Posts Tagged ‘cheap meals’

Ideas for Healthy Cheap Meals When Money is Tight

Thursday, April 22nd, 2010

Unemployed? Frustrated by rising food prices? Don’t worry! You and your family can still eat well. Here are some cheap meals menu ideas that will reduce the food budget. However, the most important thing isn’t the food you make, it’s the menu planning you do before you even spend a dime.

Please do not neglect menu planning if money is tight. Our Menu Planning 101 post is a good place to start.

1. Eggs are cheap and delicious.  About $2.50 for 18 eggs is not too bad. Add in a $2.50 bag of potatoes for hashbrowns, some cheese (save more money by shredding it yourself) and you have the fixings of a delicious, filling breakfast for the week. (Tip: Bake the potatoes, refrigerate, and then fry ‘em up as you need them all week long.)

When you’re sick of eggs, combine them with flour and sugar to make muffins.

2.Soup is also a good way to stretch the food budget. Buy a small whole chicken and boil in water with some onion and carrots to make the broth–this should all cost less than $7.  Remove the chicken, save the breasts for another meal, put the deboned dark meat in the pot and add some rice.

The chicken breasts can be shredded for chicken salad (just add mayo and serve on bread) or make great chicken enchiladas (tortillas, cheese, beans, can of enchilada sauce).

3.Super cheap dried beans with just 1lb of meat make for an excellent chili. The recipe on this site makes a lot so consider freezing half of it for another time.

Per #2, bean soup would be a yummy, filling lunch for just pennies per serving.

4. Use cheaper cuts of meat. Chicken thighs and drumsticks are pretty inexpensive, but make delicious meals.  We’re actually working on a few recipes using cheaper cuts that will be posted soon-ish.

5.Skip cereal and eat oatmeal instead. Not only is oatmeal better for you,it’s cheaper and comes in large containers. Big, off brand containers can sometimes be found for under $3 and would last more than a week.

6.Do it yourself. If money is tight, it’s time to grate your own cheese and to stop buying bagged lettuce–the fresh, unprocessed lettuce is about 50% cheaper. Start a small garden too. Stop paying someone else to do the work–do what you can at home and grow your own. Every little bit saves you money.

7.Switch to frozen fruits and veggies. They are usually quite a bit cheaper than fresh and much better than their canned counterparts.

Notice how these tips do not rely on highly processed foods full of refined sugars! This is healthy food on the cheap, the whole point of this blog; good food, cheap meals.

This post is part of Pennywise Platter Thursdays.

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Cheap Meals: Crockpot Meatballs for Spaghetti

Tuesday, March 16th, 2010

Who doesn’t love a good meatball? Spaghetti and meatballs is classic comfort food, but many people find meatballs to be too much work. This recipe will take you about 20 minutes to put together –no frying, no roasting in the oven, just fix it, toss it in the slow cooker and forget about it.  In a few hours you’ll have some of the best meatballs and red sauce you’ve ever eaten.  The slow cooker caramelizes the sugars in the tomato sauce giving it excellent flavor and the meatballs are tender and flavorful. This recipe is not to be missed–you have got to try this!

Ingredients

-1.5 lb of ground meat (I like ground turkey) @ $1.50 (on sale)

-1/2 to 3/4 cup Parmesean Cheese @$0.75 (bought in bulk)

-1 egg @$10. (bought in bulk)

Dash of red pepper flakes @$0.10

1 tbsp garlic powder @$0.25

1 tbsp onion powder or actual diced onion @$0.10 (bought in bulk)

2 18oz to 24oz jars of spaghetti sauce @$2.00 (on sale)

Your choice of pasta @$1.00

Note: I don’t use bread crumbs. You don’t really need them, but if you feel weird skipping the bread crumbs, feel free to add some in, or to substitute bread crumbs for the parmesan cheese. Just FYI leaving out the bread crumbs makes these low carb meatballs.

Cooking Instructions

1.Mix the meat, parmesean cheese, spices and egg thoroughly.

2.Pour 1 jar of sauce in bottom of slow cooker.

3.Form balls–about the size of a ping pong ball–and gently place in slow cooker.

4.Top with the second jar of spaghetti sauce.

5.Cook on low for 7 to 8 hours. I like to check it and give it a stir about 5 hours in.

Prep Time: 20 minutes of prep, 7 to 8 hours of actual cooking. Oh, plus 20 minutes for pasta.

Serves: Depends on how you divvy up the meatballs. I usually get 12 meatballs from this recipe. 3 meatballs a piece would serve 4. 2 meatballs a piece would serve 6.

Leftovers: I usually have extra sauce which can easily be used to top a pizza. Or you can saute some veggies in olive oil, onion and garlic and add the sauce to make a veggie marinara later in the week. If there are extra meatballs, think about a meatball sub with toasted garlic bread.

Total Cost: $5.80 (buying some things in bulk and shopping the sales really pushed the price point down.)

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Dinner Deals: Slow Cooker Chili for an Army

Sunday, February 14th, 2010


This is a cheap meals recipe I came up with to use up the 1 lb of ground beef we received from Angel Food Ministries. To make it even more frugal, dried beans are used as well.

The spices are key in this recipe because there’s not a lot of meat to carry this dish. Slow cooking brings out the best in the beans and the spices for a warm-your-toes satisfying chili.

Yum!

Ingredients

@$3.00 1 lb ground beef or ground turkey (whichever you prefer or whichever is cheaper)
@$0.25 1 onion diced
@$1.75 1 bag dried kidney beans (if you really want to s-t-r-e-t-c-h your budget, make it 2 bags and you’ll feed an army for a week.)
@$1.50 1 jar salsa (generic is cheapest and tastes the same as name brand, at least in our area)
@$1.20 1 can chicken stock (if you make my crockpot chicken salad and chicken broth 2 for 1 meal you can cut the cost of this recipe.)
1 ‘can’ Water
@$1.00 1 can diced tomatoes with juice (this can be left out if money is tight.)
@$0.50 Spices: 1-2 tbsps. Cumin, 2-3 tbsps. Chili powder and anything else you like in your chili

Total recipe cost: approximately $9.20
Serves: An army! At least 6 servings. Easily 10-12 servings if you use an extra bag of beans.

Cooking Instructions

1. Soak kidney beans overnight.

2. The next day, dice onion and put it in skillet with a tbsp of oil and 1 tbsp cumin and 2 tbsp chili powder. Saute together for a minute or two until spices are fragrant and then add your meat. Cook throughly.

3.Rinse beans one last time and put in crockpot with salsa, tomatoes, chicken stock and an equivalent amount of water (eyeball it to see if you need more water. You don’t want too much or too little. There should be just enough water to cover the top layer of ingredients and no more.). Add some more cumin and chili powder followed by the cooked meat.

4.Cook on high for 6 hours or until beans are soft. (I used some old beans and slow cooked my chili for almost 18 hours, which totally screwed up my meal plan. Also, I now know I have to eat my beans faster! Old beans are tough!)

Serve with cornbread (from a mix or homemade) or top with some shredded cheddar cheese to make a $10 dinner deal. This recipe should yield enough for leftovers or to feed the freezer.

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Cheap Meals Tips: Beans With a Side of Scatological Humor

Sunday, February 14th, 2010


One good way to save money on groceries is to buy dried beans. This is a huge cost saver–1 bag of dried beans is equivalent to 2 – 2 1/2 cans of canned beans but costs between 60 to 80 cents less. Plus, canned beans also have high levels of Bisphenol A which is not a chemical you want to ingest on a regular basis. So dried beans not only save you money, they are also better for your health.

If you haven’t worked with dried beans before, there are some things you need to know. Fortunately, the learning curve is pretty short and sweet here.

When shopping for beans, look in several locations because there may be a significant price difference between grocery aisles (why, I don’t know). Our store, for example, has a bean section in the mac ‘n cheese, Chef Boyardee aisle and then more beans in the Hispanic food aisle. The cheapest bean prices are in the Hispanic food aisle. Makes no sense to me, but that’s how it is. So keep an eye out and compare prices.

Usually dried beans need to be soaked overnight and they have a slightly longer cooking time than canned. However, with some preparation, you can have the convenience of canned beans at a fraction of the cost. Just cook up monthly batches of beans, freeze them and then pull them out as needed for cooking.

The other helpful thing to know is how to make your own baked beans. Although I would run a cost analysis here. If you only eat baked beans a few times a year, it is probably more cost and time effective for you to just buy the cans. Right now baked beans are one of the few veggies my toddler will eat, so she’s keeping me busy on the baked bean front.

Lastly, don’t seal your dried beans in an air tight container for months and months. Beans actually give themselves gas and can literally explode over time if there’s no place for the ‘little bean farts’ to dissipate. (Sorry for the potty humor, I couldn’t resist. It cracks me up to think that beans can explode from their own gas. By the way, this is one of the reasons why you soak them and cook them thoroughly, so they don’t explode in your stomach.)

If you prefer canned beans, at least buy generic brands (this will save between 2-5 cents a can) and try to buy in bulk at you local Sam’s/Costco/BJ’s wholesale club–you might save $1 on 6 cans if you’re lucky. As usual, keep an eye out for sales and stock up.

Are you using dried beans? We do use them quite a lot now, especially in the slow cooker. Beans are great way to s-t-r-e-t-c-h a meal, they make a great filler that is nutritious and tasty.

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Cheap Meals: Italian Sausage Rigatoni

Sunday, February 14th, 2010

Italian Sausage Rigatoni is a cheap meal for dinner that our entire family loves. It only has three ingredients and combines pasta with the flavors of a Italian sausage sandwich, which makes it a huge hit in our house. It’s also a quick meal that gets you in and out of the kitchen without a lot of fuss.

I like to stock all three ingredients so I have them handy for those days when I need a good dinner fast.

Italian Sausage Rigatoni

Ingredients:

-Rigatoni $1.40

-Italian Sausage $4.00 (You can use turkey sausage if you want to reduce the fat content.)

-Jar of Newman’s Own Italian Sausage & Pepper sauce $2.40 (This sauce adds really great flavor to this recipe, however, you can substitute a different red sauce if necessary.)

Total estimated cost:$7.80 (Note all prices are approximate and may vary depending on where you live.)

Cooking time: @60 minutes but only 15-20 minutes of actual work.

Feeds: At least 4, maybe 6 if you have a few light eaters.

Extra cost savings: Newman’s has some online coupons that you can download for an additional savings.

Instructions:

1.Preheat oven to 375F.

2.Take a sharp knife and slit the sausage casings and remove.

3.Place sausage in an ovenproof dish and bake until done (approx. 30-40 minutes–cooking time will be longer if you’re starting with frozen sausage).

4.When the sausage is nearing completion, start the water for the rigatoni.

5.Cook the rigatoni for 8-10 minutes until done.

6.Drain the pasta.

7.Remove sausage from oven and cut into small pieces.

8.Add sausage to pasta along with the Newman’s sauce and stir.

9.Top with grated cheese and serve.

Note: I typically don’t do a side dish with this meal or add any other veggies. Simply because it is a filling meal and I count the tomato sauce as a veggie. However, if you so desire, a side salad would complement this recipe nicely.

P.S. I’m working on a picture. My husband ate the model before I could do a photo shoot.

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Dinner Deals: Steakhouse Filet Mignon for $20

Sunday, February 14th, 2010

I love steak. Specifically, filet mignon. I love to go to Outback and other steak restaurants. In my previous life as a corporate mover and shaker, I spent many a business dinner at high end steakhouses such as Morton’s or Hyde Park (*swoon*). Unfortunately, those steak restaurants aren’t good for my wallet or my waistline.

Luckily, one day I noticed the local grocery store had filet mignon in the meat case. I was thrilled and feeling stupid at the same time; it had never occurred to me to see if the grocery store carried filet mignon. So for $18 I bought 1 lb. of filet mignon.

And we were happy and then happier yet when I realized the new local farmer’s market had filet mignon for $11 a pound. Steak is now a weekly treat at our house and we make a well rounded meal for 2 for $20 (our toddler won’t eat steak so it’s just us adults). This meal would easily cost us $50 at a steak house.

Another thing I love is simple, fresh, whole food and our steak dinner is a great example of this way of eating.

Here’s how we prepare it:

The $20 Steak Dinner Menu

Ingredients

-Filet Mignon @$11

-McCormick Montreal Steak Marinade @$1.30 (This is optional but adds a nice flavor that tastes like a good Outback-like steak.)

-Asparagus or other fresh veggie of choice @$3

-Fresh fruit for dessert @$4

Estimated cost:$19.30

Cooking time: around 30 minutes (not including marinating time)

Instructions

1.Buy 1 lb. of filet mignon but have the butcher cut it into 1/2 pound pieces. (Be sure to shop around for the best price as we have found prices vary wildly from store to store.)

2.Butterfly the steak if its especially thick.

3.Marinate steak with the Montreal Steak Seasoning packet from McCormick. It costs about $1.30 and gives steak a great flavor–just follow directions on the packet.

4.Grill the steak and steam your veggies.

5.Follow with some fruit for dessert. In warmer months, I make a berry fruit salad or we’ll have watermelon. In the winter, I make an autumn fruit salad with apples, oranges, and grapfruit. Or I might make applesauce or take bananas and coat them in butter, roll them in sugar and cinnamon and roast them. Any fresh fruit will do.

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Cheap Meals:Mexican Honey Chicken

Sunday, February 14th, 2010

This is a simple and tasty recipe that is also a dinner deal assuming you’re working with a well stocked pantry. The recipe incorporates a Mexican inspired spice rub and a honey glaze. We served it with cauliflower on the side, but you can pair it with almost any veggie you like.

The flavor is nice and not what you would expect. The honey is not strong and the spices do not taste like taco seasoning. It just has a really yummy savory flavor.

Ingredients:

-1 pkg of chicken thighs with skin @$4.00 (Chicken breasts with skin could be used as well)
-2-3 tbsp Olive oil @$0.50
-Spice blend @$0.75 (feel free to adjust flavor ratios as you see fit):
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp garlic powder
1 tbsp onion powder
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp chili powder
-1/2 cup honey @$0.50
-1 tablespoon cider vinegar @$0.10

-Head of cauliflower as side dish @$2.00 (Prices vary in our area, this is the going rate right now–in season it costs just $0.99–so you may see higher or lower prices depending on the store you shop at.)

Total Cost:$7.10

Feeds: As many people as there are chicken pieces. In our case 4.

Cooking Time: About an hour but just 30 minutes of actual work.

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 F and prepare cookie sheet by covering it in foil (this recipe gets gooey when the honey caramelizes, you’ll want the easy clean up the foil provides).

2.Make the spice blend.

3.Pat chicken dry with paper towels and lube thoroughly with olive oil.

4.Roll chicken in spice blend and coat on both sides. Place on cookie sheet.

5.Roast chicken for 20-ish minutes at 400F.

6.While chicken is roasting, prepare your veggie side.

7.At the 20 minute mark, pour honey-vinegar glaze over the chicken (BUT hold a tablespoon or two in reserve). Reduce temperature to 375F and roast for another 20-ish minutes. Keep an eye on the chicken to be sure the skin doesn’t burn.

8.Pour remaining glaze on chicken once it is done cooking.

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Cheap Meals Lunches: $4 Chicken salsa salad

Sunday, February 14th, 2010

This is a delicious salad that is economical and will last all week. It is also very simple to make and I promise you, the flavors are amazing.

My veggie adverse husband actually started taking this salad to work for lunch during the summer. We ate it every day for months, it was that good. Not to mention healthy and easy to make with no major cooking.

Ingredients

Chicken breasts or Chicken Tenders $4.00-$5.00
Italian salad dressing $1.20
Lettuce $2-$4 (depends on if you buy the organic stuff or not)
Cucumber $1
Carrots $2
Salsa $4 (we buy the freshly made stuff from the deli and use it all week)
1/4 cup shredded cheese (optional) $1

Total cost: @$16.00 for 4 days. This is a cost of $4 each day for lunch.

Note: You can do this cheaper if you find a good sale or grow your own lettuce or make your own salsa using your own home grown herbs or use a canned jar of salsa in the off brand. You can also skip the carrots and cucumbers if they are too expensive; the important elements are the lettuce, chicken, salsa and italian dressing.

(By the way, this year we will be attempting to grow our own lettuce to reduce costs. Stay tuned for that Lucille Ball episode as I am not known for my gardening talents.)

Servings: Feeds 1 person for 4 or 5 days or 4 people one day.

Prep time: 30 minutes (doesn’t include marinating time)

Instructions

1.Marinate chicken breast or chicken tenders in the cheapest Italian salad dressing you can find. Use just 1/2 the bottle and save the rest to put on your salad. Marinate for a couple hours or overnight.

2. Grill the chicken and prep the veggies and store everything in the fridge (keep the chicken separate).

3. Assemble the salad as desired every day at lunch. This is what it looks like… (yes I actually have a picture for once, all that’s missing is the salsa)

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Meal Planning 101: A Guide for the Lost

Friday, January 8th, 2010

Today is pizza day and I just put the dough in the oven to rise under the baking light. While the yeast works its magic, I thought I would talk a little bit about meal planning.

Last night I was perusing a selection of frugal cookbooks and all of them hyped meal planning, but none of them actually told readers how to do it. So here’s how to meal plan, according to moi. (Please add your tips, tricks, and techniques in the comments.)

1.List out every recipe you make regularly and that your family likes. Hopefully, you come up with about 14-20 recipes. Here’s my list…

1.Pizza
2.Calzones
3.Steak
4.Italian chicken
5.BBQ chicken
6.BBQ pork
7.Hamburgers
8.Unstuffed cabbage casserole
9.Haulshki (E. European recipe with cabbage, bacon and noodles)
10.Vienerschnitzl with pork chops
11.Kielbasa on the grill
12.Kielbasa in the slow cooker with veggies and kraut
13.Goulash
14.Chicken Soup
15.White Chili with Chicken
16.Red Chili
17.Bean and bacon soup
18.Zuppa Tuscana soup
19.Split pea and ham soup
20.Julia Child’s butter lubed chicken
21.Pepper Steak
22.Meatballs and spaghetti
23.Asian lettuce wrap salad
24.Roast turkey breast w/ veggies
25.Roast chicken w/ veggies
26.Frozen ravioli
27.Frozen cheese tortellini
28.Chicken enchiladas
29.Tacos or taco salad
30.Roast beef with veggies

2.List out recipes you would like to master but haven’t had a chance to try for one reason or another. This step gives you and your family some variety and this is how you’ll discover new family favorites. Here are some I would like to try:

1.Honey spice chicken
2.Chicken Piccata (I keep trying and it just doesn’t want to turn out for me)
3.Lemon chicken

Now between 1&2 you should be able to create a rotational menu. Since I have over 30 recipes, I could, in theory, plan out a month’s worth of meals at one sitting. Typically, however, I only plan out 2 weeks at a time because real life doesn’t respect menu plans and has a way of mixing things up.

For example, last night I overcooked the steak. I found it delicious still, but my husband wouldn’t touch it so he ran out for a quick burger. Life happens and because of that I don’t bother to try and forecast meals too far into the future.

3.Don’t forget to check the sales ads before finalizing any meal plans. If it’s buy-one-get-one chicken week at the grocery store, you would, of course, want to take advantage of those savings.

You can also visit couponmom.com and see what deals they show for your area. Couponmom.com is free and if you have several grocery chain stores in your area, it can be a quick way to find the best deals. It doesn’t work so well for me because, as I mentioned in another post, we only have 1 chain in the area which limits the comparison shopping.

4.So now you have a list of recipes (I hope! If not, time to hit the cookbooks for inspiration) and you know what is on sale right now this very moment at your local grocery store. Between these two facts, create a menu plan that accommodates what you know how to cook well (and what your family will eat) as well as taking into account the lowest available prices on food.

5.This is an optional step, but one that I think is important. Once you have a set repertoire of recipes, it’s time to bulk buy common ingredients and keep them handy in the pantry and freezer. This article on food storage calculation gives a simple formula on how to do this.

6.The other important component of meal planning is ‘feeding the freezer’. I try to take 1-2 servings of all my casseroles right off the top, before serving anyone else, and put them in the freezer. This freezer stash is your new ‘take out’ menu for days you can’t cook or for when illness strikes (don’t forget to freeze some chicken soup!).

Sometimes I even include a meal to make just for the freezer as part of my menu plan.

And that’s it. The core basics of meal planning.

Now please realize it takes time to master meal planning. You are going to make mistakes. Over buy, under buy, pay too much, forget to freeze, forget to thaw, get in a rut and try a new recipe that ends in disaster etc… Learning from your mistakes is what improves your meal planning skills so don’t get too frustrated.

In a way, cheap meals aren’t cheap. They may cost less money, but they tend to take more time. Especially when people are first learning how to cook and shop more frugally. Once you are past the worst of the learning curve, you should see substantial savings and things will run much more smoothly in the kitchen.

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