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)

Tags: cheap lunch, cheap meals, chicken salad, quick lunch
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