30 High Carb Meals to Make When You’re Hungry and Broke
Pasta, rice, gnocchi, noodles, risotto, lentils… these are the high carb meals I cook most, and unsurprisingly, they’re also some of the cheapest things you can make. Whether you’re carb loading meals ahead of a race or just want something filling after a long day, this list has you covered across six categories and 30 recipes. Pick a carb & find your dinner!
Table of Contents
What Are High Carb Meals?
High carb meals are dishes where the bulk of the calories come from carbohydrate-rich ingredients: pasta, rice, noodles, gnocchi, potatoes, lentils and other legumes. A single high carb meal will typically give you anywhere from 50 to 100g of carbs per serving, which is exactly what your body needs when it’s running on empty. These ingredients also happen to be some of the cheapest in any supermarket, which is why carb-heavy cooking and budget cooking go hand in hand. A bag of pasta or a bag of rice will set you back less than £1 and feed four people easily.
They’re also the foundation of high carb meals for athletes and anyone doing a lot of physical activity. Carbs are stored in your muscles as glycogen, which is what your body burns during exercise, so loading up on them before or after training really makes a difference to how you feel and perform. But you don’t need to be training for anything to enjoy a high carb meal! Most of the recipes in this list are just really good dinners that happen to be filling, affordable & built around ingredients you probably already have in the cupboard.
If you want even more recipes, I’ve also got a viral salmon rice bowl, a one-pot chicken pilaf and a peanut butter chicken satay curry.
Pasta
Pasta is the most reliable high carb meals category there is, and these are the eight I make most. A bag of dried pasta costs less than £1 and feeds a family, which is why it’s the backbone of so many high carb dinners.
1. Chicken Bolognese
This recipe convinced me chicken mince could hold its own against beef. The trick is the splash of milk in before the long simmer which makes the sauce so nice & silky. It makes a massive batch too, so you’re set for the rest of the week.
2. Chicken Lasagna
This chicken lasagna is high-protein, rich and creamy. Layers of courgette/zucchini, bechamel, bolognaise and lasagna sheets, heavenly!
3. Garlic Parmesan Chicken Pasta
The fusilli cooks directly in chicken stock so it’s seasoned all the way through, not just coated on the outside. Cream and parmesan go in off the heat at the end to keep the sauce smooth and silky.
4. Creamy Gochujang Pasta
Korean fermented chilli paste cooked down with garlic, loosened with pasta water and finished with cream and parmesan until you get a deep, spicy, honestly addictive sauce. It takes 12 minutes total and is completely vegetarian. If you’ve never cooked with gochujang before, this is where to start.
5. Creme Fraiche Pasta
The sun-dried tomatoes are what make this one honestly. Fry them long enough and they go almost jammy, which adds an unbelievable sweetness.The creme fraiche keeps it light and it all comes together with rigatoni & wilted spinach in about 20 minutes. I make this one a lot!
6. Cheesy Tuna Pasta Bake
Cream cheese and cheddar melt straight into the pasta water to make the sauce, so there’s no roux to worry about. Sweetcorn and tuna go in, then the whole dish goes under the grill until the top is golden and bubbling.
7. Easy Meatless Baked Ziti
Imagine rigatoni layered with a chunky aubergine and mushroom tomato sauce, ricotta dotted throughout & mozzarella on top that crisps up beautifully under the grill. It’s AMAZING. This one takes a bit longer but makes six portions and reheats really well all week.
8. Mushroom Ragu
The mushrooms get chopped very finely and fried low and slow until they go deep and almost meaty, then the rigatoni finishes cooking in the sauce with pasta water. Top it with basil panko breadcrumbs fried in olive oil.
Rice Dishes
Rice dishes are some of the most dependable high carb meals you can make. Cheap, filling & endlessly versatile, these five cover a full spread of high carb recipes, from a Nando’s fakeaway to a Cajun one-pan dish.
9. Singapore Fried Rice
What separates Singapore fried rice from regular egg fried rice is the curry powder, and it makes such a difference. We’ve got cooked-ahead rice, frozen prawns, frozen mixed veg, spring onion, scrambled egg and soy sauce all going into one pan, ready in about 15 minutes. It is SO much better than ordering in, I promise!
10. Cajun Dirty Rice
We’ve got rice in a pork mince that was browned and cooked down with red and green peppers, garlic, tomato puree & Cajun seasoning. This is def one of those dishes you can keep eating way past the point where you’re full.
11. Spicy Tomato Rice with Halloumi
The base here is jasmine rice cooked in a blended spicy tomato sauce with mixed peppers and green beans, already a great vegetarian meal on its own. The golden fried halloumi slices on top are what make it so incredible.
Spicy Tomato Rice with Halloumi
12. Easy Prawn Rice
The clever bit here is blending the deseeded red chillies into the reserved fish stock before pouring it into the pan, so you get a bit of heat through the entire dish instead of randomly biting into chunks of chilli. Jumbo prawns go in for the last five minutes only so they stay tender.
13. Nando’s Spicy Rice
Turmeric, paprika, cumin and cayenne get fried in oil for a couple of minutes before the peppers go in, and then the rice cooks in the spiced stock so everything is seasoned all the way through. Much better than the restaurant version, I will die on that hill.
Noodles
If pasta is the reliable one, noodles are the ones that make dinner feel a bit more interesting. The carb loading meals crowd will love this section – udon and vermicelli are both serious fuel.
14. 10-Minute Spicy Peanut Butter Noodles
Do not knock these until you try them. The peanut butter sauce picks up garlic, sriracha and rice vinegar so it’s creamy but also sharp and spicy, and the noodles finish cooking in it so the sauce thickens all the way through. So good!
10-Minute Spicy Peanut Butter Noodles
15. Gochujang Noodles
Fat udon noodles cooked straight in the sauce with mushrooms & red pepper so they absorb all that fermented spicy depth. The texture of udon in this is amazing, so soft but still chewy. This is another one of my favourite vegetarian high carb meals!
16. Creamy Buldak Noodles
The trick here is using the pink carbonara packet rather than the original, as it works so well with dairy. American cheese & mozzarella go in with a splash of milk and starchy cooking water to make a super glossy sauce in minutes.
17. Chicken Vermicelli
We’ve got ice vermicelli with thinly sliced chicken, Chinese cabbage, carrot and garlic, all cooked in one pan with sweet soy sauce and stock. It’s lighter than most of the other recipes here but still filling, and the coriander and lime at the end make it taste really fresh.
Gnocchi
Gnocchi is potato-based, which makes it super filling (and cheap!). It’s also super versatile, and there’s an argument for it being the best high carb lunch option since it reheats so well through the week.
18. Creamy Tuscan Gnocchi
The pork mince browned in sun-dried tomato oil gives this a depth you don’t really expect from a 25-minute dinner. I always make the full five portions because it gets better sitting in the fridge and I want it for lunch all week.
19. Gnocchi Alla Sorrentina
Gnocchi simmered in a tomato sauce and then finished under the grill with mozzarella until the cheese is golden and bubbling. If you’ve never made this before, I don’t know what you’ve been doing. It’s also vegetarian and £1.21 a portion!
20. Crispy Roasted Gnocchi with Chorizo
This one is so good with a glass of white wine! The chorizo roasts into the gnocchi and the veg and it smells incredible. You can get this on the table in less than 50 minutes with barely any prep.
Crispy Roasted Gnocchi with Chorizo
21. Cheesy Gnocchi Bake
We blend the veg into the sauce so it completely disappears, which is always a win in my book. And the mozzarella top goes so golden and gooey it’s hard to serve without eating half of it standing at the oven.
22. Walnut Romesco Gnocchi
Roasted red peppers & walnuts blended into this deep, nutty Spanish-style sauce with crumbled feta on top. It may sound like an odd combination but it really works and it’s one of the cheapest high carb meals too.
If potatoes are your thing, I’ve also got boulangere potatoes, cheesy mashed potatoes and parmentier potatoes for you to try next.
Risotto
Risotto gets a bad reputation for being difficult but it really isn’t. These are four of the best high carb meals you can make when you want something that feels a bit more considered than pasta.
23. Chicken and Chorizo Risotto
The chorizo gets crisped up first and a third of it is saved to go on top at the end, so you get that smoky hit in every bite. It’s so filling, and at £1.49 a head for six portions it’s a great option for runners or anyone who needs proper fuel that week.
24. Creamy Rice with Garlic & Parmesan
This gets you risotto-level creaminess without standing there stirring until your arm falls off. The garlic parmesan flavour is SO good and only takes 14 minutes.
Creamy Rice with Garlic & Parmesan
25. Green Risotto with Crispy Bacon and Mushrooms
Cavolo nero turns this risotto a lovely vibrant green colour & the crispy pancetta and mushrooms on top make it look like something you’d pay a lot of money for in a restaurant. It’s done in about half an hour and really worth it.
Green Risotto with Crispy Bacon and Mushrooms
26. Fish Risotto
Haddock & leeks is such a good combination and the fish poaches right in the risotto so it stays really tender. A high carb dinner idea that feels a bit more special than your average Wednesday night.
Lentils & Legumes
Lentils are one of the cheapest carbs out there and these recipes are proof that budget doesn’t mean boring. A bag costs about 80p and every single one of these reheats brilliantly all week.
27. Easy Red Lentil Dahl
This is my go-to when I don’t fancy spending ages in the kitchen. The ginger and garlic give it that slow-cooked depth even though it’s one pot and ready in about 30 minutes, and the coconut milk makes it so creamy. It’s also vegan, which is a plus!
28. Lentil & Chickpea Curry
You can blend it at the end for a vibrant green colour or leave it chunky. It’s designed for meal prep – the recipe will tell you to divide into five containers, freeze three and keep two in the fridge, which means a week of high carb dinners from one single cooking session.
29. Lentil Bolognese
The mushrooms get browned before anything else goes in, which gives this its meaty texture. Cook it low and slow and serve it over spaghetti. It’s another vegan dish and, honestly, nobody would ever guess.
30. Lentil & Bacon Soup
We fry the bacon until crispy and save some of it to go on top at the end. Don’t rush that stage because the flavour it builds into the base is what makes this soup so good.
Tips: How to Build a High Carb Meal on a Budget
- Buy dried rather than fresh. Dried pasta, rice and lentils are a fraction of the price and last months in the cupboard for you to make loads of high carb meals. Fresh pasta is great but dried is just as good for most of these recipes.
- Cook in bulk. Most of these dishes scale up easily and freeze well, which makes them the best high carb lunch ideas for the week – portion into containers and you’ve got lunch sorted for days without any extra effort.
- Use your pasta water. It’s starchy & salty and will loosen and emulsify any sauce. Never drain it all away.
- Stock up on tins. Tinned tomatoes, tinned lentils and tinned chickpeas are used to make some of the cheapest carb meals – they’re the base of at least a third of the recipes in this list.
- Cook a big pot of rice or lentils at the start of the week and use it across multiple meals. It takes the same amount of time as cooking one portion and saves a lot of washing up.
- Freeze your sauces. Bolognese, dahl and curry all freeze brilliantly. Make double and you’ve got dinner ready whenever you need it.
High Carb Meals FAQs
Pasta, rice and lentils are the best options as they’re cheap, they digest well and they give you a sustained energy release. Most of the pasta and risotto recipes in this list are ideal before or after training. The chicken and chorizo risotto and the lentil bolognese are both particularly good.
A carb heavy meal is one where the majority of the calories come from carbohydrates – think pasta dishes, rice bowls, gnocchi, noodles and lentil-based meals. A typical portion of pasta or rice will give you around 60-80g of carbs, which is often enough to fuel a full day.
The pasta section is your best starting point. Most of those recipes are under £1.50 a portion. The gochujang pasta is 77p a serving, the cheesy tuna pasta bake is 82p, and the lentil bolognese is one of the cheapest dinners. Rice dishes like the Nando’s spicy rice and Singapore fried rice are also very budget-friendly.
The lentil and chickpea curry is specifically designed for high carb meal prep. The lentil bolognese and chicken bolognese both freeze brilliantly too.
Any of the recipes in this list reheat well, so the honest answer is pick whatever you’re making for dinner and take the leftovers. The gnocchi dishes are good for this since they keep for 4-5 days in the fridge.
If you’re still hungry for more, check out caramelized shallot pasta, steak pasta with creamy creme fraiche sauce and budget dan dan noodles.
