Meals are best when they're quick and low effort, but that often means compromising on flavour.

Mary Berry's deluxe pasta recipe is quite the opposite, however, being cheap, easy to make and delicious.

The culinary icon has mastered a sophisticated and simple dish using less than £1.50 worth of ingredients per portion, including crab meat.

Her affordable take on luxurious crab linguine, which will set you back more than £12 on average in most restaurants, is easy to get on the table in the time it takes to cook the dried pasta.

And that's not all. The versatile recipe lends itself to endless variations with the fresh courgette easily replaced with broccoli, asparagus or spinach.

Method

For just £3.40, you can get crab meat from Tesco, add in around 12p worth of spaghetti, £1.29 of courgettes, roughly30p for shallots, 15p for a lemon, and approximately 85p for olive oil, chillis, garlic, and dill. This brings the total cost to a mere £5.96 for four portions, or an enticingly ow £1.49 per person.

To make the dish, first, boil a kettle of water for the pasta and prepare all of the vegetables in the meantime. Thinly slice the shallots, deseed and slice the chillis then crush the garlic. Set everything aside and move on to the courgettes.

Wash and pat them dry then use a hand spiralizer tool to shred them. Alternatively, use a vegetable peeler to peel off long ribbons.

Fill a large saucepan with the pasta and a sprinkle of sea salt, then cook as per packet instructions until al-dente.

While that's bubbling away, saute the shallots in half the oil for a solid three minutes in a large frying pan. Next, toss in the chilli and garlic for just half a minute; dial up the before adding the courgette for another brief two-minute sizzle.

Mary cautioned: "Be careful not to overcook otherwise it will be watery". 

When the pasta is tender but still has a slight bite to it, drain it and add to the frying pan along with the crab meat. Follow with the zesty lemon juice, fresh dill, and remaining three tablespoons of oil.

Stir gently to coat the pasta in the mix of ingredients then plate up while still hot.