What are your go-to frugal meals when money is tight?
I was able to get chili and cornbread ingredients for less than $15 and it will turn in to 3 full dinners (for DH, LO and I).
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i love making pasta with crumbled sausage and kale (or spinach or peas or whatever). lots of parmesan cheese (the stuff in the can if i don't want to spring for the real stuff).
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Tacos, grilled quesadillas, spaghetti (a box can usually make 4-5 dinners for us), chicken tenders and rice. We pair them with frozen veggies often or do stir fries.
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Breakfast for dinner, soup & grilled cheese, rice & beans are our easy budget friendly faves!
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Fried rice with any leftover protein/veggies
Breakfast for dinner
Soup/Chili -
My favorite cheapo meal is a big pot of lentils, served over rice, with a fried egg on top.
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I need to talk DH into breakfast for dinner! We have never done that! Yum!
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Someone here turned me on to budgetbytes.com. Tons of cheap recipes there!!
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Chicken Stir Fry. I usually buy frozen chicken cutlets when they are on sale, I always have a bag of rice in the pantry, and then we buy frozen veggies on sale at Kroger. This week we will have corn, broccoli, and the pepper/onion blend. Without the chicken, that's about $6 for a dinner with leftovers for lunch or another dinner.
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Fried rice. You can use any leftover meats and veggies or use canned or frozen veggies. You can also use canned meats in it. Also, casseroles. I find casseroles tend to create a lot of waste, though if we don't freeze half after cooking.
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Also, lasagna. It's a bit of an upfront cost, but even if I half the recipe, there is SO MUCH FOOD. I don't even make it if my husband is traveling because I'm either eating it for lunch and dinner or I have it for dinner nine days in a row.
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@mamimami: yes! that is an awesome site! I have a bunch of recipes pinned from there, I need to pick one to try this week!
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@cmomma17: I second BudgetBytes. I've made several recipes from her site so far and they have all been good!
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Costco roastessire chicken!
I break it down and make fried rice, chicken salad and enchiladas from it.
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@Raindrop: Me too! I have chicken and wild rice soup on the stove right now, and I made it out of Costco rotisserie chicken.
I really like soups and stews to get a lot of bang for our buck. I know you are vegetarian, and I've made some really hearty vegetable soups with lentils, beans, and all kinds of other veggies. They work great in the crock pot too!
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Costco rotisserie chicken for days!
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@Boheme: I think I'm going to do lentil sloppy joes this weekend! yum!
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Budgetbytes.com has some good cost friendly recipes.
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I'm trying to come up with as many rice dinners as possible for October (being creative so we don't get bored) because we have a ginormous Costco bag of rice in the pantry
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This rice dish is awesome and makes so much:
Ingredients:
1 tbspn EVOO
1 medium onion
4-5 cloves garlic (if you have it, not critical)
1 can chicken broth (low sodium) or you can use white wine
1 can diced tomatoes with green chillies
3/4 tspn cumin
3/4 tspn chili powder
4 shakes red pepper flakes
1 cup rice
1 can black beans
1.5 cups corn
1/3 c. cilantro diced (if you have it)
5-6 poblano peppers or regular peppers (or less if you’ll freeze left over filling)
2.5 cups monterey jack cheese.1. halve and clean peppers, place faced down on a sprayed cookie sheet and spray backs of peppers. set aside
2. preheat oven to 375
3. heat olive oil on medium high heat, add diced onion and garlic. saute until translucent
4. add chicken broth and bring to boil
5. add tomatoes, cumin, chili powder, and red pepper flakes, bring to boil
6. add rice and return to boil while stirring
7. cover, turn heat to LOW, set timer for 20 min, and walk away
8. pop the peppers in the oven
9. rinse black beans and add corn (and cilantro if you have it)
10. when rice is done, stir in black beans and corn
11. when peppers are done, flip over, fill with rice mix, and add 1/4c. cheese per pepper half.
12. return to oven for 15 minutesSo that makes a LOT of stuffed peppers. What I usually do is just make 2 peppers and then I have lots of left over filling that I can either freeze and make another full meal later (just cook the peppers and add the filling and broil), or you can put the rice in tortillas (with or without some meat) to make burritos for a different meal, or you can put the leftover filling in some chicken broth with some spinach and you have soup!
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What about a broccoli rice chicken casserole? Our cook in college used to make it. Just a bunch of rice, frozen chopped broccoli, velveeta, and chicken! made a HUGE pan!
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Fried tofu/ stir fry
Egg, rice, broccoli (stir fry)
French toast
Soup!!!! (Lentil, split pea, bean)
Burritos!
Super budget- rice and beans! (spices, veggies)Eta: quinoa, edamame, couscous...
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@cmomma17: Speaking of Budget Bytes we had this stew this weekend and it's delicious: http://www.budgetbytes.com/2010/10/lentil-sausage-stew/
We made it with Jiffy cornbread which is also super cheap.
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@My Only Sunshine: I hadn't seen this recipe, I'll have to give it a try!
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To use up rice, you can do rice balls, risotto (purists insist on arborio, but I have made a decent risotto using long grain), baked rice (like baked ziti), rice stuffed vegetables (like peppers, zucchini), etc. Rice and beans is classic, but I think you might not like beans, @cmomma17?
I have never combined eggs and rice, that might be interesting, though, like fried rice?
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@looch: no, I love beans. We probably eat rice and beans 3 times a week! Baked rice is a new idea!
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@cmomma17: I don't know where I got that you don't like beans then. I love them.
Another idea is canellini beans with pasta. Basically, you puree the beans after you season them to make it like a sauce. It's a different take and people seem to love it.
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@looch: I'm mostly obsessed with black beans, so that's what we eat most. Rice and bean bowls, burritos, or quesadillas. Trying to mix it up a little so DH doesn't go crazy.
Canellini beans with pasta sounds yummy! -
I have started to follow food bloggers on Instagram and I really like their visuals! This looks like an easy and healthy meal.
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