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Dinners for under £1 a portion

Family dinners that cost less than £1 per person, based on typical UK budget supermarket prices.

Most of these are built on cheap, filling ingredients like lentils, beans, pasta, rice, potatoes and tinned tomatoes, with meat used to add flavour rather than as the main event.

219 recipes, cheapest first. Prices are per portion for a family of 4.

Money-saving tips

  • Buy own-brand tins, pasta and rice. They're usually just as good for a fraction of the price.
  • Stretch mince further by swapping some of it for a tin of lentils or beans.
  • Frozen vegetables are cheap, keep for months and nothing goes to waste.

Questions

Which recipe is the cheapest?

Aloo matar with homemade flatbreads, at about £0.38 a portion for a family of 4.

How much do these dinners cost?

From about £0.38 to £1.00 a portion, with most around £0.78, based on typical UK budget supermarket prices. What you pay depends on where you shop and the brands you choose.

Can SupperSmart plan a week of these for me?

Yes. Tell it your weekly budget and how many people you're feeding, and it picks a week of dinners, writes the shopping list in whole supermarket packs and uses up what's already in your cupboards. It's free to use.

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SupperSmart picks a week of dinners around your budget and writes the shopping list for you. Free to use.

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