Feed a family of 4 for under £5 - Mexican bean pie!

Hello! As part of my money saving ideas, here's a meal! I recommend making this the day after fajitas as any fajita mix left can go in the pie, as well as any left over wraps and dips being used! However, I've written this as if you haven't made fajitas last night!

Mexican bean pie ingredients (including the sides)

3 medium sweet potatoes - 35p each, so recommend buying a bag of them at £1 and having some for another meal.
Kidney beans in chilli sauce tin - 65p
Taco beans in tomato sauce - 65p     - These beans sometimes come up on offer at Tesco of 2 for £1.
Fajita spice mix (packet powder) - 60p (around 20p used in this meal) (not needed if you have fajita veg)
4 potatoes for chips - 33p each, so best buy a bag for £1.15. Or if you prefer, buy a bag of oven chips.
Tortilla chips - 46p for value which I like, they just are slightly more broken. Otherwise, around £1.

£4.11! (£4.65 with more expensive tortilla chips).

Peel, chop and boil the sweet potatoes. Whilst they're cooking, add the beans together in a dish you can add a top to, as well as about 1/3 of the spice mix. Mix these all together in the bowl. If you have left over fajita veg, add this to the beans instead of fajita mix. Once the potatoes are soft, mash them. Add the mash to the top of the beans to make a pie. Cook in the oven for around 20 minutes so it's all hot and bubbly. Whilst the pie is cooking. Cook your chips.

Once the pie is cooked, serve with chips and nachos. If you have left over wraps, I like to deep fry them in triangles for dipping in the pie. Otherwise the wraps can also be stuffed with the pie and chips.

Optional extras - I've had it with and without dips. The pie is saucy on it's own so whilst dips are nice, I don't think they are an absolute must.

Salsa - 80p
Oatly creamy oat fraiche (works well as a sour cream!) - £1.55

Here's a pic of the outcome (with dips) using deep fried wraps as I had fajitas yesterday! Sorry the photo is quite close!

Hope this helps!

Tesco packet cheese sauce mix!

Hello! I'm back again with something that isn't an offer, but may help you to save money and still eat what you want (veganised, in this case!). Tesco recently released a free from cheese sauce packet mix. Not only is it milk free and egg free (it actually says vegan, wahey for clear labeling! However, this isn't online, it just says vegetarian there) but it's also gluten free.

This mix only costs 59p and just requires 200ml of plant milk to make it. However, I've tried a powder mix before that made my mouth want to run away from the taste, so I decided I'd try it out before I posted about it. I have now tried it. It's very acceptable! It's not as good as homemade cheese sauce, but it reminds me of nice packet mixes I used to eat before going to vegan, so I'm happy with it.

By costing just 59p, this means if you buy the cheapest pack of suitable pasta from Tesco (20/30p depending what type you buy) and add this, you can make a vegan mac and cheese for well under £1. I added salt and pepper to my sauce to make it just right for me. If you want to push it further, I also added VBites chorizo which was going out of date on the day I purchased it from Holland and Barrett, meaning I only paid 82p for it. You could also add some veg, such as cauliflower, broccoli, peas or spinach if you want to add something healthy but still keep it at a reasonable price.

Here's what to look out for. In my Tesco it was in the free from section.

Hope this helps!