Ten Dinners That Start with a Tin of Tomatoes

A tin of chopped tomatoes is the cheapest building block in the supermarket. Own-brand tins hover around 45p to 60p, and each one is the backbone of a dinner for four. If you keep six tins in the cupboard at all times — and you should — you are never more than half an hour from a proper meal.

Below are ten dinners my family actually eats, all starting with the same tin. None needs anything fancy: an onion, some garlic, whatever protein or veg is knocking about, and a carb to serve it on. If your cupboard needs a wider restock first, start with the £25 store cupboard and come back.

First, a word on which tins to buy

Own-brand chopped tomatoes are fine. The very cheapest tins can be watery with hard cores, so if your budget stretches, the mid-tier own-brand (Tesco standard rather than Stockwell, Aldi's standard line) is the sweet spot. Whole plum tomatoes are often better quality than chopped at the same price — the best fruit tends to go in whole — and you can squash them in the pan with a wooden spoon in ten seconds.

One trick that transforms any budget tin: cook it longer than you think. Ten extra minutes of gentle simmering with a pinch of sugar and a splash of oil turns thin, tinny sauce into something rich. That's the difference between most of these dinners tasting cheap and tasting like you tried.

The base sauce that starts eight of these

Soften a chopped onion in a couple of tablespoons of oil over a medium heat for eight minutes — properly soft, not just translucent. Add two crushed garlic cloves for a minute, then the tin of tomatoes, half a tin of water swirled round the empty tin, a pinch of salt, a pinch of sugar and a teaspoon of dried oregano or mixed herbs. Simmer for fifteen to twenty minutes until it thickens and darkens slightly.

That's it. That sauce costs around 80p and it's the launchpad for almost everything below. Make a double batch and freeze half flat in a freezer bag — future you will be grateful, and if your freezer is a lucky dip right now, sort it out here.

Dinners one to five: the weeknight bankers

1. Classic tomato pasta — the base sauce over 400g of spaghetti with a knob of butter stirred through at the end. Grate over whatever hard cheese you have. Around £1.50 for four portions before cheese.
2. One-pot tomato and chickpea rice — make the base sauce in a wide pan, stir in a mug of rice, a drained tin of chickpeas and two mugs of water. Lid on, lowest heat, fifteen minutes. Smoked paprika lifts it enormously.
3. Shakshuka-ish eggs — base sauce in a frying pan, a teaspoon of cumin, then crack in four eggs, lid on, five minutes. Serve with buttered toast. Breakfast, lunch or dinner.
4. Tomato and lentil bolognese — add 150g of red lentils and 400ml of stock to the base sauce, simmer twenty minutes. Eats like a meat ragu at a fraction of the price. See our full guide to cooking lentils and beans from dried for even bigger savings.
5. Sausage and bean stew — brown six budget sausages (around £1.50), cut into chunks, add the base sauce and a drained tin of cannellini or baked beans. Fifteen minutes. Mash or crusty bread on the side.

Dinners six to ten: a bit more interesting

1. Tomato and coconut curry — base sauce plus a tablespoon of curry powder and half a tin of coconut milk, then whatever needs using: frozen peas, a diced potato, cauliflower, leftover chicken. Serve with rice.
2. Gnocchi bake — stir a 500g packet of gnocchi (own-brand, around £1) through the base sauce, top with grated cheese, grill for five minutes until bubbling. Twenty minutes start to finish.
3. Tomato soup that beats the carton — blitz the base sauce with a second tin of tomatoes, 300ml of stock and a splash of milk. A pinch of chilli flakes if you like warmth. Cheese toastie mandatory.
4. Chilli non carne — base sauce, a tin of kidney beans, a diced pepper, cumin, paprika and a square of dark chocolate if you have one. Better the next day, freezes brilliantly.
5. Fish in tomato sauce — nestle frozen white fish fillets (a bag is one of the best-value proteins in the freezer aisle) into the simmering sauce, lid on for ten to twelve minutes. Capers or olives if the jar's open.

Making it stretch even further

Every one of these dinners takes padding gracefully. A grated carrot melts invisibly into the base sauce and adds sweetness. A handful of red lentils thickens anything and adds protein for about 10p. Frozen spinach stirred in at the end adds a vegetable you didn't have to wash or chop. And almost all of them work with the vegetable drawer's odds and ends — floppy celery and bendy peppers are indistinguishable from fresh once they've simmered in tomato sauce for a quarter of an hour.

Portion sizes matter more than ingredient swaps, though. Cooking 100g of dried pasta per person instead of eyeballing it saves a surprising amount over a month, and leftovers become tomorrow's lunch instead of tonight's second helping nobody needed.

The cupboard maths

Buy tinned tomatoes by the four-pack or when they're on offer and the per-tin price drops further. At around 50p a tin, with an onion at roughly 15p and garlic at pennies, your sauce base costs less than a first-class stamp. Even the most expensive dinner on this list — the sausage stew — comes in around £3.50 for four people. The same four portions of a supermarket ready meal would cost you £10 or more, and honestly wouldn't taste as good.

A tin of tomatoes is the closest thing the supermarket sells to a guaranteed dinner.

If tonight's the night you try one: do the gnocchi bake. It's twenty minutes, one pan and a grill, and it converts even the fussiest eater to the church of the tinned tomato.