Cheap beef recipes

Budget beef dinners, mostly using mince and diced beef: chilli, cottage pie, stews and more.

Beef mince is the most useful cheap cut: chilli, bolognese, cottage pie, meatballs and burgers all start with it. Diced stewing beef is good value too and turns tender when it's cooked slowly.

49 recipes, cheapest first. Prices are per portion for a family of 4.

Money-saving tips

Swap a third of the mince for lentils or beans to make it go further.
Brown mince in batches so it fries rather than stews.
Cook stewing beef low and slow until it falls apart.

Questions

Which recipe is the cheapest?

Scottish stovies, at about £0.89 a portion for a family of 4.

How much do these dinners cost?

From about £0.89 to £1.57 a portion, with most around £1.24, based on typical UK budget supermarket prices. What you pay depends on where you shop and the brands you choose.

Can SupperSmart plan a week of these for me?

Yes. Tell it your weekly budget and how many people you're feeding, and it picks a week of dinners, writes the shopping list in whole supermarket packs and uses up what's already in your cupboards. It's free to use.

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