Thrifty Christmas Thursday with Aldi - Meat, Fish and Vegetarian Options for Christmas Dinner

From now until Christmas, Thursdays are now officially called #ThriftyChristmasThursday. Every week I will be telling you how you can save money this Christmas. Working with Aldi and I will be showing you my top foodie finds which will be perfect for Christmas. Best of all you will find all of your favourite food and drink at a price that will not break the bank!

For me, and I am sure many of you, food plays an important part on Christmas day. I have fond memories of sitting down with my family enjoying a big traditional roast turkey dinner with all of the trimmings. It is only now that it is now my turn to prepare this all important meal that I realise how much time and effort goes into it. I have also discovered how expensive it can be to cater for everybody on Christmas day. That is why I am going to share with you my own 'specially selected' dishes which I think are perfect for the big day and will not disappoint anyone. I will also be sharing ways to make cooking the all important meal a little easier so that on Christmas day you are not stuck in the kitchen cooking while everyone else is having fun. You, too, will be able to spend quality time with your family safe in the knowledge that the food has been prepared and you will all enjoy a fantastic meal!

Today, I am focusing on the main course. Today is all about the meat, fish and vegetarian options.

We all know that when it comes to the turkey you can end up spending a lot of money. The prices of turkey really do vary from reasonable prices to extortionate. However at Aldi you can be guaranteed that the prices will certainly not be extortionate! I was amazed by how low the prices are. As it is still November they do not have the fresh turkeys in yet, but they do have frozen, whole turkeys in stock. Buying a frozen turkey is a great way of budgeting your money. You can simply buy the turkey when you are able to afford it and keep it in the freezer until the big day arrives. You can buy a frozen turkey from just £8.99 for a small turkey that will serve 3 - 7 people to just £14.99 for a large turkey that will serve 11 - 15 people!

I wanted to try a different meat dish to highlight in this post. Something different to the traditional turkey. Today I am going to tell you about Aldi's Specially Selected Hand Prepared 5 Bird Roast.

This is a hand prepared turkey breast, duck breast, rich goose and pheasant meat, layered with pork, clementine and cranberry stuffing, wrapped in chicken breast and topped with bacon. Finished with a cranberry and port glaze.

As soon as I saw this roast I knew that it would be a meal that my family would love. Priced at just £9.99 it serves 6 - 8 people and I know that there will be plenty to go round. As the joint is already prepared all that needs to be done on the big day is that the joint is placed in the oven. It can be cooked from frozen and takes just two and a half hours. This joint is full of rich flavours from the meats and paired together with the glossy cranberry and port glaze creates a show stopper of a joint that will certainly impress and please everyone!

When it came to selecting a fish dish I was spoilt for choice. When I was looking through Aldi's Christmas brochure I was amazed to see that their choice goes so much further than white fish. On the run up to Christmas Aldi will be stocking Canadian lobster, crab, smoked Scottish salmon, scallops and giant prawns. Unfortunately, they are not available until closer to Christmas, so I was not able to show you how delicious they look. But you can find all of the fish that will be available on their website.

I do love salmon, so I decided to show you the Aldi's Specially Selected Salmon Roulade. This is a hand rolled roulade of meaty, juicy Atlantic salmon filled with cream cheese and spinach wrapped if puff pastry and topped with cheese and parsley.

This truly is a deliciously rich roulade. The cream cheese and spinach filling finish the salmon off to perfection. As the pastry is in smaller strips instead of a full pastry topping means that it is healthier than the regular style of roulade. For me this fish dish is perfect for both entertaining or to serve on Christmas day. As the roulade is frozen this is a dish that does not need to be defrosted before cooking. It takes just 45 minutes which means that it is an easy meal to cook and saves you time on preparation.

I am not a vegetarian, but I do enjoy vegetarian meals. Over the Christmas period we all over indulge and eat a lot of meat. So I do think that it is important to have a vegetarian meal regularly. If you are expecting to have any vegetarian guests or if you would prefer the vegetarian option Aldi have got an enticing Specially Selected Vegetarian Roast/Wellington. I have got these on the top of my shopping list and I hope to be able to feature them in my vegetables post that is coming up. They look so good, I simply cannot wait to try them! Aldi have made some new vegetarian dishes which means that there will be a favourite for everyone to enjoy. Choose from Goats Cheese, Apricot and Parsnip Roast or a Mushroom, Brie and Cranberry Wellington. I think that you will agree that they both sound delicious and as you can see below, the Mushroom, Brie and Cranberry Wellington looks so tempting!

I hope that this post has given you a taste of what Aldi has to offer this Christmas.

Next week I will be focusing on Christmas vegetables and salads. I will not only be telling you about what vegetables are on offer but I will also be giving you my top tips on vegetable preparations and a couple of recipes.

Disclosure: This is a collaborative post.