Whether you are staying with us in student accommodation Loughborough or student accommodation Leicester, we always want to make life easier for you. Completing your weekly food shop can be quite daunting, with it making you question how can you continue to eat well at an affordable price. Although it is easy to stock up on noodles and frozen pizzas, did you know you can eat amazing homecooked healthy meals every day without breaking the bank?

Lidl has been crowned the cheapest supermarket! The average weekly shop is £18.45, including items such as bread, milk, cheese, and enough food to make 3 meals per day with snacks for one person. But you can make this even cheaper by downloading Lidl plus from your app store: benefit from discounts, coupons and more. All you need to do once you have the app is select your closest store, sign up and your virtual discount card is ready, scan this at checkout and SAVE.

If you are staying with us in one of our Loughborough properties, check out how long it will take you to walk to your nearest Lidl:
The Student Block – Time: 12 Minutes
Kingfisher Halls – Time: 19 Minutes
Radmoor House – Time: 8 Minutes
Forest Court – Time: 20 Minutes
Forest Rise – Time: 22 Minutes
If you are in one of our Leicester properties:
Regent Road – Time: 25 Minutes
Salisbury Road – Time: 26 Minutes
Renaissance House – Time: 17 Minutes

One of the most important things when doing a food shop is going with a list; if you find yourself going to the shops and putting random things into your basket, you might find your food runs out before the end of the week. Get food that will last you longer than a week, this is a great way to either get more ‘treats’ next week or save money!

Here are some of our favourite simple and affordable meals you can make;

Breakfast
Oats with fruit

Ingredients

• ¾ cup rolled oats
•  ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
• Pinch of sea salt
• Handful of frozen berries (optional)
• ½ ripe banana, sliced (optional)
• 2 tablespoons chopped nuts, such as walnuts, pecans, or cashews
  (optional).

Instructions

•  Combine the oats and 1½ cups water in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to medium-low and cook until the water has been absorbed (after about 5 minutes)
• Stir in the cinnamon and salt. Top with the berries, banana, nuts, and/or dried fruit, as you like. If you want to spice it up you can add more fruits, syrups and more!

Scrambled eggs on toast

Ingredients

•  3 Eggs
• 2 Tablespoons (30g) Low Fat Spread
• 180ml Semi Skimmed Milk
• 1 Pinch Ground Black Pepper
• 2 Slices of bread

Instructions.

• Using a fork mix the eggs and milk in a bowl
• Heat the low fat spread in a pan, don’t let it start to brown
• Add your eggs into the pan and allow this to set for roughly 30 seconds
• Stir with spoon, lifting from the bottom of the pan and leave for approx. 10-15 seconds and then stir again until eggs are set
• Remove from pan and add to toast
• Add pepper to season

Lunch
Chicken Salad

Ingredients.

• Cooked chicken
•  Mixed salad (two handfuls)
• Sprinkle of cheese (Optional)
• Pepper
• Sauce of choice (optional)

Instructions
If you are using frozen chicken, read the instructions on the back. Some you can cook from frozen, some others may require you to defrost.

• Cut up the chicken into bite sized pieces
• Mix together with salad – add pepper

Jacket potato with beans and or cheese

Ingredients.

• 1 medium to large potato
• 1 handful of cheese (optional)
• Half a tin of beans
• Side salad (optional).

Instructions.

• Make small incisions into the potato
• Place into the microwave for 10/12 minutes or you can place straight into the oven for roughly 40 minutes
• Remove from microwave/oven when piping hot and fluffy
• Add half a tin of beans into a microwavable bowl and cook for 2 minutes
• Add beans to jacket potato and add a handful of cheese
• Add your side salad and serve.

Dinner
Chilli Con Carne

Ingredients

• Jar of chilli con carne sauce
• Rice 280g
• cheese 1 cup (optional)
• 1 onion

Instructions.

• Heat the oil in the pan and add mince
• Cook for approx. 10 minutes and whilst cooking chop your onions
• Start cooking your rice on a medium heat for 10-12 minutes
• Add onions to the pan and cook for a further 10 minutes
• Drain the rice
• Stir in the chilli sauce and reduce heat, cook for a further 5 minutes
• Mix and serve – add cheese if you like!

Creamy Pasta bake

Ingredients

• Pasta 500g
• Tomato Pasta sauce
• Ham 3-4 slices
• Water
• Grated cheese (1/3 of the bag)

Instructions.

• Pre-heat the oven to 220 degrees / 200-degree fan oven
• This is a pasta bake without having to cook the pasta first, so start with some uncooked pasta in a baking dish.
• Top with enough pasta sauce to cover the pasta, we used onion and garlic which seems to work best.
• Match the amount of pasta sauce used with water. Easiest way to do this is to use a whole jar of pasta sauce and then simply fill the empty jar with water.
• Add this to the mix

The cost of all these ingredients to make these meals if bought from Lidl are £16.97! Plus every meal you make (except for the jacket potato) can give you more than 4 servings and you can freeze them to eat another week.

There are so many more recipes you can find online to work towards a budget. Follow us on Instagram for more quick, affordable recipes @student.beehive
Don’t forget to tag us!