Cost-effective healthy food
Tips and recipes to make it cheaper and easier to serve healthy food.
Cost-effective healthy food
Use these recipes and top tips to make it cheaper and easier to serve healthy food.
Transcript
Transcript
Hello. Today we’re making a basic homemade tomato sauce.
Tomato sauce is the base for so many wonderful dishes, such as bolognese, lasagne, pizza topping, soups, and even casseroles. Tomatoes are high in vitamin C and antioxidants, and the wonderful thing about this recipe is if you add more vegetables, you add more vitamins. It’s vegan, it’s simple to make, there are no red flag allergens. Most children love it. So all of this makes it a great recipe to know.
This recipe would feed 10 children. Feel free to multiply or divide the ingredients using the same proportion for more or less mouths to feed. First, finely dice an onion, the carrots, and garlic.
When you’ve done that, pour a splash of olive oil into a saucepan and heat. Add the onions, carrots, and garlic. Cook on a low heat for around 10 minutes.
Keeping an eye on the pan, roughly chop the tomatoes. When the onion is soft and golden, add the tomato puree and stir in. Then, add the fresh tomatoes and cook until soft. Add the tinned chopped tomatoes and simmer for 10 minutes.
Add the herbs last minute, just before taking the pan off the heat. Using a stick blender, blend the tomatoes until you have a smooth tomato sauce. Do make sure it’s not too hot before serving. Mm, perfect. For a basic tomato soup, you can add some basil and a spoonful of yogurt. To add extra nutrients, add some cooked vegetables, like carrots or courgettes. This can really cut down on food waste.
I often use blended cooked lentils. This gives it extra protein. To make a ratatouille, roast a selection of vegetables like aubergine, courgette, peppers, and onion. Add to the tomato sauce. A popular lunch at the nursery is make your own pizza. Let the children spread the sauce on either naan or pita and choose their toppings. Then put it in the oven.
As you’ll be using this recipe a lot, I recommend that you batch cook enough for a month and then freeze for when you need it. Enjoy.
Recipes for your settings
Here are 11 recipe cards for early years settings. There are four recipes for lunch, 3 recipes for tea, 1 snack, 1 dessert and 1 side dish that is made using leftovers.
These recipes have been created to be suitable for a wide range of children, including those with special dietary requirements. Using these recipes, you can cook once and feed all the children at the same time, saving time and money.
Transcript
Transcript
Hello. Today I’m going to share a recipe that is nutritious, easy to prepare, and ideal for batch cooking, aubergine and tomato curry.
This recipe serves 10 children. This lunch recipe contains protein, iron, dietary fat, which means it supports a healthy diet, carbohydrates, vitamin B6, and fibre. This recipe has no major allergens and is mindful of all dietary requirements. This means you only need to cook one batch for all the children.
For the recipe, you need 600 grams of aubergine, or roughly three small aubergines, sliced into rounds, three tablespoons of olive oil, two onions, finely sliced, two garlic cloves, crushed, one can, 400 grams, of cannellini beans, one teaspoon of garam masala, one teaspoon of turmeric, one teaspoon of ground coriander, 400 mils chopped tomatoes, 600 mils coconut milk, pepper to taste, and half a small bunch of coriander, roughly chopped.
Toss the aubergines in a roasting tin with two tablespoons of olive oil. Add pepper to taste. I’m going to spread it all out, and then roast in the oven at about 180 degrees Celsius for around 20 minutes, or until dark golden and soft.
Heat the remaining oil in an oven-proof pan or flame-proof casserole dish. And we’re going to cook the onions over a medium heat for around five to six minutes until they start to soften. Okay, next, we stir in the garlic and spices. Keep stirring for a few minutes until the spices release their aromas.
Once that’s done, we’re going to add the tomatoes, coconut milk, and roasted aubergines and bring to a gentle simmer.
We’ll simmer for 20 minutes. Then after 20 minutes, remove the lid for another five minutes to thicken the sauce.
Stir through the beans and most of the coriander. Add pepper to taste. You can serve the curry over rice, about 80 grams of cooked rice per portion, or with flatbreads, scattering with the remaining coriander. Enjoy.
NHS best start for life also has recipes and meal ideas for babies and children aged 5 and under. You can scale these recipes to feed more children and share the recipes with parents or carers.