This slow cooker turkey mince stew was made in the slow cooker, with very little effort! Served with noodles, it could also be served with vegetables, or a portion of chips and uses mostly store cupboard basics.

I’ve bought a case of the Napolina spicy bean salad in tomato sauce and planned to use them as a simple mixed bean base in recipes. Adding the whole tin into the slow cooker seemed an easy way to use them easily.

I wanted to use up a couple of carrots and some small potatoes that were going limp and sprouting, so this was a Leftovers Recipe too.

This was made in a 3.5 litre slow cooker. Adding in more carrots/potatoes or other vegetables would make it stretch to four generous portions; I tend to divide slow cooker meals into three portions where possible so I don’t get bored of eating them. I try to not freeze leftovers as my freezer’s small and would soon fill up with stray odds and sods, so I prefer to cook once then eat over the next 3-4 days to get through it all.

Ingredients

• ~250 grams turkey thigh mince – it doesn’t need to be thigh mince, just any turkey/chicken mince
• 1 400 gram tin Napolina spicy bean salad in tomato sauce (or any other/similar brand)*
• 1-2 carrots, peeled and chopped
• 2-3 small/medium potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
• 1 medium/large onion, peeled and sliced
• 1-2 teaspoons chilli powder
• Water – I filled the empty bean salad tin to half way

Method

• Place the potatoes, carrots and onions in the slow cooker. Open the can of Napolina spicy bean salad in tomato sauce and pour the entire contents into the slow cooker. Sprinkle 1-2 teaspoons of chilli powder across the top.
• Add the turkey thigh mince – mine was only part-thawed, so I lay it on top of the other ingredients as a slab – I could’ve chopped it up, and/or rolled it into turkey meatballs, but I didn’t bother.
• Turn the slow cooker on to HIGH for 1½ hours, until the contents are bubbling. As I’d laid the turkey mince in a flat slab on top at the start, I broke the mince up into smaller chunks with a knife before I turned it down low.
• Turn the slow cooker down to LOW and cook for a further 3 hours.

Serve. Today I served a portion of spicy turkey mince on a base of cheap instant noodles.

Costings

*Today I used Napolina spicy bean salad in tomato sauce; I usually use “any cheap supermarket own brand” tinned beans that are in a spicy sauce. Napolina retail at £1.40/can, which is very expensive for “just a tin of beans” – I bought 12 cans for just £4 from an out of date food warehouse, so it’d cost me 33p/can! A similar can of similar beans in a spicy sauce from a supermarket will cost about 55-60p.

The mince I’d managed to pick up in the reduced section, costing just £1.09, reduced from £4.04 for 750 grams – I’d divided that into three portions and frozen them as flat slabs; this recipe used one portion, costing 36p.

The potatoes, carrots and onions cost about 25p

< 75p per portion. £2.20 is the cost at full price, using supermarket brand beans in spicy sauce and using full priced meat. There were 3-4 portions!

Due to the fact I’d found (by luck) a pack of reduced price mince + I’d bought the spicy bean salad at a reduced price, it cost me 36p + 33p + 25p = £1.

33p per portion: Today, the spicy turkey stew cost me 33p per portion + 10p for the pack of instant noodles. My meal therefore cost me 43p.