You absolutely can enjoy healthy meals on a budget with Slimming World! Fill your plate with cheap-to-eat staples like pasta, potatoes, rice and veg – all fab Free Food if you’re following Slimming World’s eating plan – to enjoy delicious, low-cost meals and get a great result on the scales.
To help your food shop go further, we’ve pulled together our top five cheap dinner ideas. Take a look at these healthy recipes for weight loss on a budget, plus our top tips to help you shop, save and slim…
Slimming World budget recipes
Cheesy minestrone soup
Cost per portion: £1.15 per person
Soup is a fantastic ‘throw anything in’ dish, ideal for using up what you have – and there are dozens of cheap soup recipes on our member app and website.
Savvy saver: Love your leftovers
Unused meat and veggies can be easily added to stir-fries, curries or stews. Or whizz up leftover veg with stock in your blender for a quick and easy soup.
Dirty rice
Cost per portion: £1.30 per person
Vegan
This Cajun-style dish is a fabulously frugal meal because it works with whatever fresh, frozen or canned veg you have to hand. If you haven’t got black-eyed beans, any tinned beans or even a can of chickpeas will work just as well.
Savvy saver: Make a meal plan
Deciding on your breakfasts, lunches and dinners for the week ahead means you can cook things that use similar ingredients, cutting down on waste and the cost of your shop.
Research shows that our members don’t spend more on food than people who aren’t trying to lose weight. In fact, swapping takeaways for fakeaways, buying fewer expensive treats like chocolate, snacks and alcohol, and picking up money-saving tips from group each week means that our members often report saving £££s as well as losing lbs!
Tuna pasta
Cost per portion: £1.50 per person
This simple recipe uses mostly cupboard basics, so it’s the perfect choice when you’re between supermarket trips – and you can pick up bags of pasta for pennies, making cheap pasta recipes an easy win.
Savvy saver: Stock up on staples
If your shelves are well-stocked, you’ll always have the makings of a slim-safe meal. Dried herbs and spices are great for adding flavour, while bags of rice, dried pasta and canned veggies last for ages, so you can buy in bulk and use them as the basis for a whole host of meals, saving you even more money in the long run.
Tikka masala fries
Cost per portion: £1.73 per person
These chips are generously loaded with chicken, so you could probably use less without anyone noticing, to make the dish even more budget-friendly. You could also switch out the chicken breasts for leftover roast chicken or chicken curry, to get two cheap chicken meals out of one.
Savvy saver: Make friends with your freezer
Store everything from meat and bread to fruit, vegetables and herbs in there, to help reduce waste. And if you just can’t finish off your filling Food Optimising meal, pop what’s left in the freezer, ready to defrost at a later date for a quick lunch or dinner (to check it’s suitable for freezing, look for the snowflake symbol on the recipe).
More on the blog: Slimming World members share their best money-saving ideas
Massaman curry
Cost per portion: 95p per person
Vegan
Want a curry in a hurry? This quick and easy dinner is packed with cheap, store cupboard staples – and will be ready in less time than it takes to get a takeaway. Chickpeas and potatoes make a great base for cheap vegetarian meals.
Savvy saver: Shop smart
Making a few easy swaps to your food shop can result in big savings. Here’s how:
- Choose your supermarket’s own products where you can.
- Be wary of ‘BOGOF’ and ‘two for one’ offers – they can encourage you to buy more expensive products and often leave you with more than you need.
- Local butchers, markets and farm shops can be good places to find economical cuts of meat and vegetables. Depending on the time of year, you could even have a go at growing your own produce.
- Where possible, buy whole vegetables and salad. Ready-prepared packs are often twice the price or more.
Read Dean’s story: “Yellow stickers saved me £££s while slimming!”
Slim and save with Slimming World
Slimming World groups and our vibrant online Community are full of money-saving meal ideas to help you manage your budget during your weight loss journey – as well as expert support and science-backed strategies to help you overcome every slimming hurdle.