Aldi Feed a Family on £70 Challenge Review

Reviewed by Lucy Gwilliam

January is a tough month money wise for most people, I am one of those people. Getting paid 21st December, feels like a great thing at the time but in reality it is something that can set you back for months. If you are like me and leave most of your Christmas shopping until the last few days then you will understand what position that can leave you in in January…

Luckily having a local Aldi close by and the opportunity to review the feeding a family on £70 challenge was a great help during January. I headed down to my local store in Eccles with the aim of buying as much fresh food as possible. After over indulging at Christmas, I wanted a clean January to get back on track with my diet.

I stocked my trolley up with my usual veg and fresh fruit but this month decided to get less meat. I opted for a beef join, roast in the bag chicken and some extra lean beef mincemeat. My reasoning behind this is that I’m getting bored of eating chicken all of the time so fancied a change. I am quite boring in that I only eat chicken, beef and bacon from the huge meat selection that Aldi offers.

I was over the moon to see that Aldi had fry light on offer for £1.79, coming in chilli infuse and garlic infuse flavours. I bought one of each and have been using them in my cooking throughout the week. I am a huge fry light fan so it was great to see that I didn’t have to go elsewhere to buy it.

Here are some of the meals I have had from my Aldi challenge shop; Slow cooked beef with carrots, broccoli, green beans and mini Yorkshire puds.

I really love the Aldi beef joints, I bang them in my slow cooking in the morning on low with a couple of inches of beef stock, go to work and when I return home 9 hours later I have tender beef ready to eat. Such an easy meal and really delicious.

Another meal I really enjoyed was the roast in the bag chicken served with green beans and potato and sweet potato fries. I made an onion gravy to serve with this.

Throughout the week we ate so many delicious recipes including the fake away kofta kebabs below. I served these with Bombay potatoes and veg, these are one of my quick go to dishes and are so easy to make with a variety of spices from my ever growing spice cupboard.

My children usually eat what we eat but we buy breaded chicken and chips for days where they’re being fussy. My 6 year old daughter absolutely loves the breaded chicken breast fillets from the frozen section, they always go down well with her. We also get pizzas and chocolate cereal for treats for the kids, you can’t go wrong sigh anything from Aldi, they’re always happy with what’s in the cupboards.

One of my favourite healthy desserts that I make from my Aldi shop has to be syn-free pancakes. This is made by separating 2 eggs, whisking the white until it forms soft peaks, adding sweetener to the gold and mixing then slowing folding in the White. You then fry this in a frying pan, you can flip but I’m useless so I grill the top. I then serve with strawberries and a Greek yogurt and top with choc shot (which I also got from Aldi on the special buys, the week before).

Overall, I love shopping at Aldi and it us getting better and better each time I visit. I don’t really need to shop at other stores anymore as Aldi are introducing more and more items that I use on a daily basis, such as Quark. I’m so pleased they have started selling the fat free soft cheese, I use it in so many of my recipes. Thanks Aldi and keep up the good work.

Rating: 5/5

Why not visit your local Aldi this week and see if you can feed your family for £70 without compromising on quality. To find your nearest Aldi store visit www.aldi.co.uk.