This resource is part of our ‘Love what you eat‘ campaign for National Nutrition Week 2025.
This resource is part of our ‘Love what you eat‘ campaign for National Nutrition Week 2025.
Love what you eat without stretching your wallet. Discover how to create meals you’ll love while saving money along the way.
A few simple changes in how you shop and cook can make your ingredients go further. By swapping out certain items for more affordable or filling alternatives, you can save money while still enjoying healthy, tasty meals. Here are some easy swaps to help stretch your food budget:
Add beans or lentils to mince dishes to make them go further.
Many pantry staples like pasta, rice and canned goods are almost identical in quality, but much lower in cost when you choose the supermarket brand.
They’re more filling and nutritious, which means smaller servings keep everyone satisfied for longer.
Make popcorn, muffins, veggie sticks, or cheese and crackers at home instead of buying expensive single-serve snacks.
Buying whole produce and chopping it yourself saves money and often lasts longer.
Delicious meals don’t need to be expensive or complicated. With ideas for family favourites and fun twists on simple staples like toast, you’ll find plenty of inspiration to keep meals exciting and affordable.
Feeding the family on a budget doesn’t have to be boring. With a little creativity, you can stretch your ingredients further, keep meals exciting, and get everyone involved in the process. Here are some family-friendly ideas to make your food budget go further while still enjoying tasty, fun meals together!
Batch cooking isn’t just for big families, it’s a smart way to stretch your budget, reduce food waste, and have meals ready to go on busy days. Freezing portions of your cooked meals or ingredients makes weeknight dinners quick, affordable, and stress-free.
Easy ideas to try:
Soups & Stews: Make a big pot and freeze in individual portions for lunches or dinners.
Casseroles & Bakes: Lasagna, shepherd’s pie, or veggie bakes can be frozen and reheated when needed.
Pasta Sauces: Tomato-based sauces, Bolognese, or curry sauces freeze beautifully. Cook once, use over pasta, rice, or wraps.
Cooked Beans & Grains: Batch-cook rice, lentils, or chickpeas to freeze and use in multiple recipes.
Stretch your budget (and your time) by cooking a simple base recipe that can be transformed into two different meals. It saves money, reduces waste, and makes weeknight cooking so much easier.
Easy ideas to try:
Spiced Mince Base → Turn into tacos one night, shepherd’s pie the next.
Roast Chicken Base → Serve with veggies on day one, then shred leftovers into a quick noodle soup.
Tomato Pasta Sauce → Enjoy with pasta, then use as a base for homemade pizzas or a baked egg dish.
Big Batch Beans → Wrap into burritos one night, blend into a hearty soup the next.
Ordering takeaway can be a treat but it quickly adds up. Fakeaway gives you the same flavours you love, made at home for a fraction of the price.
Easy Fakeaway ideas:
DIY Pizza Night: use wraps, pita, or homemade bases with fridge-leftover toppings.
Burgers: lean mince, beans, or lentils with fresh fillings on a wholemeal bun.
Stir-Fry or Noodle Bowls: quick, colourful, and full of budget-friendly veggies.
Taco Tuesdays (at home!): spice up beans or mince with pantry spices and load up the veggies.
Homemade Chips: cut potatoes or sweet potatoes into wedges, bake with a drizzle of oil.
Use up what’s already in the cupboard/freezer, refer to our Step by Step Guide to Building a Pantry Platter.
Toast is one of easiest, most affordable, and versatile snacks out there. You can top a piece of bread with just about anything to build a snack that will keep you going until mealtime. Full of essential B group vitamins, carbohydrates, protein and fibre, the humble piece of bread can be turned into a taste sensation.
Here are our favourite toppings for a piece of home brand wholegrain bread:
Save money before you even start cooking by making smarter choices at the supermarket. From choosing home brand products to filling your trolley with seasonal produce and value-packed veggies, small shifts in shopping habits can lead to big savings.
For more information on shopping go to our love food shopping page.
Keep your budget on track and your meals organised with our ready-to-use shopping list.
Home brand items can be a more affordable than branded items and can be equally as nutritious. Tinned or frozen fruit and veggies, canned beans and legumes, bread, dairy and eggs and wholegrains can all be used as budget friendly healthy snacking options.
Here are our favourite snack ideas using home brand products:
Buying fruits and vegetables that are in season can be a much cheaper alternative than buying off-season. Seasonal produce can be more flavoursome, nutritious, and less harmful on the environment. Veggie sticks with hummus, a piece of fresh fruit or a fruit and vegetable smoothie are quick, easy and healthy snack options that provide you with fibre, vitamins, and minerals to keep the cravings at bay.
These are our favourite fruits and veggies to stock up on for each season:
Save or print our in-season veg guide below.
With cost of living pressures putting the squeeze on family food budgets, turning to simple, veggie-loaded home-cooked meals is one way to put healthy meals on the table, for less.
Here’s some of the best budget-friendly veggies to add to your weekly shop!
There’s good reason you were told to eat your carrots when you were younger! Rich in beta-carotene (a pigment that makes carrots orange), carrots contain antioxidants to help your body fight off infections, such as the common cold. Beta-carotene can also be converted into vitamin A in the body, which is an important vitamin for eye health and good vision.
Top usage tip: Eat or cook your carrots with the peel on to reap the fibre benefits and minimise food waste. You can even use the carrot tops to make a great pesto or add shredded carrot to bolognese sauce to bulk it out and get some extra nutrients in. But perhaps what makes carrots one of our favourites is their fruit-like convenience and crunch, just chomp in!
Zucchinis contain vitamin C and carotenoids and are also high in both water and fibre, plus contain soluble and insoluble fibre making them a winner for your overall gut health and digestion. Apart from helping to keep you regular, fibre is also helpful in stabilising blood sugar levels and maintaining healthy cholesterol levels.
Top usage tip: Zucchinis are super versatile and are tasty roasted, frittered, or baked as a delicious zucchini slice. You can even use them raw in salads too. Use a spiraliser or mandolin to turn them into fun ‘zoodles’! If you don’t use up the whole zucchini grate leftovers into a pasta sauce or hash brown as the ultimate hidden veggie. Kids often eat them this way without complaint as they have a mild taste that is overtaken by stronger flavours in the meal.
Cucumbers also contain Vitamin C and carotenoids which can help provide your brain cells with antioxidant protection.
These greens are also rich in vitamins B6, C and packed with fibre. Vitamin C plays a part in your body’s natural collagen production so it may even help fight the signs of aging.
Celery provides many micronutrients. It contains potassium, folate, vitamin A and vitamin K. Vitamin K is an important nutrient that assists with blood clotting, wound healing and bone health.
While they may be small in size, peas pack a big nutritional punch – they provide a good source of fibre, folate and vitamin C, and are packed full of phytonutrients. They are also one of the best vegetable sources of protein, with just ½ a cup providing around 4g of protein. Now forget the mushy, over-boiled peas your mum served you as a kid and think about the burst of sweetness from adding fresh peas to salads, pastas, frittatas or even pureed in pestos.
Top usage tip: Fresh peas straight from the pod make a delicious snack over the summer months, and in the cooler months, frozen and tinned peas are a great cost-effective option to boost the veggie and nutritional content of your meals.
This family favourite recipe is a good all-rounder and perfect to freeze for convenient meals. Great for a veggie drawer clean out!
This is a hearty meal that utilises staple ingredients from the fridge and canned goods.
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