How to stretch out a meal

If you are looking for easy convenient meal ideas, you’ll want to know how to
stretch out a meal to not only save you time cooking, but also feed a few extra mouths along the way.

Here are our top tips:

1 Buy in bulk and freeze. If you have the freezer space, you can purchase meat when it’s on sale, divide it into portions and freeze it for different meals. It can save you money and a few trips to the supermarket or butcher.
2. Cook once and eat twice. If you’re cooking up a batch of mince or more significant meat cut, create different types of meals from the one cooking session.

With mince you could cook up and Easy Mexi Mince and use it with tortilla cups the first night and then with cheesy mash pies the next day.
With a leg of lamb (e.g. slow roasted) you could serve it with
vegetables the first night then use any leftover meat in pitas the next day.

3. Portion it out. Make your meat go further by having precise portion sizes for each person. A good rule of thumb is 100-150g of cooked, lean red meat per person (125-175g raw meat). This may look like a deck of cards or the size of your palm for cuts of beef or ~½ cup of cooked mince per person. If you’re worried this won’t cut the mustard for your hungry guests, continue reading.
4. Bulk up with veggies. Add extra vegetables to your meal, whether fresh, frozen or canned. They’ll provide extra volume, more fibre and nutrition to your feed. Got any leftovers? Try our salad genrator for a bespoke dish, featuring whatever you've got in the fridge and pantry!

5. Love your legumes. Canned lentils, chickpeas and beans are a cost-effective and versatile way to bulk up meat-based dishes or salads. It's also a great way to up your daily protein and fibre intake.

6. Cover all bases. Rice, pasta or grains are great staple bases and should make up about a quarter of your meal. They are cost-effective and can serve as a bases for many dishes while feeding a few extra mouths.

7. Freeze for a rainy day. Any stray meat can be frozen and saved to pop into a soup or a stew when the weather gets colder. You’ll be surprised at how you can make a little go a long way when you add stock, vegetables, some hearty carbs (e.g. potato, kūmura, or barley) and a bit of flavour.

8. Bones. If you’re making a roast, you can re-purpose the bones by adding them to a large pot of boiling water with vegetables/vegetable scraps to make stock. Alternatively, pop them in the freezer for a rainy day to make a stock.

Enjoy these simple hacks to make your meat go further.