Extremely frugal food: 22 ideas that don’t cost much money #strugglemeals

We have a lot of frugal family meals on this blog. However, there is frugal food and then there is five pounds to last until pay day type of food. Here are some extremely frugal food ideas for when you just need to get to the end of the month.

Meals made on a scratch budget may not offer perfect nutritional balance or look like anything Nigella would whip up. However, this extremely frugal food is tasty, warming and will get you to pay day.

Ideally, write a meal plan using what you have. After all, your cheapest meals will be using food that is already in your pantry. Try to buy cheap ingredients that are useful for a multitude of dinners.

Useful store cupboard items for extremely frugal food

Useful ingredients for my extremely frugal food ideas, if you can get them, might include the following:

22 extremely frugal food ideas

1# Soup

The great thing about soup is that you can make it out of pretty much anything! It offers an opportunity to use up all of the odds and ends that are sitting in your fridge, such as tired looking celery and carrots. Leftover meat and veg can also be added. I have also been known to throw in wilted salad. Once it is whizzed up, no one knows!

An ideal base for your soup is onions, chopped potatoes and stock. You can leave the potatoes out and add pasta or rice later to make it more hearty. Then just thrown anything else in that you have to hand. Either chop it up small for a chunky soup or, if you prefer a smooth soup and have a hand blender, you can whizz it up.

With soup making in mind, keep your vegetable trimmings to make stock, and you can do the same with poultry carcasses and bones.

2# Potato bake

You can do a lot with the humble potato. Try slicing four medium spuds as thinly as you can then add a layer to a greased baking dish. Dot with butter or margarine, add salt and pepper and a small amount of fresh or powdered garlic. Continue to add layers of the potato, seasoning in the same way until you have used them all. Dissolve a stock cube in a small amount of water and add milk to make about half a pint of liquid (250ml). Pour over your spuds, then add grated cheese to cover. Cook in a low oven (160C/gas mark 3) for 1.5-2 hours, until the potatoes are tender. Eat as it is or, ideally, with a green vegetable.

I have made this in my slow cooker, which is more economical to run. I add the cheese for the last 20 minutes or so. You can also pre-cook the potatoes to save on energy.

3# Macaroni cheese

Who doesn’t love the warming comfort of pasta with a cheese sauce? You can make it really cheaply by using a packet sauce, stirring it into your macaroni (or any pasta) and topping with extra grated cheddar, browned under the grill.

4# Sardine spaghetti

Because they have such a strong flavour, a can of sardines in tomato sauce is lovely mixed with hot spaghetti. Add some of the pasta water to loosen it a bit. If you have a pepper, fry that up and add it too.

5# Cheese, onion and potato pie

It may be a bit of a stretch to call this a pie, but it goes down a treat with some baked beans! Cook and mash as many potatoes as you think you will need, and mix in some fried onions. If you have any leftover cooked veg, that can go in too. Grate some cheddar and mix half in with the mash and put the other half on top. Bake for about 20 minutes.

6# Bacon, onion and potato pie

Very similar to the dish above. You could add a little cheese to the top, but it’s not essential.

7# Potato, cheese and tuna pie

Yes, there is a theme developing! Mix a can of tuna in with some mashed potatoes and fried onions. Top with cheese if you have some and brown under the grill.

8# Omelettes

Eggs make a cheap meal, and omelettes are a super quick and easy way to eat them. Don’t be afraid to follow the Spanish example and make a more hearty dinner using eggs. Add thinly sliced cooked potato, peppers, peas, cheese, mushrooms, canned sweetcorn – whatever you have to hand.

9# Chick pea stew

Fry some onions and garlic for five minutes, then add any other veg you have available. Throw in a can of chickpeas, a can of tomatoes and some seasoning and cook for 20 minutes to combine the flavours. Serve with rice, pasta, potatoes or bread.

10# Chick pea curry

This is a favourite at Shoestring Cottage is you have the ingredients. If not, improvise. I regularly add cooked spinach or tinned potatoes to make it more substantial. My recipe is here.

11# Tuna risotto

This is an old one, from my copy of a 1970s frugal cook book called The Goode Kitchen, by Shirley Goode. (If you ever see this second-hand, I heartily recommend you purchase it. As long as the seller isn’t trying to ask a ridiculous amount, anyway!).

225g rice, 200g can tuna, drained and flaked, 300g can of condensed mushroom soup, 110g peas or other leftover veg, black pepper.

Parboil the rice for 5 minutes, drain, then return to the pan. Add the tuna and the soup, then the peas. Bring to the boil and simmer until all of the liquid has been absorbed (about 10 minutes). Season and serve.

12# Jacket potatoes

Ok, I know jacket potatoes isn’t a terribly original suggestion when it comes to frugal food, but it is worth mentioning that buying a bag of mixed size potatoes is cheaper than purchasing so-called baking potatoes. If you have a family, it is worth buying your spuds in sacks, so that you can pull out the larger ones for baking.

Pretty much anything is good as a topping: cheese, tuna, baked beans, leftover chilli, bolognese or any kind of casserole.

13# Pasta with bacon and tinned tomatoes

You could add cheese and sweet corn to this basic meal if you have them. Season well with black pepper and mixed dried herbs.

If you don’t have any bacon, top with a bit of cheese instead.

14# Curried beans

Make a tin of baked beans more interesting by adding 1 tsp of curry powder and a tablespoon of raisins as you heat them through. 

You could also fry an onion and garlic and mix them in, too. Serve with some crusty bread or on toast.

15# Egg fried rice

I deliberately make too much rice when I am cooking some, so that I can make the leftovers into egg fried rice. Chop up a small onion and fry in some oil for five minutes. Add the cooked rice – about 150 g is enough for two people – and fry a further five minutes. In a separate pan, add a little more oil and two beaten eggs. Allow to set for a minute and then stir into your rice and onions.

We enjoy this with a simple stir fry of whatever veg needs using up, soy sauce and some vegetable stock.

16# Vegetable stew and dumplings

Dumplings are great for filling you up an, when you are aiming for a cheap meal, vegetable stew is a cheaper option than meat. Add some pulses to your stew to make it more substantial.

This is a good basic dumplings recipe.

17# Liver and bacon casserole

People baulk at the idea of eating offal these days. However, meat such as kidneys and liver are still cheap in comparison to muscle meat.

As I type this, lamb’s liver costs about £2.46 for 400g in Tesco’s, as opposed to £5.50 for lean diced beef. So perhaps now is the time to try a liver and bacon recipe, such as this one from the Hairy Bikers. It’s delicious!

18# Sausages with lentils

The price of sausages varies, depending on the quality. Personally, I would rather have a couple of decent, meaty sausages than three or four cheap ones that taste like mush.

Therefore, it makes sense to stretch sausages with other cheaper ingredients, like pulses and vegetables. Chop up an onion and some garlic and to it add a can of tomatoes and about 200g cooked green lentils, along with some seasoning. Brown the sausages separately, then combine and cook for around half an hour.

19# Warm pasta and tuna salad

Cook some pasta and drain, add a can or two of tuna, depending on how  many people you are cooking for, a small can of sweetcorn and a large dollop of mayonnaise. Stir well and serve.

20# Savoury pancakes

Pancakes are a great way to use up the flour that many of us seem to have lurking in our cupboards. However, they don’t always have to be sweet pancakes. How about filling them with cooked spinach or leeks and grated cheese? Or chopped ham and sweetcorn? Cheap and filling.

21# Chilli beans and rice

A really quick and easy veggie meal is chilli beans and rice. This can be made with a can of three bean chilli mixed with some tinned tomatoes. 

22# Kipper kedgeree

Kippers are relatively inexpensive, as well as being a good source of healthy omega fats.  They are delicious with rice, and I frequently make a kind of kipper kedgeree.

I base it along the lines of this James Martin one, but without the double cream!

Just because you are on a tight grocery budget, it doesn’t mean your food has to be unappetising and dull. I hope you like my ideas for extremely frugal food. What cheap food do you eat when you are short of money?