The kitchen staples that will see you through to pay day

Eating on a budget doesn’t have to be boring, and it doesn’t have to be difficult. Keeping an eye on sales and the discount section helps add variety to your diet, while going into the supermarket with a list and a plan will make sure you stick to budget.

Stockpile the basics including instant oatmeal packets for breakfast all week; bags of rice for an easy and filling starch base; canned beans to mix with your rice (a meal!) and chili-spiced beans to make tacos; tortillas for tacos, wraps and quesadillas; frozen chicken breasts, frozen vegetables and your favourite stir fry sauce make a yummy dinner; plenty of pasta and tins of passata and you’ve got a quick and easy basic meal.

The single most nutritious food you can get is a potato in its skin. Bake or microwave it for a jacket potato or make like a hobbit and boil ‘em, mash ‘em, stick ‘em in a stew: add some milk and/or butter and you’ve got everything you need. They might not last too long raw but cooked potatoes will last long enough in the fridge and any nearing the end of their lives should be chopped and stored in the freezer. Slice them thinly, toss them on a baking tray, add some oil and salt and pepper, stick them in the oven and bake for 30 minutes at 180C. Job done.

Fried onion makes everything taste better; chop it up, keep it in the freezer, and take out what you need. Ditto for garlic. Add to beans, rice and some passata with whatever frozen vegetables you’ve got and voila—nutrition.

If you’re vegetarian, you can get super nutritious non-dead-animal protein on the cheap: lentils and pulses. Black lentils taste the best and need the least soaking; green lentils are best for cooked meals; and red lentils make a cracking soup. Red lentils, potatoes, root vegetables and spices all cooked up and blended: instant soup. Speaking of instant soup, package mixes on sale can be added to couscous, chicken or sprinkled over the potato slices in your oven. Flavouring in seconds. Or add water and get actual soup.

Eggs are awesome sources of protein: buy a bunch if you can and you’ll have even more food options. Cook chopped tomatoes in a pan, add some onion and beans, then when hot and bubbly, crack an egg in there. Hard boil a few and keep them in the fridge for long-lasting grabbable snacks.

Think you can’t afford cheese? Think again. Buy it on sale, grate it up and it’ll keep in the freezer forever. Add it to all sorts and give your taste buds a treat. Sliced bread also keeps well in the freezer; a slice of toast under the grill and some grated cheese and you’ve got yourself cheese on toast. Add baked beans and look at that for an easy dinner. A stale loaf can be chopped into cubes, mixed with a little oil and baked into croutons to add to your red lentil soup or instant soup.

If you’ve got a big supermarket with a deli counter or a backstreet rotisserie around the corner, whole rotisserie chickens can be very cheap and easily provide four to six servings of delicious protein. Buy a couple, shred them up and freeze portions. Don’t throw away the carcass—as gross as it seems, sticking it in your soup will squeeze all the viable vitamins and minerals out of the marrow, without you needing to actually eat the bones. This is literally bone broth—full of nutrients and will help boost your immune system. Plus, a little bit of bone broth added to your passata dishes will boost flavour and nutrient content.

Keep these in your cupboards and freezer and you’ll always have something on hand for a cheap meal. ■