Help! Need decent meal ideas on a student budget

[Goldsnake]

I remember seeing a couple of threads like this from time to time on SHC, can't see one in here yet.

Anyway the next couple of months I'm going to be really low on money, I can at a push budget £40 on food a week (that's if I don't go out drinking at all). I'm not a bad cook, my main issue is that I just don't have a wealth of recipes in my head - my usual dishes are: spag bol, chilli, curries etc from scratch. Without losing the will to live eating the same 3 meals for 2 months, what else is cheap, easy to cook and relatively healthy??

Welp!

[Mrenda]

Noodles with veg through them i.e. so a stir fry. The meat needed for stir fries is generally the more expensive kind though.

Stews, spend a few hours making a big one, freeze some portions, defrost and microwave as needed. It can be a good source of meat as the cuts you use in it are cheap.

Chicken wings are good as well. They're generally quite cheap if you get them straight from a butcher. I can get 20 small bbq wings and 10 large plain wings for €3.70. That does me and my brother for a big meal, would easily stretch to three meals, and if you're not a big eater four meals.

Anything pasta. Buy the pasta in bulk and it can be cheaper than potatoes and as cheap as rice. Sauces are the most expensive part of them. Although you can do well in the Aldis and Lidls.

Shepard's/Cottage pie. Go slightly off recipe and add lots of vegetables, cheap mince and some stock and a lot of spuds and you've got a good few day's meal in that. Same as the stew, freeze and microwave as needed.

Some of the no-name fishes can be as nice as cod and haddock and the like, but much much cheaper.

The supermarket will be best for buying everything bar the meat (and fish.) You need to find a good butcher and you'll be sorted for meat. He'll know what's cheap and how it can be cooked. Near my uni there's a butcher that specialises in dealing with students, cheap meat cuts and a lot of advice on how to cook them.

Edit: I know some people who get by on €20 a week for food (although I think they go home on the weekend.) £40 is easily manageable if you prepare and cook your food yourself, rather than buy ready or almost-ready stick straight in the oven meals.

Biggest advice, don't spend all your cash on booze. You'll probably have a load of good times should you do so, but not-eating isn't good times in the long run.

[Lallante]

Pasta bakes with all your leftovers in them. Lasagne.

Risotto is also a cheap one that no student should be without

[Mendolorian Girl]

use tinned veg as fillers.. obviously only the stuff that doesn't taste like ass (tinned carrots are all sorts of fucking wrong). Kidney beans, sweetcorn etc. Chilli is an obvious cheapy.. frozen mince, tinned tomatoes, tinned kidney beans, chilli's.. done.

Lasagne and pasta bakes have already been mentioned, but should basically be your staples. Anything you can make a massive dish of and freeze is where it's at.

Frozen meat too, keep an eye on the water content of it, but it's massively cheaper than fresh. It doesn't taste as good, but v0v, you're a student. You can generally get a huge back of chicken breasts, shitty bacon or chicken thighs/drumsticks for dirt cheap.

[Narmio]

Master pasta and casseroles/pasta bakes. Also, tinned tuna, with a good sauce and garlic/pepper it's tasty as hell. Always make tons more than you much as you need and fill your freezer and fridge with leftovers. Pasta dishes are perfect here as you can make enough sauce for three or four nights then just boil up a new batch of pasta while you defrost them.

[Goldsnake]

cheers for the ideas :) time to draft up a shopping list

[Jason Marshall]

Str fry was a god send for me when I first moved out, its really hard to fuck up and you can find decent pre-seasoned vegitable mixes at most supermarkets you just have to buy the meat of your choice to toss in.

[Jon.J]

1x kidney beans, 1x butter beans, 1x can of chopped tomatoes, handful of frozen veg, pasta. I have this more or less on a weekly basis, I make enough for two meals and normally end up omnomnomnomnomnoming it for lunch and dinner.

One thing I didn't realise till quite recently, the expensive stuff you use in small amounts can do wonders for boring meals.

[Mrenda]

One thing I didn't realise till quite recently, the expensive stuff you use in small amounts can do wonders for boring meals.


This. Dried and spiced meats are great for that. Something like chorizo fried in a pan and added to a tomato based pasta sauce really adds to it.

Same goes for spices. Find an indian shop or something and buy a couple of packs of whatever spices you know, and fling mixes of them into whatever you make.

[FatFreddy]

All kinds of casseroles - can use anything as basis; potatoes, rice, polenta, combined with all sorts of vegetables (paprika, tomatoes, zucchini...); feta is an awesome addition to those as well.

[Ædward]

use tinned veg as fillers..

I'm taking it that tinned is cheaper than fresh over in old blighty? Not bragging or anything but it's usually the opposite over here (Oz) and I used to use zucchini and golden squash to pad out pasta dishes when in the same lolpoorstudent situation.

The zucchini would pick up the flavour of the pasta sauce quite nicely so it wouldn't be a mouthful of bland like it is on its own and the squash while having its own flavour would go with any sauce. Mushrooms are also fantastic for stretching pasta.

[Mendolorian Girl]

yeah, tinned tomatoes 35p

1 orange pepper is EIGHTY FIVE OF MY FUCKING BRITISH PENCE

[56k Lagman]

Look for an industrial estate/business park near you, if there's a meat wholesalers there they sell meat/poultry very cheap in bulk

[Tellenta]

learn to use spices and make sauces, now you can make everything taste good even if it's just rice. here is a fun one. Pork chops + uncooked rice + orange juice + oven at ~350 + time = win

keep adding orange juice from time to time as it evaporates, a moderately glutenous rice is best.

[HyJek]

a favorite of mine this past semester was some italian sausage links cut into slices with homemade/store bought jar of tomato sauce + pasta of your choice

[Malcanis]

Go to your local chinese/aisan supermarket and stock up on spices, herbs & sauces. You'll get about 5x the amount for half the cost, and it'll be better. Supermarkets are a fucking rip off.

A massive bottle of sweet chili sauce, ditto some dark soy. Ditto a big tub of thai curry paste (keep this in the freezer) These are indispensible for making tasty cheap food.

Buy some of those potted herb plants (basil, parsely, coriander, mint) from the supermarket. If you repot them into a bigger pots and dont overharvest them, they grow quite happily on your windowledge. Fresh herbs do wonders for cheap meals. Plus they'll make the place look and smell nicer.

Also: learn to make bread. A 3lb bag of bread flour costs about 75p or something stupid, and the home made bread is massively tastier and more satisfying than the spongy air-filled sliced stuff. Plus you can do neat stuff like mix tasty things into the dough; fresh rosemary, caramelised onions, sunflower seeds, cumin seeds, leftover bits of dried up unusable cheese. You can make sweet spice bread by adding an egg and some cinnamon/allspice and some mixed broken nuts. That is god damb fine when you toast it and slap on the butter, let me tell you.

You can make the bread dough in a batch, give it a first proving, then cut it up into bread roll size portions and freeze it. When you want fresh bread, defrost it, let it rise again, bake. Easy. You can also not bother letting it rise again - just make flatbreads on a griddle/cast iron pan. That shit is p tasty too.

Finally: Lidl. They sell a lot of tasty stuff at a price that will appeal to the student budget. Especially the cured pork products; chorizo, salami, black forest ham. Lots of flavour there. Their chorizo is particularly good to cook with for all those pasta sauce receipes.

[High Sierra]

I used to rely on stews, chili con carne and just very what i put with them

one big pot of chili would last me till weds/thursday (by which point I was on the beer and kebabs anyway)
one thing - make yourself a big chili and add a tin of baked beans. fills it out quite a bit so it goes further

other than that just concentrate on several basic dishes that dont use expensive ingredients. oh an growing your own really helps too

[Mendolorian Girl]

Finally: Lidl. They sell a lot of tasty stuff at a price that will appeal to the student budget. Especially the cured pork products; chorizo, salami, black forest ham. Lots of flavour there. Their chorizo is particularly good to cook with for all those pasta sauce receipes.

quoting this, they're great for things like cheap obscure beer, frozen stuff, and cured meats

[56k Lagman]

I only have a tescos near me, wish there was a lidl near by. I miss all those meats :(

[Jason Marshall]

Also you can pan fry most any meat. Sure it would be better broiled or grilled. But get good at pan frying and never go hungry again.

[Narmio]

Also you can pan fry most any meat. Sure it would be better broiled or grilled. But get good at pan frying and never go hungry again.
Pan frying also gives you the opportunity to make a quick pan sauce, at the cost of half an onion, a little garlic, a cup or so of wine and a chunk of butter. Master the deglaze and you can quickly turn pan-fried meat slabs into delicious excellence. Will also get you chicks, no joke. Nobody can resist the power of "au jus".

It sounds French and complicated but it takes about five minutes and no effort. You do need a non-non-stick pan, though. Check it out: http://www.reluctantgourmet.com/deglazing.htm

[Mrenda]

Also you can pan fry most any meat. Sure it would be better broiled or grilled. But get good at pan frying and never go hungry again.


No you can't. Most of the stewing cuts will pull your teeth out if you try and eat them after frying them.

Maybe what you consider a cheap cut is fryable, but then you're not going for the really economical cuts. In fact I'd say they don't even sell them in supermarkets. But you can get meats in a butcher that could never be fried, but would be delicious and tender in a stew, or slow cooked curry. In fact they'd be better than the more expensive cuts (for science reasons like the structure of the meat breaking down at slower rate, and that.)

[Narmio]

Also you can pan fry most any meat. Sure it would be better broiled or grilled. But get good at pan frying and never go hungry again.


No you can't. Most of the stewing cuts will pull your teeth out if you try and eat them after frying them.

Maybe what you consider a cheap cut is fryable, but then you're not going for the really economical cuts.
Buceph raises a good point. Really cheap cuts should be lightly browned on the outside in a pan and then thrown into a stew or other slow-cooking environment. But average cuts of supermarket meat can be pan fried very nicely. You can also use cheaper cuts that have been chopped into fine strips in a stir fry or something like that.

[Jason Marshall]

What I wanna know is how the hell do resturants get that awesome crust around steaks and then have them cooked too perfection on the inside. ive managed to make some really good marinades that have made a decent crust and internal flavor but then I end up not cooking the inside to how I like it.

[FatFreddy]

You start at high heat and quickly roast both sides for a short time, then reduce heat and let it cook for a couple of minutes (depening on what you are preparing and how well you want it done)

[Wensley]

The absolute best way to save pennies on a student budget is simply to eat less meat. Might sound like a terrible idea but it will save you a fortune. Simple things like risottos, pasta in tomato/cheese sauces, cous cous, and jacket potatoes provide good bulk that will fill you up and then add vegetables and/or salad for greens.

There is plenty of cheap meat to be had though and a rasher of smokey bacon thrown into a frying pan will add a load of flavour for almost nothing. Chicken legs and stewing cuts are dead cheap as well and worth using.

[Narmio]

What I wanna know is how the hell do resturants get that awesome crust around steaks and then have them cooked too perfection on the inside. ive managed to make some really good marinades that have made a decent crust and internal flavor but then I end up not cooking the inside to how I like it.
You can also sear it in a pan on insane heat and then put it straight into the oven on a medium/low setting to brown up the inside a little. It helps to get a meat thermometer and read up on what temp you want the inside to be for your preferred done-ness.

However, this side-discussion into how to cook a perfect steak is probably not the best thing to be having in a "decent meals for no money" thread. It's pretty much just taunting the poor at this point.

[Malcanis]

cheap meat exists to be cooked longtime into chilis/curries (or even stews if your innards are protesting a bit at all that spice)

[hattifnatt]

You can actually survive on almost nothing but potatoes.

[High Sierra]

You can actually survive on almost nothing but potatoes.



LOOK AT THE IRISH.

[Me]

Packets of ramen are a pretty obvious way to save monies. One of those and a couple slices of toast is a pretty filling meal. (It'll get boring fast but hey it's dirt cheap). Go to an Asian grocery shop and get them in the 24 pack boxes they come in from the supplier, I used to get those for $10 for 24 of them, so about 6lbs. Also a fried egg and some reheated old sausages make them much nicer.

Sausages are also pretty cheap if you get the supermarket ones in bulk. About $10 for 2kg IIRC at woolworths (supermarket) here in Aus. Just freeze them in bags of 3 or 4 and defrost as you need them.

Plus keep an eye out for pubs doing cheap steak nights or something similar. Most places down here will have a night of the week where you can get a meal for about the price of a beer or not much more. That can give you the satisfaction of getting steak or something like that at a reasonable price. Plus :guinness:

[eshru]

is there costco/sam's club (walmart) in the UK?

there's a yearly fee but maybe you can split the cost w/ someone. the savings really add up here at least.

[Mrenda]

is there costco/sam's club (walmart) in the UK?

there's a yearly fee but maybe you can split the cost w/ someone. the savings really add up here at least.


I don't think there are public ones. Most of the bulk buying places are cash and carries and you generally need a VAT number to go there, because they're designed for people who are going to claim VAT back once they've incorporated the items into a product/resold them. Some independent cash and carries will let the public in. There's an Asian C&C near me that's great. Lots of quality stuff for dirt cheap.

[High Sierra]

Costco are in the uk. I would only use them for stuff like cleaning materials, toilet roll, canned food that I can store away somewhere till I need it.

I always found when I was shopping for myself that the deals werent always to my benefit. 2 for 1 on perishable food stuffs for example. Or you would get a voucher for money off but only if you spent over a certain amount. I also found that the quantity you get can also be a problem when you go for the cheaper food stuffs. (sliced ham in a packet bought as a cheaper alternative to sliced ham from the deli counter for example)
The trick really is not to waste any food that you buy. The internet is a great help - just stick whatever ingredients you have into google and once you have got past the hungarian goat porn and japanese carrot hentai (dont deny it you know what Japan is like) you will find a recipe. you might also want to get yourself over to the gardening thread cos theres tons of stuff that you can grow that wont take up too much space but will save you a fair bit and make the food more interesting.

Go shopping with someone else. especially if you have vouchers that give you X off if you spend over £50 for example.
while there you can do stuff like get the 2 for 1 offers which wil lsave you both money.

I dont know if its still in print but there was a great book I used at college called 'Grub on a Grant' which was really helpful - full of really really cheap recipes.