3 Budget Dinners Under $50 NZD - Asian Rissoles, Gozleme and Gnocchi Bolognese

One shop, $43.28 at the supermarket, and three completely different dinners out of two packs of mince. That is Savvy Suppers, and this one is all about mince, because it is the cheapest way I know to feed people properly. Asian rissoles in the air fryer, homemade gozleme, and a gnocchi bolognese to use up what is left. Here is everything you need.

What's Included

Three full recipes from a single $43.28 shop, all built around 600g of beef mince and 600g of pork mince. Each one feeds two to three people with leftovers for lunch the next day. Below you will find all three recipes, the exact shopping list, the pantry staples that make it work, and my tips for getting three dinners out of one trolley.

Dinner 1: Asian Rissoles with Rice and Slaw

Meatballs with a job to do. A carrot and an onion grated straight into the mince stretch it into 12 to 14 rissoles, Chinese five spice does all the flavour work from a single jar, and the air fryer cooks them while the rice boils. The bag of Asian slaw brings its own sesame dressing, which on a budget shop is the smartest buy in the trolley.

Asian Rissoles with Rice and Slaw - On the table in 25 minutes, and the leftovers are a brilliant cold lunch.

Dinner 2: Gozleme, Crispy Stuffed Flatbreads

The one that surprises everyone. A four ingredient dough with no yeast, stuffed with spiced mince, frozen spinach and the last scrap of cheese in the fridge, then cooked in a dry pan until the outside blisters. It costs almost nothing and it eats like something you queued for at a market.

Gozleme, Crispy Stuffed Flatbreads - A base and a lid sealed with a wet finger, crisp on both sides, and even better cold with a fried egg.

Dinner 3: Gnocchi Bolognese

The end of the week dinner, made with whatever is left. Mince browned properly, two tins of tomatoes, a spoonful of some odd relish from the back of the fridge, and a packet of gnocchi that cooks in two minutes. Not the richest bolognese you will ever make, and on a cold night it does not need to be.

Gnocchi Bolognese - Cheap comfort food in 40 minutes, and better again the next day.

The Full Shopping List

This is the entire shop, and it came to $43.28. It is a short list, which is the point. Two packs of mince and a handful of vegetables do all three dinners, and the pantry fills in the rest.

• 1 pack of beef mince, 600g
• 1 pack of pork mince, 600g
• 2 onions
• 2 carrots
• 2 cans of whole tomatoes
• 1 bag of Asian slaw with dressing
• 1 bag of high grade flour
• 1 packet of gnocchi

Total: $43.28

What You Need From the Pantry

The shop above is deliberately minimal, and that only works because a few staples are doing quiet work in the background. None of these were bought for this week.

• Eggs, one for the rissoles
• Breadcrumbs, or a packet of sage and onion stuffing mix, which is what I actually used
• Chinese five spice for the rissoles, and smoked paprika, chilli flakes and ground cumin for the gozleme
• Dried Italian herbs and garlic for the bolognese
• Frozen spinach, or peas, or any bag of frozen veg for the gozleme filling
• A jar of something concentrated for the bolognese, tomato paste or relish or chutney
• Rice, oil, salt and pepper, and whatever cheese is left in the fridge

A Few Tips for Making It All Work

Grate your veg into the mince. This is the whole trick of the week. Carrot and onion grated into a rissole mix stretch the meat, keep it moist and add vegetables to a dish that would not otherwise have any. Squeeze the liquid out first or the mix goes loose.

Brown the mince properly. In the bolognese especially, where there are only five main ingredients, the colour you get on the meat is where the flavour lives. Give it the hot pan to itself and let it sit and catch before you break it up.

Buy the bagged slaw. It sounds like the lazy option and it is genuinely the economical one. Coriander, cabbage, carrot and a sesame dressing bought separately cost far more than the bag, and it stretches across two of the three dinners.

Let the gozleme filling go cold. Warm filling steams the dough from the inside and you lose the crisp base. Cook it while the dough rests and the timing works out for free.

Raid the freezer and the spice drawer before you shop. Half a bag of frozen spinach, an inch of chilli flakes, a jar of relish with three spoons left in it. This week's food is built on exactly that kind of thing.

Cook once, eat twice. Every one of these makes leftovers on purpose. The rissoles are good cold, the gozleme is arguably better the next day, and the bolognese deepens overnight.

Why This Collection Works

Mince is the cheapest honest protein in the supermarket, and the trap with it is cooking the same thing three times. These three go in completely different directions from the same two packs. One is Asian and air fried, one is Turkish and cooked in a dry pan, one is Italian and simmered. Nobody eating them would guess they came out of the same trolley.

The other reason it works is how much of the flavour comes from things you already own. The shop is eight items. What turns those eight items into three distinct dinners is a spice drawer, a freezer and whatever jar is lurking at the back of the fridge. That is the real skill in budget cooking, and it is far more useful than any single recipe.

And every one of them makes leftovers deliberately. Three dinners becomes three dinners and three lunches, which is where $43.28 stops sounding cheap and starts sounding ridiculous.

Related Pages

3 Budget Dinners Under $50 NZD - Curried Pork Cabbage, Creamy Ragu, Indian Nachos - Another mince episode, this time pork, with a full price breakdown of the shop.

3 Budget Dinners Under $50 NZD - Prawns, Dahl and Pizza - Three completely different dinners from one $50 shop.

3 Budget Dinners Under $50 NZD - Greek Soup, Cabbage Rolls and Mexican Chicken - The chicken episode, where one bird does all the work.

Budget Christmas Dinner Menu for Under $50 NZD - The same approach applied to a whole Christmas table.

Greek-Style Pork Meatballs with Air Fryer Chips - More cheap mince magic, if this week has given you a taste for it.

Two packs of mince, eight items in the trolley and $43.28. What comes out the other end is three dinners that taste nothing like each other, plus lunches for the days after. The cost of living here is genuinely wild and I am not going to pretend a shopping list fixes that, but eating well on very little is a skill, and this is the week I would start with. Click through to each recipe for the full method and everything you need to cook along.

Enjoy!

Del x

Three completely different dinners from two packs of mince and an eight item shop, all in for $43.28.