Your Slimming Essentials – The Weekly Pinch of Shopping 11.11
November is flying by! The clocks have gone back and it’s getting chillier by the day, which means it’s time to stock up your cupboards with winter warmers.
In today’s Weekly Pinch of Shopping, we’ve found plenty of warming comfort foods, from tasty soups to creamy desserts.
The supermarket shelves are already brimming with festive favourites, so we couldn’t resist sneaking one Christmas-themed snack onto the list. How good do Sainsbury’s Pigs in Blankets Flavour Puffs sound?
We’re so excited that our NEW cookbook, Pinch of Nom: Enjoy, will be on the shelves in less than a month! Enjoy is all about turning mealtimes into memories, and it’s brimming with 100 brand-new recipes that you’ll be excited to make, share and eat with family and friends, time and time again.
If you can’t wait until December 8th for some new Pinch of Nom recipes, you can try 26 exclusive new recipes in our Family Meal Planner right now! It’s our most family-friendly food planner yet – plan meals and organise what you need to buy with our game-changing freezer tracker! You can order your copy here.
You can share your recipes and photos by posting over in our Facebook group, where you’ll also find our members having a good old chat about lots of these shopping items too. You can join the group by clicking here. Make sure to let us know if you spot any yummy looking, slimming-friendly new products on the supermarket shelves – we might just feature them in our next article!
Our Weekly Pinch of Shopping list aims to show you slimming-friendly products that you can find online or in one of your local supermarkets. We try to make it as easy as possible for you to pick up these items as part of your usual weekly shop, and we’ll always include the calorie information and the RRP for you.
Please remember that, although all prices are correct at the time of writing, supermarkets can change their prices often, so this should be used as a guide only.
Along with our favourite new finds from the supermarket shelves, each week we include details of the Aldi Super 6. Every fortnight Aldi discounts a selection of 6 fruits and veggies that you can pick up for a fraction of the price. This week we’ve given you a reminder of the current selection, so hurry down to Aldi to pick up some bargains before a fresh selection goes on offer next week!
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**A note on our shopping list: we do not take payment, promotion or gifts for including any of the items mentioned in these articles. We bring them to you because we love them and hope you will too!**
Cauliflower Cheese Soup – 81 calories per 1/2 tin
A tin of soup is an underrated lunch option – affordable, quick and delicious. When it comes to shop-bought soups, they don’t come much more comforting than the Cauliflower Cheese Soup we’ve spotted in Sainsbury’s. Unbelievably rich and creamy, it’s made with mature Cheddar cheese and double cream, and yet it’s just 81 calories for half the tin (and 162 if you’re hungry enough to slurp up the whole thing!).
Packed with cauliflower, this Cauli Mac ‘n’ Cheese is another easy way to get these unmissable flavours (and some extra vegetables) into your life. Most of the cauliflower gets blitzed up to thicken the creamy cheese sauce, so you’ll hardly even notice it’s there.
It’s the perfect comfort food to see you through the winter months.
Cauliflower Cheese Soup is available from Sainsbury’s, priced at £1.20 for a 380g tin.
Aunt Bessie’s Homestyle Chicken Gravy – 11 calories per 50ml serving
Maybe you’ve tried the Yorkshire puddings or roast potatoes, but now Aunt Bessie’s has taken over Sunday dinner with a brand-new instant gravy. Also available in beef and vegetable varieties, this Aunt Bessie’s Homestyle Chicken Gravy is made with real meat juices, to give it a proper homemade taste.
Ready in seconds, and only 11 calories per serving, we can’t think of an easier way to level up your roast dinner. Just imagine it poured over your chicken, veggies and our crispy, perfect Roast Potatoes.
You really only need spuds and salt to make our timeless roasties (so you can forget all those other recipes that call for drenching them in oil and fat). Simply parboil the potatoes and give them a really good coating of low-calorie cooking spray before you get them into a hot oven.
Aunt Bessie’s Homestyle Chicken Gravy is available from Asda, priced at £1.50.
Snackrite Pretzel Thins Honey Mustard & Onion – 90 calories per serving
We’re always on the lookout for new nibbles, and these Snackrite Pretzel Thins Honey Mustard and Onion are good news for savoury snackers! Crunchy and salty, with just a hint of honey sweetness, they’re seriously hard to resist.
At 90 calories for a 20g serving, you can afford to pack up a portion to take to work, or pop some in your bag for on-the-go snacking. If you’re after a different flavour, we spied a plain salted version on the shelves too.
Honey and mustard is one of those flavour combinations that just makes sense. The sweet and savoury mix together to create a delicious glaze for the ingredients in our Honey and Mustard Chicken. This one pot wonder is a dreamy midweek meal that’s on the table in just 45 minutes.
Snackrite Pretzel Thins Honey Mustard & Onion are available from Aldi, priced at 99p for an 80g bag.
Specially Selected Chilli Beef Noodles – 264 calories per pack
Ready to eat, hot or cold, this Specially Selected Chilli Beef Noodles meal is one of the newest additions at Aldi. Medium spicy and packed with veg, this is a ready meal you can pop in the fridge for a day when time isn’t on your side.
Each pot is filled with cooked noodles, carrots, black beans, sweetcorn and spinach, topped with an orange and chilli sauce, chargrilled peppers, red onion and Gochujang style cooked beef. Tuck in straight from the fridge or blast in the microwave for a couple of minutes.
If you can spare 25 minutes, we’d recommend making your own Beef and Broccoli Noodle Bowls from scratch. It’s a speedy lunch or dinner that brings all your favourite takeaway flavours for a fraction of the calories (just 269 per portion!).
To make this recipe even more budget-friendly, you can throw in any veggies that you have leftover in the fridge, to stop them going to waste.
Specially Selected Chilli Beef Noodles are available from Aldi, priced at £2.49 per pack.
Perfectly Clear Still Red Apple Flavour Spring Water – 3 calories per serving
An easy way to drink more water, this Perfectly Clear Still Red Apple Flavour Spring Water is made with zero sugar and natural flavourings. For anyone who prefers their water to taste a little fruitier, this is a low-calorie way to up your intake.
Also available in summer fruits and strawberry varieties, these 1.5 litre bottles of spring water are so handy to have in the fridge. Ideal if you’re trying to cut down on fizzy drinks, an ice cold glass of apple-infused water with your dinner is so refreshing!
Speaking of apples, we’ve been thinking about how to make the most of them while they’re in season. You can find our roundup of apple recipes here – and it includes these irresistible little Apple Crumbles. Can you believe they’re just 75 calories each?
Perfectly Clear Still Red Apple Flavour Spring Water is available from Morrisons, priced at £1.00 for a 1.5 litre bottle.
English Cheesecake Company Ltd Cookies & Cream Cheesecake Bites – 142 calories per bite
We’ve got two words for you; frozen cheesecake. Move over ice cream, we think we’ve found our new favourite icy treat! At 142 calories per bite, these Cookies and Cream flavoured Cheesecake Bites from the English Cheesecake Company Ltd are perfect little puddings.
Buttery and rich, the cookies and cream swirled cheesecake sits on a crunchy biscuit base. Specially developed to be eaten frozen, there’s no need to defrost these bites before getting stuck in (although you can serve them chilled if you prefer).
If the thought of frozen cheesecake flavours have caught your attention, you might fancy giving this Strawberry Cheesecake Frozen Yoghurt recipe a try. Swirled with strawberry puree and topped with crushed biscuits, it can be stored in the freezer for up to 3 months – so you’ll always have an emergency sweet treat on hand.
English Cheesecake Company Ltd Cookies & Cream Cheesecake Bites are available from Tesco, priced at £4.00 for a pack of 6.
Morrisons Tomato & Red Pepper Soup Mix – 80 calories per 1/4 pack
Who can say no to homemade soup that doesn’t involve any peeling, scraping and chopping! Say goodbye to messy prep with this Tomato & Red Pepper Soup Mix that we’ve found in Morrisons.
The mixture includes fully prepared chunks of red pepper, tomato, carrot and onion. Simply add some water, bring to the boil and all that’s left to do is simmer and serve. Blitz your soup with a hand blender until it’s silky and smooth. It’ll work out at 80 calories per serving, although you can add in some cream if you’re feeling fancy. Just remember to work out the additional calories, if you’re counting!
Our Roasted Red Pepper and Feta Soup uses a similar base, but the salty, crumbly cheese really ramps up the flavours. Sweet, smokey and salty all at once, you might want to serve with a bread roll so you can mop up every last bit.
Morrisons Tomato & Red Pepper Soup Mix is available from Morrisons, priced at £1.29.
M&S Cheese Rarebit Mushrooms – 193 calories per 1/2 pack
You can’t go wrong with food that’s topped with melted cheese! Inspired by the classic Welsh dish, these M&S Cheese Rarebit Mushrooms double up on cheesy goodness – they’re filled with mature Cheddar and mozzarella cheese, topped with toasted focaccia breadcrumbs and served with a lightly pickled red onion dressing.
Delicious as a side dish, they only need 20 minutes in the oven for the cheese to get gooey and golden. Pair with a meaty main, or serve with a vegetarian option like this Roasted Vegetable and Feta Couscous.
Lightly spiced with chipotle and topped with peppery rocket and walnuts, it’s a rainbow of veggie goodness. If you need this recipe to be completely vegetarian, just make sure you check the label of your feta cheese – sometimes it can contain rennet, which is not veggie-friendly.
M&S Cheese Rarebit Mushrooms are available from Ocado, priced at £4.00 for a pack of 2.
Nutoka Bites – 73 calories per bite
Imagine biting into a sweet crunchy biscuit and finding a gooey, chocolate hazelnut centre. That’s exactly what you get with these oh-so-tasty Nutoka Bites that are new in at Aldi. Filled with Aldi’s budget-friendly version of Nutella, each bite is 73 calories of biscuity, chocolatey heaven.
Perfect for when you’re craving a little taste of decadence, these are a slimming-friendly way to indulge your sweet tooth. Save room for one or two after dinner, or sit down with a cuppa and a bite in the afternoon.
Why not pick up a jar of Nutoka chocolate spread while you’re in Aldi and use it to make these Nutella Baked Oats? They’re such a treat for breakfast, and they could even be dished up for dessert as well. Just wait until you’re dunking your spoon into that melted chocolate centre…
Nutoka Bites are available from Aldi, priced at £1.69 for a 240g bag.
Sainsbury’s Pigs in Blankets Flavour Puffs – 157 calories per 30g serving
Halloween is over, Bonfire Night has been and gone, so that can mean only one thing…the countdown to Christmas is ON! To get you in the festive spirit, pick up a pack of these Pigs in Blankets Flavour Puffs the next time you pop to Sainsbury’s.
The perfect way to ease into the seasonal flavours, the crunchy snacks are only 157 calories per 30g serving. Dusted with a savoury bacon and sausage flavouring, they’re a little taster of everyone’s favourite Christmas dinner side dish.
We see no reason to wait for Christmas to enjoy these Pigs in Blankets Skewers – trust us, you’ll want to make them this weekend! Everything gets coated in a sticky, sweet and savoury glaze made from honey, mustard and Marmite. It’s just like Christmas dinner on a stick, with everyone’s favourite bits included.
Sainsbury’s Pigs in Blankets Flavour Puffs are available from Sainsbury’s, priced at £1.85 for a 250g bag.
REMINDER Aldi Super 6 Fruit and Veg Selection
We love Aldi’s Super 6 selection of fresh fruit and veggies! Each fortnight they choose six different items for a special offer where you can pick them up for much less than the normal price.
Here’s our reminder of this week’s Super 6 selection:
- Green Beans – 40 calories per 100g
- Brussels Sprouts – 40 calories per 100g
- Sweet Vine Tomatoes – 60 calories per 100g
- Mini Pears – 75 calories per 100g
- Unwaxed Lemons – 52 calories per 100g
- Mini Apples – 22 calories per 100g
**Remember: we do not take payment, promotion or gift for any of the items mentioned in these articles. We bring them to you because we love them and hope you will too!**
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