This post is all about how to shop in Aldi to create a meal plan for all meals for 3 people for one week on €70 in a household that spends the full €70 budget on groceries every week of the year.
***This post includes the shopping list with prices correct as of February 2022***.
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[This food shop came to €72.97]
Depending on the ages of your kids, you could use this meal plan for 2 adults and 2 younger children.This meal plan is useful for when you need to save money on groceries. It will help you to stop throwing away food and who doesn’t want to improve on that? Being organised with your meals is one of the things you will hear money bloggers talking about all of the time. The reason for that is that it is potentially the first point of your budget that you can impact immediately and one that you have full control over.
NOTE!
This meal plan includes things that I have in the house already in my pantry. I normally spend my entire grocery budget each week. The reason for that is that I like to have a full pantry or store cupboard most of the time. I don’t run down my food supplies.What I have bought this week to use for the meal plan will be supplemented by itesm that I keep in stock all of the time in my house. Nonetheless, this meal plan is still pretty budget friendly. I hope you will get lots of good ideas from it to use in your own house!
Shopping List
The shopping list is linked here. This is a realistic shopping list for my family. I have attached the pantry list of items that I did NOT buy this week. I included some items in this weeks shop that will last more than one week such as strong flour, rice, pasta, beans and butter. This is how I shop from week to week and this is how I feed my family of 3 adult eaters for a week on €70.
I started this meal plan on a Sunday, where I prepared dinner for that day along with leftovers for the following day.
I batch cooked the following meals on Sunday;
- Soup (stored in individual portions)
- Pasta in tomato sauce
- Chilli con carne
- Pizza sauce.
1.The Main Meals
Main Meals List
- Chilli con carne with rice
- Pepperoni pizza (with chips if preferred )
- Fish in parsley sauce with vegetables and potatoes
- Chilli topped baked potatoes with salad, nachos and salsa.
- Omelette and chips ( or with beans and toast for a very easy dinner)
- Double roast chicken dinner for Sunday lunch and for Monday leftovers dinner.
1.Chilli con Carne ( Packed With Hidden Veggies)
This recipe makes enough for 8 portions in our house. If you have leftovers you can easily freeze chilli con carne, just make sure that it is fully cooled before you do so. Within the chilli con carne post you’ll find a post for a homemade chilli spice mix.
I have not priced that in this meal plan. I have included a shop bought chilli spice. If you choose to make the chilli spice it lasts for ages as it is a fairly decent quantity meant to last for several meals. It is a really nice mix so you should try it some time.
In this recipe you need 1.5 tins of tomatoes. Keep the leftover tomato sauce for pizza night. If you need to, freeze it. Take it out of the freezer the morning of or the night before. To make things even handier add some flavourings to the tomatoes now before you store it.
If you’ve got some veggies to use up in your kitchen, use those instead of the ones mentioned in the chilli con carne recipe. Split this recipe into two parts once cooked, and store the second half for another dinner later in the week.
2.Pepperoni Pizza
You will need to make dough for this meal. You do not need to freeze the dough at all unless it suits to do so. The recipe may be more than you need for this meal and if it is you, follow the instructions on the Pizza blog post on how to do that. You could also keep it in the fridge for several days and use it as lunch or snack one of the days.
[Pizza Recipe Including The Dough]
3.Fish, mash, veg and parsley sauce.
Choose whatever fish you prefer.
- Bake the fish as per instructions.
- Make some mashed potato as you normally do. We like to have 2 medium potatoes each. I cut them into generous sized chunks and bring them to the boil, cooking them until they pierce easily with a fork. This takes about 20 minutes from boiling. Season with salt and pepper. Add butter if you like and mash the potatoes.
- Cook the broccoli and carrots as you normally would. Season with salt and pepper.
- Make the sauce as per the recipe in this liked post below.
- If you like lemon, squeeze some lemon on the fish once it comes out of the oven and serve with parsley sauce..
4.Chilli topped baked potato with salad
Using the second half of the batch of chilli, top baked potatoes with the thoroughly heated chilli mixture and top with grated cheese. Add salad on the side and a few nachos and salsa to finish it off.
I microwave my baked potatoes from raw. A medium potato, pierced with a fork, takes about 6 to 10 minutes to cook. This is a handy guide as to how to bake potatoes on Youtube.
5.Fridge Gravel Omelette
This is my ‘use it up’ meal in the week. I like to call the stuff left over in my fridge ‘fridge gravel’. You will have cheese, onions, garlic, potatoes, ham, roast chicken etc leftover. Follow this video for inspiration and make some delicious and generous omelets for dinner with whatever you have left over this week.
Serve with the home made chips and salad. Or if you like or for a seriously handy dinner served with some toast and baked beans!
6 & 7 Double Roast Served With Mashed Potato, Carrot And Parsnip Mash And Gravy.
Cook enough potatoes, vegetables and gravy for 2 days. Portion out the chicken to cover 2 days worth of dinner. Cool tomorrow’s food fully and store in airtight containers in the fridge. Heat up tomorrow’s dinner of leftover roast fully till piping hot and enjoy an evening off cooking!
Cook your chicken as per the instructions on the pack. I like to add garlic and onion to the pan while cooking. Add a small glass of water to the pan and season the raw chicken with salt and pepper. I also like to drizzle olive oil on the top of the chicken before roasting for the allotted time.
Cook your mash potato as instructed in the earlier steps. Cook a pot of carrots and parsnips in boiling water till soft and mash
Season your potato and vegetables as you prefer. I like to use salt, pepper and butter.
Gravy
Using the stock left in the pan after cooking the chicken, add a chicken stock pot and some boiling water. Bring it up to the boil, reduce and simmer for 10 minutes. Blitz the mixture for a smooth gravy.
Add some of your favourite instant gravy to flavour and thicken it. Make a big pot of gravy and keep half for the next day. I use Bisto, which is another thing I do not buy in Aldi as I prefer this one.
2. The Breakfasts
Breakfast List
- Porridge with hazelnut spread and bananas ( x 2 mornings)
- Eggs and toast ( x 2 mornings)
- Cereal and fruit ( x 2 mornings)
- Brunch on Saturday. See link to the 68 cent McMuffins at the end of this section.
This is a post on my website from last year. These were last years prices. All the updated prices for the breakfast ingredients used in the meal plan here are detailed below. However some of this weeks breakfasts are detailed in this linked post. Go have a look if you need any help with this week’s breakfast list. They are pretty simple though!
[Related Post:7 Days Of Cheap Aldi Breakfasts]
For the Saturday morning brunch go to this post on my supercheap McDonalds fakeaway breakfast sandwiches.
68 Cent McMuffin (Homemade With Aldi Ingredients)
3.The Lunches
Lunch List
- Soup and sandwiches
- Sandwiches, crisps and fruit (x2 days)
- Pasta in tomato sauce
- Toasted cheese and ham wrap
- Saturday brunch followed by snacks during the day till we have a pizza and chips for dinner.
- Sunday we have our main meal at lunch time which is roast chicken ( see main meal section)
There will be leftovers from the main meals too so prioritise those for example; the chilli con carne could make a nice lunch served in a toasted wrap with some grated cheese and some fruit on the side. Focus on using any leftover veggies with you lunches for example; grated carrots, grated courgettes, salad leaves.
- Soup and sandwiches. The soup recipe is linked. If you want it for more than one day, increase the recipe or make a less thick soup by adding more boiling water to this recipe once blended.
- Ham and cheese sandwich, crisps and fruit.
- Pasta with tomato sauce. The sauce is linked here. Add as much pasta as you like to this mixture. It is very likely that you can get two days lunches from this recipe. This goes great in a food flask with some cheese mixed through. Pop a piece of fruit with this for a hearty lunch on the go.
- Cheese and ham toasted wrap with rocket, nachos, salsa and fruit.
- Sandwich, crisps and fruit
- Saturday: Brunch followed by snacks and pizza for dinner. Add homemade chips to the pizza if you like. We usually don’t have a big lunch on a Saturday as breakfast is normally more like lunch. On Saturdays we are very relaxed in our approach to food. This weeks brunch is Homemade McMuffins.
- Sunday: we have a roast at lunch time and sandwiches and crisps in the evening.
4. Snacks
These are available throughout the week
- Nachos and crisps
- Fruit
- Rich tea and digestive biscuits
- Leftovers
Weekend snacks/ desserts
- Chocolate/ crisps
- Ice-cream and sprinkle and sauce
5. Drinks
We drink water, teas and coffee. We don’t buy sweet drinks very often so they are not in the meal plan.
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