meal ideas - low fat and cheap

[Floweryfields]

Can you get bulk cuts and mince them yourself? I often see whole rump for about $8/kg (was actually $6/kg here yesterday) or gravy beef. You could mince these in a food processor after removing the majority of fat and still make meals that go a long way for a family (as opposed to just steak dishes).

Soups would also be a cheap meal with lots of bulky filling stuff like pearl barley or soup mix/risoni/rice/pasta and loads of vege. Very little fat.

[Tinks]

Soup and stew all the way.

[Nai]

Lentil soup, Dahl, spinach & ricotta cannelloni

[Livinthedream]

Fried Rice
Pasta with pasta sauce with a diced chorizo sausage cooked in the sauce, gives a lovely smokey flavour, chuck in a handful of diced bacon to add meaty ness if thats what your kids want.
Dahl with sweet potato and spinach.
I made a super yummy diced ham and lentil soup the other day , not as gluggy as pea and ham, but mega filling.
Admittedly chorizo and bacon are not low fat, but its in the quantity, I am talking 1 sausage and 100gms of diced bacon between the whole familiy.
We are trying to cut down on our meat consumption and up our veges and am finding that, if you can make it meat flavoured, its really like having a meat meal.
We are also back eating veges with carbs in them, and this makes plumping out a meal soooo much cheaper.

[Arimeh]

Hmm lentils are being mentioned a lot. Maybe I need to go searching for vegetarian type recipes...

[nothing2lose]

Tuna patties
Casserole/stews using topside or rump in the slow cooker
Chicken thighs

Also, when cooking mince, brown it off then drain all the fat.

[Floweryfields]

Or you can par boil it and remove the fat prior to putting into pan to brown.

[Arimeh]

Par boil mince?!?

Tuna is something I just found in my calorie king book (from years ago!). That and kangaroo. Kangaroo is really low in fat but I just don't know if I can bring myself to eat Skippy....

[nothing2lose]

Yeah, I like tuna

[Floweryfields]

Yeah it was a suggestion in a healthy eating book I had/have somewhere - you boil it in water until the fat comes to the surface and then drain and brown it as normal. It doesn't smell real nice though to start with!