Asda Smart Price Meal Prep: 5 High-Fiber Dinners Under £1 Each

Fibre is the unsung hero of budget eating. It keeps you full for hours, feeds your gut, and — crucially for the wallet — it comes almost exclusively from the cheapest foods in the supermarket: beans, lentils, oats, veg and whole grains. These asda budget meal prep ideas prove the point: five proper high-fibre dinners, each under £1 a portion, built from Asda’s Smart Price and own-brand range.

Each recipe makes 4 portions and delivers at least 10g of fibre per serving — roughly a third of the 30g daily target UK guidelines suggest. They are all one-pot or one-tray affairs, they all reheat well, and none of them tastes like “health food” in the joyless sense. This is hearty, proper dinner food that happens to be cheap.

Asda Budget Meal Prep Ideas: The Fibre-Per-Penny Pantry

Before the recipes, stock these Smart Price heroes. They appear across all five dinners, and a single shop covers the lot:

Notice the pattern: the highest-fibre foods are also the cheapest. That is not a coincidence — fibre lives in the unprocessed plant foods that cost pennies.

Dinner 1: Smoky Three-Bean Chilli (~90p, ~13g fibre)

Ingredients (4 portions)

• 400g tin kidney beans, drained (~45p)
• 400g tin black beans or mixed beans, drained (~55p)
• 400g tin chopped tomatoes (~35p)
• 1 large onion, diced (~12p)
• 200g frozen peppers (~35p)
• 2 tsp chilli powder, 1 tsp smoked paprika, 1 tsp cumin (~10p)
• 250g brown rice to serve (~35p)
• 1 tbsp oil, salt (~8p)

Total: ~£2.35 ÷ 4 = ~59p per portion. Yes, really — well under £1.

Method

1. Soften the onion in oil for 6 minutes. Add the spices and stir 1 minute.
2. Add tomatoes, both tins of beans, the frozen peppers and 200ml water.
3. Simmer 20–25 minutes until thick. The beans break down slightly and make it creamy.
4. Serve over brown rice. Top with a spoonful of plain yoghurt if you have it.

Dinner 2: Red Lentil Bolognese Bake (~85p, ~12g fibre)

Ingredients (4 portions)

• 200g red lentils (~55p)
• 300g wholemeal penne (~45p)
• 2 x 400g tins chopped tomatoes (~70p)
• 2 carrots, grated (~18p)
• 1 onion, diced (~12p)
• 2 tsp Italian herbs, 1 tsp garlic granules (~8p)
• 60g cheddar, grated (~40p)
• 1 tbsp oil, salt and pepper (~8p)

Total: ~£2.56 ÷ 4 = ~64p per portion.

Method

1. Soften onion and carrot in oil for 6 minutes. Add herbs and garlic, stir 1 minute.
2. Add lentils, tomatoes and 400ml water. Simmer 20 minutes until the lentils collapse into a thick sauce.
3. Meanwhile cook the penne until just tender. Mix pasta and sauce in an oven dish.
4. Scatter over the cheddar and grill 5 minutes until golden and bubbling.
5. Portion into 4 containers. Reheats beautifully — the flavours deepen overnight.

Dinner 3: Chickpea & Spinach Coconut Curry (~95p, ~11g fibre)

Ingredients (4 portions)

• 2 x 400g tins chickpeas, drained (~£1.10)
• 400ml tinned coconut milk (~£1.00)
• 400g tin chopped tomatoes (~35p)
• 1 onion, diced (~12p)
• 200g frozen spinach (~40p)
• 2 tbsp mild curry powder (~12p)
• 250g brown or white rice to serve (~30p)
• 1 tbsp oil, salt (~8p)

Total: ~£3.47 ÷ 4 = ~87p per portion.

Method

1. Soften the onion in oil for 6 minutes. Add curry powder and fry 1 minute.
2. Pour in tomatoes and coconut milk, then add chickpeas.
3. Simmer 15 minutes. Stir in the frozen spinach and cook 4 minutes more.
4. Serve over rice. A squeeze of lemon at the end lifts everything.

Dinner 4: Hearty Bean & Vegetable Soup with Oat Dumplings (~70p, ~14g fibre)

The wildcard — and the highest-fibre dinner on the list. Oat dumplings sound odd; they taste like fluffy, wholesome heaven.

Ingredients (4 large portions)

• 400g tin mixed beans, drained (~55p)
• 3 carrots, diced (~25p)
• 2 potatoes, diced (~30p)
• 1 onion, diced (~12p)
• 300g frozen mixed veg (~35p)
• 2 stock cubes in 1 litre water (~11p)
• 1 tsp thyme, salt, pepper (~6p)
• Dumplings: 120g oats blended to flour (~13p), 60g self-raising flour (~8p), 40g butter or spread (~15p), pinch of salt

Total: ~£2.10 ÷ 4 = ~53p per portion.

Method

1. Simmer all the soup ingredients together for 20 minutes until the veg is tender.
2. Rub the butter into the oat flour and self-raising flour with salt, add 4–5 tbsp cold water, and form 8 small dumplings.
3. Drop the dumplings into the simmering soup, cover, and cook 15 minutes without lifting the lid.
4. Ladle into containers — 2 dumplings per portion. The dumplings soak up the broth overnight and reheat well.

Dinner 5: Baked Bean & Veg Traybake with Crispy Potatoes (~75p, ~10g fibre)

Ingredients (4 portions)

• 2 x 400g tins baked beans (~80p)
• 750g potatoes, cut into wedges (~55p)
• 2 peppers, chunked (~60p)
• 1 red onion, wedged (~15p)
• 200g frozen peas (~25p)
• 1 tsp smoked paprika, 1 tbsp oil, salt (~12p)
• 40g cheddar to finish (~25p)

Total: ~£2.72 ÷ 4 = ~68p per portion.

Method

1. Heat the oven to 210°C. Toss the potato wedges in oil, paprika and salt; roast 25 minutes.
2. Add peppers and onion to the tray; roast 15 minutes more.
3. Pour over the baked beans and peas, stir everything together, scatter the cheddar, and bake 10 minutes until bubbling.
4. Divide between 4 containers. Comfort food that costs less than a chocolate bar per serving.

The Sunday Session: All Five in 2 Hours

1. 0:00 — Oven on at 210°C. Potato wedges in for dinner 5. Brown rice on the hob.
2. 0:20 — Chilli (dinner 1) simmering in pot one. Bolognese sauce (dinner 2) simmering in pot two.
3. 0:40 — Curry (dinner 3) on in pot three. Soup (dinner 4) on in pot four. Pasta water on.
4. 1:00 — Assemble the bolognese bake, grill it. Drop dumplings into the soup.
5. 1:20 — Everything cooling. Wash pots while you wait.
6. 1:40 — Portion all five dinners into labelled containers. Fridge the first three days’ worth; freeze the rest.

Five distinct dinners, zero weeknight cooking, and a total ingredient spend of roughly £13 for 20 portions. That is 65p a dinner on average.

Storage and Reheating

Cool everything within 2 hours and refrigerate in airtight containers. Eat within 3 days, or freeze for up to 3 months — all five of these freeze well, though the dumplings are best eaten fresh within 2 days (they go a little dense after freezing). Reheat until steaming hot, adding a splash of water to the chilli, curry and bolognese if they have thickened. Only reheat once.

Making It Lighter

These dinners are already naturally lower in fat than meat-heavy equivalents, but a few tweaks lighten them further: an air fryer crisps the potato wedges for dinner 5 with a fraction of the oil; serving the chilli and curry over extra veg instead of a full rice portion bulks the plate without adding much; and going easy on the cheddar toppings keeps things lighter without anyone feeling deprived. Small changes, same 65p dinners.

Final Thoughts

These asda budget meal prep ideas show what happens when you let fibre lead the menu: five dinners averaging 65p each, every one hitting 10g+ of fibre, all from a single Smart Price shop. Beans, lentils and oats are not poverty food — they are some of the most nutritious ingredients in the supermarket, and they happen to cost almost nothing. Prep all five on Sunday, and dinner is sorted until Friday.