10 low cost family meals made in 1 hour with ALDI ingredients

by - https://thebatchlady.com/r/3472/

Here I run through my 10 minced beef family meals made in 1 hour – but this time I’ve shopped at ALDI and show you how to make 10 family meals for 4 that cost only just over £30 using entirely ALDI ingredients in August 2019

Cook Time
Total Time
Difficulty
Intermediate
Cuisine
Various
Servings
4

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories
2,822kcal
Fat
100g
Sat. Fat
48.4g
Carbs
191g
Sugars
46.3g
Fibre
29.7g
Protein
287g
Salt
2,832mg
Ingredients
Serves

Ingredients

  • Lean minced beef
    4.5 kg
  • American mustard
    3 squeezes
  • Dried rosemary or basil
    2 tablespoon
  • Worcestershire sauce
    3.50 tablespoon
  • Eggs
    2
  • Fajita ingredients: including wraps, salsa and flavouring mix
    2 packets
  • Grated carrot
    6 cups (420 g)
  • Frozen chopped onion
    6 cups (690 g)
  • Frozen chopped pepper
    2 cups (350 g)
  • Garlic puree
    3 tsp
  • Mushrooms (halved/quartered or sliced)
    3 cups (210 g)
  • Chopped tomatoes
    6 cans
  • Passata
    3 cartons
  • Tomato puree
    4 tablespoon
  • Dried oregano
    4 tsp
  • Chilli powder
    3 tsp
  • Kidney beans in water
    2 tins
  • Brioche burger buns
    8

Method

  1. ALDI asked me if I would make my 10 meals in 1 hour using ALDI UK products, I was actually astounded that I could make all these meals for so little money. In this video I show you what the cost of each ingredient was and what I substituted to allow me to get similar products all from ALDI, such as squeezy garlic instead of my usual frozen chopped etc. The total cost was £30.97, working out at £3.09 for a family homemade freezer meal for 4! I still had lots of herbs etc left for the next time, I worked out that minus the store cupboard ingredients that I bought this time, I could do it again for £27.00 so £2.70 for a homemade family freezer meal. Great for anyone trying to save or on a tight budget

  2. Lay out all your ingredients in the order you’ll be using them.

    Add a splash of oil to your large pan, heat and then add in
    6 cups of pre-chopped frozen onions
    3kg of lean mined beef.

    6 cups grated carrot – to be added later

    Stir and allow onions and mince to brown. (This is the start of your fajitas, Bolognese and chilli).

    While the meat is browning you can now make the home-made burgers. Remember to stir the browning meat occasionally.

  3. Home Made Burgers

    Ingredients:
    750g lean minced beef
    3 large squeezes of American mustard
    1 1/2 tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce
    1 egg.

    Mix all the above ingredients in a bowl.
    Once mixed well, divide the mixture into 4, then halve again, you should have 8 similar sized balls of meat that you can shape into burger paddies.
    Label 2 freezer bags and place 4 paddies in each bag. Your burgers are now ready for the freezer.

    Stir your browning pot of beef, add the 6 cups of grated carrot, stir again and move on to making your meatballs.

  4. Home-made meatballs

    These are made similarly to the burgers so just use the same bowl as before.

    Ingredients:
    750g of lean minced beef
    2 tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce
    2 tablespoons of dried rosemary, basil or oregano
    1 teaspoon of garlic, puree or frozen pre-chopped
    1 egg.

    Mix all the above ingredients in a bowl.
    Once mixed well, divide the mixture into 2 large balls, then divide each ball into 4 equal portions and divide each of the 8 portions into 4 again so that you end up with 32 similar sized meat balls.
    Label 2 freezer bags and place ½ the meatballs into one bag, and half into the other. Your meatballs are now ready for the freezer.

    By now your pot on the top of the stove will be ready and you can drain out any excess fat.

    Do a quick tidy away of anything not needed from the burger and meatball recipe.

  5. Fajitas

    Ingredients:
    2 packets fajita / taco mix.

    Next make the fajitas!
    Label 2 small freezer bags and portion out 1 cup of cooked mince and carrot mix from the pot into each bag, add one packet of dry fajita or taco seasoning to each bag of mince, mix this through in the bag by gently shaking Leave bags open until fully cooled! Once cooled, seal and freeze flat.

    Optional- once cooled I often add a cup of frozen chopped peppers to each bag before putting directly back in freezer.

  6. Bolognese

    Take the large pan of cooked minced beef, onions and carrots, and add:

    Ingredients:
    2 teaspoons of frozen chopped garlic
    6 tins of chopped tomatoes
    3 cartons of 500g passata
    4 teaspoons of Italian herbs, or oregano
    4 tablespoons of tomato puree

    1 punnet button mushrooms, rinsed and halved or quartered – to add later, once mixture has cooled

    Stir and heat for 10 minutes until sauce is thickened- use this time to do a quick tidy up and to open and drain your kidney beans for the chilli section.

    Label 2 large freezer bags, add 4 cups of Bolognese to each bag.
    (1 cup = 1-person portion)
    Leave open to cool, now add half the fresh, chopped mushrooms to each bag and mix.
    Only seal and place in freezer once completely cool.

  7. Chilli

    Your large pot will have some mixture left, add the ingredients below to this to turn it into chilli.

    Ingredients
    3 teaspoons of mild chilli powder
    2 drained and rinsed cans of kidney beans.

    Label 2 large freezer bags and divide the mixture between the two bags, again the portion should be 1 cup= 1 person, so four cups in each bag. Leave to cool then seal flat and freeze.

  8. Ready to Eat

    Allow to defrost overnight in the fridge.

    Bolognese sauce or Chilli – tip into a saucepan and stir over a medium heat or heat in a microwave oven until piping hot.
    Burgers – bake in oven at 180°C for 20-25 mins, turning once half way through cooking. Ensure piping hot all the way through.
    Meatballs – bake in oven at 180°C for 10-12 mins, turning half way through cooking. Alternatively, pan fry over a medium heat for 8-10 minutes.
    Fajitas – microwave for 3 minutes (or until piping hot) and serve on soft tortilla wraps, with ½ fat crème fraiche, lettuce, tomato and grated cheese.

Comments

22 comments
  1. Wow, wow, wow. I always shop in Aldi, love their range of product as and of course their prices are just brilliant. I am definitely going to take this list of ingredients when I next go shopping and make all of these meals. Being a pensioner these recipes will keep my freezer well stocked, with good, wholesome meals. Thank you so very much.

  2. I’m new to batch cooking! I’ve decided to explore it to save money and time as well as have less waste.
    I definitely want to save on plastic so will take my own container to my local butcher to get the mince.
    I’ve also ordered good quality containers to use in the freezer instead of plastic bags which would create too much plastic waste. I just need to figure out a good labelling option for my containers!

  3. Had a great time watching you demonstrate tonight at Cardrona. Will now follow you on utube and buy your book when it comes out. Clem and Rose. Innerleithen

  4. Hi,

    You mentioned American mustard from Aldi , was this a special buy or on the shelf?

    I stopped using Aldi due to not getting everything I needed .

    Ta

    1. Rebecca and nikki. Whenever I see a recipe using mince, I replace with tinned brown lentils to make veggie. This would work for all of these I think and bring the price down too. For the meatballs and burgers you would need to mash them up a bit and add breadcrumbs or oats to bulk and assist binding 😊

  5. I have not batched cooked before. but going to try this. I have watched alot of your videos and it seems just to easy. I dislike cooking, and honestly eat lots of processed foods. But I am going to try this, as it sounds such a great idea. thanks so much for all the recipes and work you put into it.

    1. Hi Cheryl, that’s great to hear you’re giving it a go. You know, the whole reason I started batch cooking is that I don’t really like cooking either and the less time I can spend making my family healthy, home-made meals, the better. I’d really encourage you to keep trying and it won’t be long before you find it easy to do, plus it will be so much better for you and probably cheaper than eating processed food.

  6. Thank you that you have put the oven settings and how to defrost and how to cook them, as honestly, I am rather frightened of food poisoning from defrosted food. I dont like putting bread in my freezer, as when i defrost it, it does not taste the same, or I leave it in the bag and bits are soggy. Any tips would be great on bread. I just got a bread maker so will be making bread every other day.

    1. … about the bread. If you’re freezing bread, really try and get all the air out or it will get freezer burn. So instead of buying the bread and freezing it in it’s shop bag, you could wrap the bread snugly in cling film and put in a sealable freezer bag and suck all the air out with a straw. Try that with your home-made bread too. Good luck!

    1. Hi Claire, the cups are a standard measure, available from cook shops, Amazon or find the link on my ‘shop’ page on this website. You can measure the ingredients but all my recipes are based on cups to save time weighing and measuring. Depending on the ingredient, a cup is roughly 240 – 280 g.
      Have a look out for my video later this week on using cups!

  7. Hi, is it really 1 cup if mince for a fajitas meal for four people? That doesn’t seem a lot for hungry teenagers and hubby? We use 600g for 5 of us when we do it x

  8. Hello, what’s the surging suggestion for the meatballs please? Is it sauce and spaghetti? If so, can you suggest a sauce? Thanks!

    1. Yes i would reccomend tomato sauce and spaghetti. I have a tomato sauce recipe on my website under sauces.

  9. I loved this simple meal prep plan and will definitely give it a go after my next shop. I’m not a fan of kidney beans so I think I will add some frozen mixed vegetables (thawed) to the last lot of mince then cook some mashed potatoes and make a potato pie with it.

  10. Hi
    Is it supposed to be 1 cup for the fajita recipe? I normally use 500g of mince for the 4 of us. I was left with enough meat for a double portion of the chilli recipe so wondered if there was a mistake. X

    1. Oh sorry about that, thank your letting me know. Let me look into the recipe and make sure portions are correct

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