Easy, cheap and tasty family recipes

Cooking tasty meals for your family doesn’t need to cost you lots of time or money and we have lots of ideas to help with breakfast, lunch, dinner and even snack times!

A helpful thing to do is to create a routine for when you and your family eat. This means you’ll have regular meal times instead of snacking throughout the day. Planning ahead for meals each day helps avoid last minute decisions and stress.

You can also use our meal planner to help you organise your family's meals for the week and find lots of recipes here.

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Comfort food and traditional recipes

Sometimes we just want to eat food that makes us feel better and these are usually family favourites. But there’s no reason why these meals can’t be part of a healthy diet and they can often be changed to fit whatever meat or vegetables you have in the house. Check out our recipes for lasagne, shepherd's pie, stovies or sausage and mash. We also have quick options like homemade pizza when there’s just not enough time in the day.

One pot recipes

Cooking everything in one pot saves time and washing up! These quick, easy and adaptable recipes often let you use the vegetables you already have or can easily get hold of. They’re also a great way to add pulses, like lentils or chickpeas into your family’s diet. Tasty recipes to try include chicken and pea risotto and roasted vegetable couscous.

Pasta recipes

When you’re short on time, pasta dishes are a quick, easy and budget friendly way to keep the family full. You can also change many recipes to use the vegetables you already have and add pulses such as lentils and chickpeas to make them more filling. A great time saver tip is to make the sauces in bulk and freeze for another time. Why not try our chicken and pea pasta or tuna pasta salad recipes?

Soup recipes

A big bowl of hearty soup makes a tasty and cheap meal that the whole family is happy to tuck into. It’s also easy to turn into a more filling meal by serving with wholemeal bread or adding potatoes, rice, pasta or other grains.

Soups are also perfect to make in advance and reheat when needed. They can be stored in the fridge for up to two days or you can freeze them for the future. You can also easily change recipes to use vegetables you already have and add pulses, such as lentils or chickpeas to bulk it out.

Plus, if you’ve got a fussy eater at home, soup is a great way to sneak vegetables into their diet. By blending or mashing through a sieve, you can turn soup into a smoother consistency that can often help with picky eaters. Check out our recipes for vegetable broth and cock a leekie soup or find all our soup and broth recipes here.

Baked potato recipes

Baked ‘tatties’ are quick and easy to do and are great to have up your sleeve for lunchtimes and lighter meals. With lots of different fillings to choose from, you easily can mix and match to keep your kids from getting bored. Plus, fillings can be made in bulk and used on another day. A few of our favourite recipes include baked potato with beans and cheese and baked potato with chicken and sweetcorn.

Fakeaway recipes

We all have our favourite takeaway meals and ‘ordering in’ is something the whole family gets excited about. But having a go at making your own favourite restaurant meal or takeaway will not only save you money but will also allow you to reduce your salt, fat and sugar intake. Why not try our fakeaway curry recipes such as vegetable balti or chicken biryani, make your favourite pizza or even try sweet and sour pork noodles or chicken kebabs?

Healthy snacks

Kids love to snack in between meals and it’s hard to know what to give them. If you’re looking for something different from the usual crisps and biscuits, why not try our tortilla chips and dips or other savoury snacks such as spiced popcorn. If they have a hankering for something sweeter, try our cranberry and orange muffins or pear crisps.