Step by Step Christmas Dinner for £25 3 Courses

Christmas dinner doesn't need to be an overwhelming or expensive meal to prepare. My toes curl when I see the exorbitant prices that restaurants charge for what essentially is a Sunday roast with a few extras. With this step by step by guide I aim to walk you through the process of preparing a three course Christmas dinner on a budget. By doing most of the preparation the day before you won't need to spend hours and hours in the kitchen on Christmas day either.

A Christmas feast

Your Christmas Dinner Menu
This menu assumes you already have salt, pepper, cooking oil and coffee in your store cupboard.






Plan your shopping list
I used My SuperMarket to find out which store had sold the items I needed for the lowest price. In this case it was Asda. However, the refrigerated items did not arrive with the order. They refunded the money for these items but if I had ordered for delivery in time for Christmas day I would have been left with no turkey for Christmas dinner. I found their customer service staff to be very dismissive too. The minimum price for an online order is £25 and the missing items cost £11 odd so I couldn't reorder them without adding a money to make a second delivery up to the minimum order price and I would also then have to pay a further delivery charge. The customer service agent agreed this was the case and there was nothing they could do about it. It's fair to say I was not impressed. I mention this experience because I use Asda products in these recipes, the ingredients are good quality but I would caution against their online delivery service.

Copy of Asda receipt total £25.08 shopped 27.11.14

Your Shopping List
Turkey breast
Sausages 8 pack
Streaky Bacon
Prawn Cocktail
Whole Milk 1 pint
Extra Thick Cream
Cornflour
Medium Free range eggs
Caster Sugar
Chicken gravy granules
Chocolate swiss roll
Iceburg lettuce
A large Orange
A stalk of Sprouts
An onion
4 baking potatoes
3 Parsnips
4 Carrots
Sage and onion stuffing Mix
Vanilla Essence
Honey and mustard dressing
Cranberry sauce
Chocolate button
Chocolate Mints




I filmed the whole process of preparing and cooking Christmas dinner. There is a check list below to keep you on track. You can also use the links to jump to the part of the video that relates to each step.

The day before
Prepare the trifle base
Prepare the luxury Stuffing
Jazz up the cranberry sauce
Wrap the sausages in bacon
Prepare the potatoes to be roasted and mashed
Slice the carrots and parsnips
Wash the sprouts and dice their toppings

Christmas Day Morning
Make the trifle custard
Assemble the prawn cocktails

An hour before
Put the cream on the trifle

40 mins before
Prepare the turkey
Put the potatoes on to boil

30 mins before
Put they turkey and roast potatoes in the oven
Put the carrots and parsnips
Put the sausages in the oven
Put the stuffing in the oven
Fry the sprout toppings

After the potatoes have boiled for 20 minutes drain and mash them
Drain the sprouts
Make the gravy
Top the sprouts
Take everything out of the oven

Serve the prawn cocktails
Plate up the Christmas dinner and enjoy
Serve the trifle
Follow with coffee and mints


Chocolate Orange Trifle