Finally, the last recipe for Meal Plan 8, a simple stir fry. This plan has taken months to finish. I have another one lined up ready to go, just need to check the nutrition
What you need
120g cooked chicken, 680g meat gleaned from a 1.3kg/£3.22 bird, 57p
200g egg noodles Asda 500g/ £1.86, 74p
15ml veg oil, 1 litre/£1.25, 4p
100g beansprouts, Asda 360g/50p, 14p
15ml soy sauce, Asda 150ml/59p, 6p
15ml sweet chilli sauce Asda 150ml/£1, 10p
Serves 2, per serving, 546 calories, 24g protein, 17g fat, 73g carb
How to make the stir fry
Get everything ready, stir fries are rapid things. Chop the cooked chicken into small pieces. Heat the wok or large pan with the oil in it. Add the chicken, stir fry until heated through, add the beansprouts and keep stirring until they soften a little.
Meanwhile, cook the noodles in boiling water. They just take a minute or two, so keep an eye on them. As soon as they are done, drain them well. Add to the side of the wok/pan.
Now season your stir fry with the soy sauce and sweet chilli and serve immediately.
If you are following Meal Plan 8, serve this twice during the week.
What changes can I make
If you have any available, lots of veg go very well with this. Sliced onions, carrots, thinly sliced on the diagonal, sliced mushrooms, small broccoli or cauliflower florets, shredded cabbage, a handful of peas, fine sliced fennel, pea shoots from the garden, fine sliced runner beans later on in the summer, young broad beans. Whatever you have to hand can go in a stir fry.
You can use any meat scraps that are spare, a handful of prawns with peas and lemon zest would be lovely. Shredded beef, mushrooms and strips of dried tomatoes.
We like stir fries with some raw peanuts, quickly fried to brown them, scattered on top.
my brother is coeliac, and although foods have got a lot cheaper, and much more widely available, since he was diagnosed, they are still far from cheap. And manufacturers stuff wheat into all kinds of strange things too, like tomato soup, so it’s a constant state of alert
I bring the cost down by using the 20c instant noodles in Aldi, they’re quick to cook and make things a bit easier when I’m doing a stir fry – my boyfriend is a Coeliac, so he needs different noodles or rice, along with a more expensive Soy Sauce that is gluten free (usually Japanese Tamari Sauce). Pity coeliac foods are more expensive, you can make do and mess around with substitutions (like rice noodles), things are definitely a lot easier when you cook from scratch but the handiness of cheap noodles is something he pines for!
Veronica, it is £1.62 for the 2 portions. So it would be £1.62 minus 74p egg noodles, plus 8p value spaghetti = 96p or 48p a portion. Would be worth doing if you don’t mind not having the noodles. I was using them up as there was a pack in the meal plan for Week 8 – bargain
I wonder what it would cost out if you used value spagetti instead of egg noodles