Easy Budget Christmas Dinner (Just £3.73 per head!) + Time Plan

Easy Budget Christmas Dinner (Just £3.73 per head!) + Time Plan

Just because you are on a budget doesn't mean you can’t have a slap up Christmas dinner with all the trimmings! This Easy Budget Christmas Dinner costs just £3.73 a head and includes all the Christmas essentials: roast turkey, roast potatoes, roast parsnips, carrots, sprouts, stuffing balls, pigs in blankets, cranberry sauce and the most amazing turkey gravy – plus Christmas pudding and cream for dessert! (Serves 4 – but easy to double up for 8… see the recipe notes.)

Course Christmas, Main Course, Pudding

Cuisine British

Prep Time 10

Cook Time 4

Total Time 4 10

Servings people

Calories 1554kcal

Author Eb Gargano

Ingredients

Turkey and gravy

2 large onions peeled and each one cut into 8 wedges
2 large carrots chopped into large chunks (no need to peel)
1 stick of celery chopped into large chunks
1 garlic bulb halved
3 dried bay leaves
300 ml chicken stock from a cube is fine
1 kg turkey leg (turkey drumstick)
1 tablespoon olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste
1 tablespoon cornflour (US – cornstarch)
2 tablespoons cold water

Stuffing balls

1 large red or white onion finely diced
1 tablespoon olive oil
200 g white breadcrumbs (see Note 4)
2 teaspoons dried sage
2 teaspoons dried mixed herbs
Salt and pepper
1 medium egg beaten

Everything else

More olive oil
More salt and pepper
750 g baking potatoes peeled and cut into 30g/1oz (ish) pieces
4 medium parsnips peeled and cut into 6 (see this recipe for how to cut parsnips perfectly )
2 large carrots peeled and cut into batons
200 g sprouts outer leaves peeled off and each sprout cut in half vertically
12 pigs in blankets I used Tesco own brand - See Note 5
1 jar cranberry sauce I used Tesco own brand - See Note 5
400 g Christmas pudding I used Tesco own brand - See Note 5
150 ml double cream

Metric - US Customary

Instructions

11.20am (See Note 6)

Prepare the turkey as per Slow Roast Turkey Leg and cook in the oven for 2 hours at 160C / 140C fan / gas mark 3 / 325F. (Steps 1-6.)

1.00pm

Peel the potatoes and cut into 30g pieces (ish!) Place in a saucepan and cover with just boiled water from the kettle. Cook for 10 minutes on a medium-high heat - start timing from the moment you turn on the heat.

1.10pm

Start preparing the stuffing balls as per Easy Peasy Stuffing Balls

1.20pm

Drain the potatoes and put them back in the saucepan. Put the lid on and shake the pan to rough up the edges. Remove the lid.
Finish preparing the stuffing balls.

1.30pm

Place the stuffing balls in the oven and cook for 20-25 minutes or until they are golden brown and cooked through.
Turn the heat up to 220C / 200C fan / gas mark 7 / 425F, then take the turkey roasting tin out of the oven and remove the foil. Check there is enough liquid in the base. (Add a splash of boiling water if not.) Return the roasting tin to the oven and cook the turkey for a further 30 minutes to crisp up the skin.
Drizzle a baking tray with enough oil to nearly coat the bottom of the tray and sprinkle with a little salt and pepper. The baking tray should be large enough to fit all the potatoes in a single layer.

1.35pm

Peel and halve the sprouts.
Peel and cut the parsnips and carrots into batons.
Place the prepared parsnips in a shallow roasting tray and drizzle with olive oil. Scatter over a little salt and pepper to taste. Toss everything together, so the parsnips are well coated, then arrange in one layer.

1.45pm

Remove the baking tray from the oven and then tip the cooked potatoes into the baking tray, taking care not to splash yourself with hot fat, and turn the potatoes in the oil to coat them.
Put the potato tray straight back into the oven.

1.50pm

Remove the stuffing balls from the oven, but leave on their roasting tray. (If not quite done, give them an extra 5 minutes and remove at 1.55pm.)
Place the pigs in blankets in a lightly oiled roasting tray.

2.00pm

Place the tray of parsnips in your preheated oven and roast for 15 minutes.
Place the tray of pigs in blankets in your preheated oven and cook for 20 minutes – or until piping hot all the way through.
Get the potatoes out and spoon the hot fat over the potatoes to baste them. Return the potato tray to the oven.

2.05pm

Remove the turkey tray from the oven and place the turkey on a board or plate to rest while you make the gravy. (See Note 7)
Make the gravy as per Slow Roast Turkey Leg (Steps 10-13) then turn off, but leave in the pan.
Boil the kettle (for steaming/boiling the carrots and sprouts).

2.10pm

Steam the carrot batons and halved sprouts for 10 minutes, or until done to your liking. (Or boil them for 5-7 minutes if you don’t have a steamer.)

2.15pm

Get the potatoes out and spoon the hot fat over the potatoes to baste them. Return the potato tray to the oven for a final 15 minutes.
Remove the parsnips from the oven and turn all the parsnips over quickly. Return to the oven for a further 10-15 minutes or until the parsnips are golden and crispy and just starting to go brown at the edges.

2.20pm

Turn off the carrots and sprouts, drain (if necessary) and tip into a serving dish.
Remove the tray of pigs in blankets from the oven and tip into a serving dish. (If not quite done, give them an extra 5 minutes and remove at 2.25pm.)

2.25pm

Pop the stuffing balls back in the oven to warm back up for 5 minutes.
Turn the gravy back on to reheat.
Boil the kettle (for steaming the Christmas pudding if not microwaving – see Note 8)
Put the Christmas pudding on to steam.

2.30pm

Remove the parsnips from the oven and tip into a serving dish.
Remove the roast potatoes from the oven and tip into a serving dish.
Remove the stuffing balls from the oven and tip into a serving dish.
(You can now turn the oven off.)
Switch off the gravy and pour into a gravy boat or jug.
Place everything on the table: the roast turkey, roast potatoes, roast parsnips, carrots, sprouts, stuffing balls, pigs in blankets, cranberry sauce and the turkey gravy!

3.30pm

Serve the Christmas pudding and cream.

Notes

Quantities are a very personal thing – given that this is a ‘budget’ Christmas dinner, I have gone for modest servings of everything – this is roughly how much my family eat on Christmas day (bearing in mind everyone has generally indulged in far too many Quality Streets and other nibbles before lunch!) Feel free to scale up anything you feel you family will eat more of than mine!
This budget Christmas menu serves 4, but it is easy to double it to serve 8. For the turkey, you only need to double the turkey leg itself (so 2 x 1kg turkey legs) and the chicken stock. The two turkey legs can be cooked side by side on the same bed of veggies – just make sure they are not touching each other. Everything else can be simply doubled, except the cranberry sauce – as a regular 200g jar of cranberry sauce should stretch to 8.
Technically one person can do this entire menu plan – but you have to be a pretty competent cook and work fast. (I can do it, so it’s definitely possible!) But for most people this will work out better if there are two of you working together – so I recommend you rope in a sous chef!
To make white breadcrumbs, just buy an ordinary white loaf, cut into thick slices (if not already sliced) and grate on the large holes of a cheese grater. It takes less than 5 minutes to get enough breadcrumbs for this recipe – cheaper (and nicer!) than buying breadcrumbs.
It’s actually cheaper to buy pigs in blankets, cranberry sauce and Christmas pudding than to make them yourself.
I have written this time plan assuming you are eating at 2.30pm – if you are planning to eat earlier or later, simply adjust the times forwards or back, as appropriate.
If you are worried your turkey leg will get cold, you can cover it in tin foil and then a couple of tea towels – the problem with this is that the skin will no longer be crispy. If your kitchen is quite warm, the turkey should not cool down too much during its resting time, so I generally leave it uncovered so the skin stays crispy!
To keep fuel costs down, you may want to microwave the Christmas pudding – which takes just a couple of minutes, so you can do that right before you serve the pudding. However, if you possibly can, I recommend steaming the pud as, in my experience, it always turns out nicer steamed.
To keep fuel costs down, I have written this plan assuming you will only be using 1 oven. (And besides, many people only have a single oven.) To fit everything in, you'll almost certainly need 3 levels. (My oven doesn't have 3 levels, so I shove my grill pan in the bottom to make the third.) If you have a double oven, then it will make your life a little easier to use both, but obviously that will increase fuel costs.
Nutrition information is approximate and meant as a guideline only. I realise this looks like a lot of calories... but when you consider that, according to research, the average Christmas dinner is 3914 calories, not including alcohol - that's actually not too bad!

Nutrition