Cheap dinner ideas from what you already have

Most advice on cheap dinners starts with a shopping list. The cheaper place to start is the fridge, because the food in it has already been paid for. Every meal made from what you already have is a meal you did not buy twice. That is money saved, and food that does not end up in the bin.

Why the fridge comes first

Food waste is expensive, and mostly invisible. The USDA estimates an average US family of four loses about $1,500 a year to food it bought and did not eat. In the UK, the charity WRAP puts the figure for a family of four at around £1,000 a year. Most of it is ordinary food: salad, bread, milk, vegetables and leftovers that nobody got round to.

So the first rule of a cheap dinner is simple: look before you buy. Build tonight's meal around what needs eating, then fill the gaps from a short list of cheap staples.

Nine cheap dinners that stretch what you have

1. Egg fried rice

Cheap, fast and made for leftovers. Day-old rice, two eggs, frozen peas and any vegetables, seasoned with soy sauce. Add a little leftover meat if there is some, and it feeds two for very little.

2. Dal

Red lentils cost very little and cook in 20 minutes without soaking. Simmer them with onion, garlic, ginger, turmeric and a tin of tomatoes until soft. Stir in any greens at the end. Serve with rice or bread. It is filling, and it freezes well.

3. Bean chilli

A tin or two of beans, a tin of tomatoes, onion, garlic, cumin and chilli. Any peppers, carrots or courgettes (zucchini) can go in too. One pot makes four portions: eat two tonight and freeze two.

4. Pasta e fagioli

Pasta and beans in a garlicky, tomatoey broth: an old Italian way of making a little go a long way. Small pasta, a tin of borlotti or cannellini beans, stock and whatever vegetables need using.

5. Jacket potatoes with everything

Baked potatoes are cheap and turn leftovers into a meal: beans, chilli, cheese, tuna, leftover curry. Microwave them for 8 to 10 minutes first, then crisp them in a hot oven to save time and energy.

6. Shakshuka

Eggs poached in a spiced tomato and pepper sauce. A tin of tomatoes, an onion, a pepper (or a soft one that needs using), cumin, paprika and a few eggs. Bread to mop it up makes it dinner.

7. Vegetable soup and toast

The cheapest possible use for tired vegetables. Onion, whatever vegetables you have, a stock cube, and a potato or a handful of lentils for body. Toasted stale bread with cheese on the side.

8. Frittata

Six eggs will absorb nearly any leftover vegetables, a bit of cheese and a slice or two of ham, and still feed three. Leftovers make a good packed lunch.

9. Chicken thigh traybake

Bone-in thighs are one of the cheapest cuts of meat and the hardest to overcook. Roast them on a tray with chunks of potato, onion and whatever roots or peppers are in the drawer.

The staples that make it work

A cheap dinner needs a few cheap things to hold the leftovers together. None are expensive, and all of them keep:

• Starch: rice, pasta, potatoes, oats, flour tortillas.
• Protein: eggs, tinned beans and chickpeas, red lentils, tinned fish, frozen chicken thighs.
• Flavour: onions, garlic, stock cubes, soy sauce, a vinegar, tomato purée, cumin, paprika, chilli flakes.
• Freezer: peas, spinach, sweetcorn, and bread you can toast from frozen.

Five habits that make every dinner cheaper

1. Cook what is going off first. The chicken with a day left beats the cheese that keeps for weeks.
2. Cook once, eat twice. Chilli, curry, dal and soup are as cheap to make for four as for two.
3. Buy the one thing that unlocks the most. If a lemon, a bag of spinach or a tin of coconut milk turns three half-meals into three dinners, that is the item worth buying.
4. Use the freezer as a pause button. Bread, meat, cooked grains and portions of soup all freeze well.
5. Do not shop hungry. Or at least, do not shop without looking in the fridge first.

Let the fridge decide

Make Do is built for this. Photograph your fridge and it suggests five dinners from what is already there, putting first the recipes that need nothing else. If you are one item short, it names the single cheap thing that would unlock the most extra meals. It is free to try: three fridge scans and twelve recipe searches, no card.

For nights when the fridge really is bare, read 12 meals from pantry basics. For the money side in more depth, see saving money by cooking what you have.