Daily Junction.mobi portalLifestyle · April 5, 2026 · Emily Chen · 5 min
Save money and impress everyone at home with these spot-on fakeaway recipes.
Friday night. The week is done, the sofa is calling, and that familiar itch to ring the local curry house or dial up a Chinese is already tugging at your wallet. The average UK household spends around £30–£50 on a single takeaway order — and that figure climbs steeply if you're feeding a family or adding drinks and extras. Over a year, that's an eye-watering sum quietly draining your account.
Enter the fakeaway: home-cooked versions of your favourite takeaway dishes that are cheaper, often healthier, and — with the right recipe — genuinely hard to tell apart from the real thing. This Friday, we're starting with the undisputed king of British takeaways: chicken tikka masala.
Beyond the obvious cost savings (more on those in a moment), cooking at home gives you complete control over what goes into your food. You can dial back the salt, skip the artificial colouring, and use better-quality chicken. There's also something deeply satisfying about recreating a dish you assumed required a tandoor oven and thirty years of professional experience — and discovering it didn't.
If you're trying to get your household finances in better shape, small habitual changes add up quickly. Switching just one takeaway per week for a homemade fakeaway could put more than £1,500 back in your pocket annually. If you're also reviewing other outgoings — things like broadband, insurance, or energy bills — a comparison site like QuidCompare can help you see where you might be overpaying across a range of financial products, so your Friday night savings are part of a broader picture of smarter spending.
For the chicken marinade:
For the masala sauce:
Get ahead: The sauce freezes brilliantly. Make a double batch at the weekend and freeze half in portions for a genuinely effortless weeknight dinner.
Make it lighter: Swap the double cream for coconut cream or a half-and-half blend with natural yoghurt. You'll lose a little richness but gain a slightly fresher, lighter result.
Vegetarian version: Replace the chicken with paneer, butter beans, or a combination of cauliflower and chickpeas. Roast them in the same tikka marinade before adding to the sauce.
Smokier flavour: A quarter teaspoon of smoked paprika in the sauce, alongside a pinch of fenugreek, gets you closer to the chargrilled, slightly smoky depth you associate with a good restaurant version.
Rice shortcut: Toast your basmati in a dry pan for two minutes before adding water. It takes on a nuttier flavour and the grains stay separate.
| Item | Approximate cost |
|---|---|
| Chicken thighs (600g) | £2.80 |
| Yoghurt, cream, tinned tomatoes | £1.60 |
| Tikka paste + spices (per use) | £0.60 |
| Onion, garlic, ginger | £0.40 |
| Total (4 servings) | £5.40 |
| Per person | ~£1.35 |
Compare that to a typical takeaway chicken tikka masala — usually £11–£14 for a single portion once delivery fees and a tip are factored in — and the arithmetic is obvious. You're saving roughly £10 per person, every single time.
Fakeaway Fridays aren't about deprivation. You're not giving up the thing you enjoy — you're just making it yourself, spending a fraction of the cost, and honestly, often eating something better. Once you've nailed tikka masala, the same logic applies to salt-and-pepper chips, crispy aromatic duck pancakes, katsu curry, or a proper doner wrap made at home.
The money you save is real. Put it somewhere useful, whether that's a rainy day fund, a family day out, or just the satisfaction of knowing your Friday night cost less than a round of coffees.
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