5 Cheap Recipes To Impress Your Guests

Whether you’re having your ‘rents over for a visit, or just want to give them a treat by cooking a nice meal at home, these super-easy recipes will be sure to win them over after you tell them you’re thinking of getting a tattoo, or convincing them you have your life together for at least a few hours!

Confit tandoori chickpeas

This one might cost a little up-front if you don’t have the spices on-deck (or a pot that can go in the oven) but once that’s taken care of all you’ll need to pick up is a couple of ingredients to make this dish come together. It’s also a great recipe because you literally just bung all the ingredients in at the same time and leave it to do its thing for an hour or so, which means you’re not spending all of your time futzing around in the kitchen when you could be entertaining and catching up. The yoghurt sauce and some bread to sop up all that oil is a must.

Probably not a weeknight dinner, but great for any dinner party with a few side dishes.

Check out the recipe here.

One-Pot Lemon Ricotta Pasta

This is another great recipe if you hate having to wash up a bunch of pots and pans after entertaining. Zesting the lemon can feel a bit fiddly, but the added extra lemony flavour more than makes up for it. The trick when it comes to zesting anything is to be really gentle! You're just trying to get all that tasty skin on the top, without getting into the bitter white stuff underneath. It's definetly more delicate than something like grating cheese or veggies - you can pretty much run the lemon over the grater without any pressure and just let the blades do their thing.

 A tip from me, be prepared to work quickly when you put the ricotta and lemon mix back in the pot - your pot will still be super-hot from the pasta and you won’t want to burn the sauce!

Take a look at the recipe here.

Sheet-Pan Baked Feta With Broccolini, Tomatoes and Lemon

This doesn’t have the same spectacle as the Tik-Tok melted feta, but it’ll taste way better IMO. You can switch out most of these vegetables with something else, but the lemons and cherry tomatoes are best left in the recipe. Once you get the cherry tomatoes in the oven they’ll roast, burst and provide an amazing sauce that will help coat the pasta in tomato-ey goodness, while the lemon caramelises and turns a little bitter but in the best way. 

If you can't find any orzo or farro to serve with the tray bake, it's not going to be the end of the world, but I'd definitely opt for a small pasta like elbows or macaroni so it's all edible with just a fork and you can catch a bit of the sauce.

Another tip if you've got a big mixing bowl is to put all the veg and stuff in there to mix in the spices and oil - but be gentle with the feta or it'll break apart.

Take a look here.

Kielbasa and Lentil Soup with Lots of Basil

Kielbasa can be tough to find, so I usually use chorizo instead. It’ll seem a little pricey, but the small amount that you’ll need for this recipe goes a long way when it comes to adding that smoky flavour to the stew. If you’re vego, you might be able to get away with adding some chickpeas in with cumin, paprika, oregano, garlic, onion and red pepper, matching the spices you’d get if you were using the real thing. This recipe also keeps pretty well in the fridge, so why not make double if you've got the chance?

My piece of advice for this recipe is to add some extra time to brown off all those slices of chorizo - it'll take longer than you expect, especially because you don't want the heat to be too high and risk burning the bottom of the pan.

Grab the recipe over here.

Dilly Bean Stew with Cabbage and Frizzled Onions

From the sounds of the recipe, I'd understand if you were a little apprehensive about trying this one out, but I promise you this one is super-tasty and absolutely dirt-cheap. You must trust the process! Stuff like vinegar seems like a bit of a weird thing to add to soup but it's such a game changer. This is one of those recipes where what you’re buying is so cheap that it’s worth splashing out a little more to get some quality ingredients.

The only tricky part with this recipe is getting those onions just right - as she says in the recipe - you’ll wanna get those onions somewhere between caramelised and fried, so take your time with them.

Ask your guests to bring some nice crusty bread and I promise they'll be asking you just where you found this recipe from by the end of the night.

Take a look at this recipe over on Alison Roman's newsletter.

Whatever you end up making them, I’m sure that as long as you make it with love they’ll be happy to have it! If you’ve got some cheap tasty eats up your sleeve, please chuck us a DM on Insta so we can give it a go!