A mum has shared five child-friendly meals that are all budget-friendly to make and include ingredients from Aldi
Thrifty parents are applauding a mum who’s been sharing her economical and kid-friendly recipes. Grace Mortimer, known on Instagram as @_Myfirstmeals, has gained quite the following for her meal ideas all the family can enjoy.
A recent video showcases her culinary creations using Aldi ingredients. Each dish costs around £4 or less, which is a mere 87p per portion. Reaching out to her 636k Instagram fans, she announced: “AD. I’m SO excited to have teamed up with @aldiuk again to bring you five delicious, budget-friendly meals for less than £5 to help you keep a handle on the purse strings.”
Grace demonstrates that each hearty meal, satisfying four mouths per serving, can be whipped up at roughly £1 each. In her tutorial, she utilises predominantly Aldi’s own range to stretch the pennies further, a win-win for time-pressed parents.
- Creamy broccoli soup with parmesan croutons – £3.47 (87p per serving).
- Pizza loaded jacket potatoes with salad – £4.02 (£1.01 per serving).
- Roasted cauliflower curry – £3.84 (96p per serving).
- Fishfinger sarnies with chips and salad – £3.88 (97p per serving).
- Veggie pasta bake – £3.57 (89p per serving).
Highlighted in her video was the recipe for vegetable pasta. She boasted how the whole meal came together for just £3.57, or 89p per serving. Below is a list of ingredients and her method.
- One tin of chopped tomatoes.
- One tin of sliced carrots drained.
- One jar of grilled peppers in oil.
- 500g penne.
- One ball of mozzarella.
The cooking process is straightforward—she preheats her fan oven to 200C, boils the pasta according to the packet instructions, drains it, and sets it aside, ready for the next steps, reports Lancs Live. Next, she chucked in the chopped tomatoes, carrots, and peppers, along with the pepper oil, into a blender. She whizzed it up until she achieved a smooth, creamy consistency for the sauce.
You can season the sauce however you like. She then drizzled the sauce over her pasta in an oven-proof dish and gave it a good stir. Her next move was to scatter chunks of mozzarella all over, before baking it in the oven for around 20 minutes—just long enough to let the cheese do its melty magic and get the sauce bubbling.
Once out of the oven, she gave it a moment to chill before serving. The recipes for her other meals are in the comments section of her video. She pointed out that due to Instagram’s word count restrictions, they couldn’t all fit into the caption. If you scroll through the comments, you will find them.
Grace has been swamped with gratitude for her ‘handy’ and ‘wallet-friendly’ meal prep walkthroughs. Lorraine replied: “Here for the easy meal inspo! Thank you!” Romina said: “Wow love this so much.”
Another said: “Ooh grace this is fabulous.” Jess added: “Ooh the pizza+ loaded spuds sound amazing.” Ray commented: “Wow. This is brilliant. I’d be interested to know how much a family of four needs to feed and water them for a month based on these great ideas! The more we share the better for those that are struggling. Well done Aldi.”
Grace responded: “This is so lovely to hear!! Cost of living is actually terrifying atm and the school holidays can be so expensive with everyone at home so when this collaboration came up – I was beyond excited to come up with some ideas.”
Elisa added: “Thx for posting these! Always send to my daughter at uni.” Helen said: “Always love trying your recipes Grace.” Chris put: “These look fabulous.” Sandra typed: “Amazing recipes ticks all the boxes – budget friendly, healthy, extra veg and tasty.”