Easiest, Cheapest and Healthiest Seafood Paella... Ever! (and it's Gluten Free!)

Copyright Angie's iFoodcam

Is this possibly the quickest, healthiest, cheapest, TASTIEST seafood paella EVER?!  (Oh, and it’s also Gluten Free!!)

Well, let’s see!  Can I make a meal for 4 for less than £5?

(And transport you to a lovely beach café in Spain?)

Ingredients

2 garlic

1 red bell pepper/capsicum (diced)

1 medium onion (diced)

400ml Kallo gluten free chicken or veg stock

2 tsp paprika

1 tsp turmeric or (2 saffron threads if you’re feeling posh)

150g white rice

1 pack of prawns (and any other shell fish if you have it!)

Frozen peas (or any other frozen veg, if like me you forgot the peas - so I used frozen broccoli and carrots!)

1 Lemon

Black pepper to taste

Parsley (if you have any, don’t worry if not!)

1 tbsp of sunflower or veg oil, or Fry light spray

Method

Heat 1 tbsp oil in a large pan or deep bottomed frying pan.

Cook the onion, pepper and garlic until soft.

Boil the kettle and make the stock (chicken or veg, you choose ;)  set aside for a moment.

Stir the rice, turmeric and paprika into the onions and peppers until all the spices have covered the rice and made a nice colour. 

Pour in the stock and bring to boil again - then, when bubbling, turn down to simmer for 15 minutes until the water is absorbed and rice is just tender. (Put the lid on, or cover with some foil – make sure it doesn’t dry out too much and just add a splash more water if you need to).

Add the prawns and peas for the last few minutes until heated through.  Season with pepper (no salt please! Prawns and stock already make it salty enough) stir through some parsley (if you have any, I didn’t) and serve with the lemon wedges to squeeze over which really balances and brings out the flavours beautifully.

Serve with a glass of crisp white wine.  Perfik!  (Close your eyes and pretend you're in Barcelona.  I did ;)

The results….

Ok, so how much did this cost?

Garlic – 34p for the whole clove (34p divided by 8 cloves = 4p ish)

Bell pepper – (3 for £2 from Tesco = about 66p)

1 medium onion 54p

chicken stock – (barely registers, approx 24p for one cube from the pack)

2 tsp Paprika 6p from bulk section at Wholefoods Market

1 tsp Turmeric 4p from bulk at Wholefoods Market

1 pack prawns (I got 2 for £5 from Asda – so £2.50 each)

Rice (I got about 450g for around 1.43 from Wholefoods Market bulk section, about 47p for the amount I used.)

Frozen veg (99p for value saver pack, so less than 20p for a good handfull)

4p + 66p + 24p + 54p + 6p + 4p + 2.50 + 47p + 20p +

= £4.75 for the whole thing

which was about 4 portions worth (I had two helpings and my friend had two also – yes we were full after, but very happy! )

So there you have it, less than £5 and gluten free.  Ta da!!