Cheap Meals

Budget-friendly meals that feed a crowd without breaking the bank

4 recipes

Ginger Shallot Chicken

My version of ginger shallot chicken: drumsticks marinated in soy and Shaoxing wine, steamed with ginger and spring onion until meltingly tender, then shredded and tossed through a sizzling ginger shallot oil with the reserved chicken juices. Steaming the chicken in the soy marinade gives it that extra layer of flavour, and the juices that collect in the bowl become part of the sauce. Pile it over steamed rice for a comforting, fragrant Chinese dinner.

65 min4 servingsEasy

Chinese

Unauthentic Mapo Tofu

This is mapo tofu stripped back to what's already in most kitchens: no doubanjiang, no Sichuan peppercorns, no trip to the Asian grocer. Pork and beef mince gets caramelised with oyster sauce and soy, then simmered into a glossy, thickened gravy with cubes of silken tofu folded gently through at the end. It isn't the real thing and doesn't pretend to be — it's just a genuinely delicious 30-minute dinner to spoon over rice.

30 min4 servingsEasy

Dinner

Mini Sausage Rolls

Twenty-four mini sausage rolls from $9.20 of ingredients — pork and beef mince bulked out with grated carrot and onion, wrapped in puff pastry, brushed with egg wash and baked until deeply golden. Grating the veg in keeps the filling juicy rather than dense, and the whole tray disappears in about ten minutes flat. Perfect for parties, lunchboxes, or a very good dinner with tomato sauce.

65 min6 servingsEasy

Dinner

$10 Oven Baked Risotto

Risotto without standing over the stove ladling stock for half an hour: everything goes into a baking dish, gets covered with foil, and the oven does the work. Loaded with bacon, sweet roasted pumpkin, and a big handful of spinach folded through at the end, this feeds a family of six for $9.81 all up. It's creamy, filling, and genuinely one of the best-value meals in my rotation.

75 min6 servingsEasy

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