, and a little parsley garnish. You can add whatever you want really. Easy and delicious.
Eating fried rice for dinner while watching your video. 😊I used soy curls instead of chicken. Delicious!
Great video Jane. Like you one of my favourite comfort meals is risotto (or Zotto as we call it as my kids couldn't pronounce it when they were little) we also make a spicy red rice dish with French red camargue rice which is harder to find now in UK. If you like a nutty rice give it a try as you'll easily be able to find it French supermarkets, we do it with whatever left over veg we have and sometimes a bit if chorizo or left over Chicken.
Great video again, lots of great ideas to try which I have written down to remember: thanks so much! I also second oats: I add these to soups and stews, for making woolton pie, for thickening spag bol. Also dried soy mince is great for stretching meat and is virtually undetectable. It's great to keep on hand for when I add too much liquid to anything with mince (cottage pie, bolognese, chilli con carne, meatloaf etc) I get 6 portions instead of 4 and freeze the spares to go on baked potatoes or for emergency ready meals. Can't wait to try some of your ideas 😋
Oh I do love rice ! Fried rice is such an easy dish . In my younger years, when I had little money, I would often make a big pot of it and eat it for breakfast , lunch and dinner if that;s all I had until pay day. I was grateful for it, and enjoyed it. I love all kinds of rice, but my current favorite is short grain. Rice, potatoes, and pasta should be pantry staples. I love a good baked potato, The skin is my favorite part. I love black beans, and enjoy black bean burgers. Yum !! Lentils are delicious . Falafels and tsziki (I'm sure I misspelled those) are amazing together. Soups and stews are always wonderful. I love making bread. Home made is so good. I love meat pie. My Mom would make a well seasoned ground meat pie , top and bottom crust, then serve it with a tomato sauce, and a salad. So good ! I agree a pie can be anything 🙂 Egg custard is one of my favorites. Scrambled eggs on toast is one of my go to's often. I love green veggies . I love brussels sprouts, I like them cooked or shaved raw on a green salad. I agree with everything you said. tfs 🥰🌷💐🌞🌛🍀✝💗
I use the broccoli stalks with potatoes and onions to make soup
Pearl barley is a great tasty and frugal meal cooked in the slow cooker with stock, onions, carrots, potatoes then topped with gravy ( add meat if its in the budget)great as a side dish to sausages
Don't forget about oatmeal! You can do so much with oatmeal. I recently learned to grind up oatmeal in my Magic Bullet to make oat flour. What a game changer?
I have almost a whole pot if tomato sauce with meatballs leftover from spaghetti Wednesday. Tonight, I will cook a pot of brown rice and add my tomato sauce. A bowl of salad greens and another veggie to go along with it will make a good Thursday night supper.
Save all your leftover vegetables, meat, and rice. Freeze all those little tidbits, and then, add it all together to make a quick pot of soup on a chilly day for lunch or dinner. Food is too expensive to waste.
👍🌹
I remember my Mom drying bread 🍞 to make bread crumbs to add into a meatloaf or hamburger patties. Mom came thru the depression. I was raised with a lot of frugal measures, then we had extra money to go camping. ⛺
Kedgeree is another meal we have regularly. A small piece of fish and hard boiled eggs curried with rice is delicious.
Thank you for another fantastic video! I have been having lots of luck in my local co-op supermarket in the mornings after the school run. At that time they reduce the previous day's reduced fruit and veg to 10p. So I've been getting bags of apples/potatoes/sprouts etc and making the day's meals based around what I find! I hope that continues!
And the prices will keep rising! Im challenging myself by trying other cuisines just to keep from going crazy.
As a frugal, solo, senior retiree I have always done many of the things you suggest, but even I am surprised by how many of my staple ingredients recently have risen significantly in price. Yesterday, I was surprised by the price of whole wheat (whole meal in Brit, I think) products. 5 lbs of whole wheat flour has gone up by $1 since I last bought it. I always mix 2/3 whole wheat to 1/3 all-purpose for baking, but for nutrition purposes I don’t want to dilute it any further. Do you have any frugal, nutritious alternatives for breads and pastries?
brilliant, midweek foodie day! don't forget those vegetable skins and peelings oven roasted make lovely crisps….nothing gets wasted in our house.
Another great video, even though I can't use any of them. Not a hardship at this time to live on meat, eggs, cheese and a bit (and I mean a bit) of leafy salad greens along with small amounts of non-starchy veg (grows above ground). Meat is still less expensive, and more enjoyable than insulin. I did buy a little tub of chicken livers which I will sauté in butter. Hoping Nigel the Wondercat and I both like them.
I trim and save for another feast! Specially for chicken breasts and steaks that we get reduced or on special deals. I freeze the trimings for stir fries using up vegetables too. Just a tablespoon of your sausage meat saved can make a nice addition to anything you want to liven up!
This weekend I'm cooking a homemade chicken, mushroom and leek pie with either yellow sticker or on offer ingredients..800 GM of mini chicken fillets, a large tray of mushrooms and 2 x leeks. I costed it out..3.40 Euro in total. 9 x portions..roughly. 35 cent a portion, and there wont be a crumb left……and I'll throw in a tray of scones, and a tray of roasted baby potatoes. 50 cent at lidl, to make the oven cost effective. Cooking done for 3 days
As always Jane, superb..
Thanks for the video, Jane! I collect nearly all vegetable scraps, peels, skins, even from leeks or onions, garlic and let them dry. Having a certain amount I put them in the food processor and make a fine powder. This can be used like stock cubes and is a good spice for every dish. Since years I didn't buy any cubes or this little jars with souppowder (?).
I also love your enthusiasm. This video is like listening to my weekly meal plan! This morning I am making some bread – time to watch your video while it's proving – and have started dinner, which is a tomato pasta sauce with added peppers, some chunks of sweet potato and squash which I had frozen a while ago, smoked paprika and some red lentils. Makes a thick smoky sauce with pasta which helps feed the 15yo 6ft 1" teen boy! I made another school canteen cake earlier in the week and soup yesterday using some turning squash and carrots (19p bag of carrots as on date), then added red lentils and also some coconut milk – a treat, but I buy the 200ml tins and then add same again of water, cheaper than buying a 400ml tin. We had a small roast chicken last Sunday and I stripped the last bits of meat and made paella on Monday and stock in slow cooker. Potatoes and beans used lots here as well!
Great Video Jane. From breadcrumbs we make german Knödel and from leftover potatoes we make gnocchi.
Pancake day was this week…and I used your lentil pancake recipe…very good for my husband who needs to watch blood sugar levels…and topped with mashed banana, yoghurt and cinnamon…delicious and no wheat or sugar😀😀😀they freeze well also…many thanks…and congrats….close to 15k subscribers😀😀😀jinxy
Great video again! I bought dried chickpeas and soaked them overnight then cooked them in the instant pot. Amazing! They taste so much better than tinned too. I made a great hummus with half and it was the best I’ve ever made. I topped salad with some, I added some to a Bolognese sauce and I’ve baked some with a few spices for a tasty snack. I add broccoli heads and the stalks to potatoes to cook then I mash it. Lovely!
Keep the videos coming you guys, take care. Xx
We certainly have to make our food go a lot further these days and never waste a thing! Leftovers are a creative challenge for us all!
Simple ingredients are a great basis for budget meals, lots of good ideas Jane. I think lots of us are revisiting our frugal 1970s cookbooks!
My great aunt who was born in 1900 and lived well until sh e was 96 had two sayings that I always hear in my head, “ if you have bread and eggs, you’ve always got a meal” and “ look after your food” which I think meant to take care over what you eat, make sure you prioritise eating well and not wasting anything. Learning to cook and getting confident with a few basic meals really helps to make the most of food that is reduced or on offer. I always recommend Delia’s Frugal Food book, so many tasty and cheap recipes using the ingredients you mentioned in the video and not feeling at all hard done to. Most country’s best dishes are ‘peasant food’, having a staple and making the most of it. Great video as ever, thank you.
I love a good omelette. Could you do a clip including why and how you use the little bench top oven, many thanks
I made some yummy soup, and it fed us for almost a week. Thank you. for your ideas.
Food Fabulous Food
All the ingredients & meals are in my food arsenal too.
Egg Custard 😋😋😋 the BEST.
Great ideas as always.🌸
I've been watching your videos for about 3 weeks now and truly enjoy all of your content. My husband and I are debt free and he is retiring in a couple of months, so your videos have given me many ideas of making our retirement budget stretch. I am slowly watching your older videos too. Thanks Jane and Mike for all you do to help others.
You have pretty much covered the budget stretchers and given very good examples. Reminds me of the WWII rationing cook books. During rationing, food was definitely stretched to go further. History almost repeating itself. Thank you!
Great ideas!!! I like to use Quinoa as a carbohydrate whenever possible. It is gluten free and contains protein. The protein contains all 9 essential amino acids. If it isn't prewashed, be sure it is thoroughly washed before cooking. Thanks again for this video!❤
So much positivity. Thank you for that ❤️
Soups and sandwiches we eat a couple of times a week, it's a satisfying meal either for lunch or dinner. I to like breakfast for dinner, you can't go wrong with pancakes and fried potatoes. Great video and thank you.
Ironically, I'm watching this while eating my dinner…which is a baked potato with beans and broccoli. So good! And you gave us so many good ideas in here…all of which I agree with. I'd also add oats (which I see someone else mentioned) and onions. Onions are terrific raw, sauteed, or even pickled, and they lend a ton of flavor to dishes which can be helpful if you can't afford a lot of herbs and spices.
I am a great advocate for many foods which tin nicely., Beans, for example. Having said that, I also advocate for fresh beetroot. It is amazing how delicious a fresh beetroot baked in foil in an oven can be.
Thank you for the video!
Hi I really enjoyed this video. I watch quite a few frugal/ money saving channels and I like to show support by watching the adverts as I know it adds to the money you earn- but I'd like to ask a question if you don't mind. If I watch the first ad but skip the second does it earn you anything at all or do I need to watch both? Often the first ad lasts 20 or 30 seconds but sometimes the second one can be quite considerably longer. Sorry for such a random query!
Yes I did a stock up yesterday. I got a 2.5kg tin of lentils and another 2.5kg tin of kidney beans. It's a lot of beans and will definitely strech my freezer meals a bit. Plus I never thought about adding beans to the hamburger patties, which is something I'm putting together as well. The amount of cooking I've got to do is insane, that's the thing about freezer cooking. As far as pies go I got some tinned apples pretty cheap so I was going to make apple turnovers. I don't buy my own pastry though I use the ready made sheets. I cook eggs in the slow cooker, because I don't ever get them right on the stove. I wouldn't call it a fried egg, but I can just crack one on some baking paper and half an hour later in the slow cooker on high its done, or else I just put the eggs on high in hot water for 30 minutes and it's done. For some reason if I do it on the stove I never get the settings just right. It seems like a lot of the things you are talking about are carbohydrates which aren't the best but I'm one to talk with my terrible diet. But anyway as far as plants that are good fillers I say spring onions because they grow in the garden really easily and you cut them back and they just grow back.
That is really disgusting contaminating good toast with scrambled eggs and then the bread gets all soggy but I guess that's an ok thing for British people to do.
Yes I tried to grow those brussel sprouts. They take up heaps of space and then I had to throw all the plants away and they took ages to grow. Not a fan of those. Broccoli can't seem to handle fluctuations in temperature and the broccoli I planted all bolted – that being said apparently if you lay down pea straw that helps them handle it better but I had no room in the budget for pea straw at the time. Yes I have spinach seedlings and I'm very hopeful about them. Apparently you can also freeze spinach. If it works out alright I might just plant a whole heap of it.