Budget-saving hacks and making the most of what you buy are always key trends during tough economic times. Enter canned fish, a 19th-century innovation that’s still going strong. It ticks a whole host of boxes including being a good-value protein that’s more versatile than fresh fish and often less wasteful, with up to 100 per cent of the catch being eaten. Tuna is many people’s go-to tinned fish but why not cast your net wider and try mackerel, sardines, mussels, anchovies, clams, cockles or wild Pacific pink and red salmon? They are affordable, often surprisingly delicious and available with the MSC blue label indicating that they have been fished sustainably. Seafood chef and cookbook author Bart van Olphen is a canned fish evangelist. “Tinned fish is a very efficient product with a long shelf life at a very attractive price. It’s a 100 per cent natural product that is mostly wild – it’s rare to find farmed fish in a tin. But if you’d like to eat seafood forever then it needs to be sustainably sourced.” He adds: “You can create the most amazing things with tinned fish. The key is to add acidity, colour and crispy ingredients to bring out the best in the likes of tuna and salmon.” For a deep umami flavour, Bart recommends sardines and anchovies. “The Portuguese prefer aged sardines which, like good wine, only improve with time. They are great in curries (just add at the last minute), quiches, rice dishes or in a fisherman’s huevos rancheros.” Or you could really push the boat out and try an open tinned fish sharing board, inspired by a TikTok date night video that went viral last year. Worth a mention as an extension of the ‘thrifty’ trend are air fryers. These energy-light cookers continue to fly off the shelves and are ideal for the likes of Thai crab cakes, garlic shrimp and fish fingers.