These 15 cheap meals are easy, nutritious, and filling.
Even when you’re cooking on a budget, be sure to notskimp on nutrition.You’ll feel good about feeding your family these nutritious, delicious, cheap meals that won’t break the bank.
By creating a repertoire ofrecipes featuring inexpensive ingredients, you’ll soon be able to whip out cheap meals without even thinking.
Add these cheap meals into your meal rotation, just two or three nights every week, and you’ll see your grocery bill shrink right before your eyes! And your family won’t feel at all deprived.
You’ll find lots of variety here, each at $1 or less per serving. Great food doesn’t have to be pricey, and these recipes are proof.
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Without further ado, here are all my very favorite easy, cheap meals!
Fried chicken with ALL the fixins: Under $1 per serving.
Yep, you heard right. An entire plateful of crispy fried chicken, creamy mashed potatoes, tangy coleslaw and flaky biscuits, ALL for under $1. Holy cheap meals!
No need to spend your retirement funds at that other chicken place!
Minestrone Soup: 68 cents per serving
Minestrone soup is one of the most nourishing, comforting and filling meals out there. It is also super easy and cheap. Every family should have a minestrone tradition.
Easy Sausage and Cabbage dinner: less than 50 cents per serving
This is a super quick, easy, nutritious and delicious meal. AND it’s low carb! My kids like it so much that my oldest makes it frequently away at college, and her roommates have also begun to make it, too. This recipe is just two ingredients, and only takes ten minutes to make.
Creamy Zucchini Casserole: less than 45 cents per serving
Zucchini is one of the absolute easiest crops to grow, and you will be blessed with prolific yields! This creamy, flavorful and easy recipe will get lots of use as you use up all that bountiful zucchini. This is one of those cheap meals that will really bless your budget!
Sausage Roll Ups: less than 80 cents per serving
Yum! Sausage and cheese rolled up into a delicious dinner pastry. Not only are they delicious, but they are easily portable, for meals on the go, and they cost so little to make.
Waffles with Fruit Compote: about 50 cents per serving
Waffles topped with fruit is one of our all-time favorite meals, and we eat it for dinner as often as we eat it for breakfast. Choose your favorite fruit for variety, and dress it up for special occasions with fresh whipped cream or ice cream atop the fruit.
Chili Con Carne: less than 60 cents per serving
Chili is one of those great, basic dishes you can serve a hundred different ways, all of them delicious, cheap meals. Serve it over a baked potato, rice, or cornbread, as part of a taco salad, or topped myriad ways — chili is a true American classic.
German Pancakes: Only 31 cents per serving
I’ve also seen these called Puff pancakes, Oven pancakes and Dutch Babies. Bake these in muffin pans and they will be popovers. Whatever you call them, they are super yummy, nutritious and cheap! Your kids will eat these up like candy, and you can feel good about serving them. I usually serve these for breakfast, but who doesn’t like to eat breakfast for dinner every once in awhile?
Burritos: less than 45 cents per serving
Burritos are both cheap and healthy, and they freeze well, so you can make a bunch all at once and use them throughout the week. A serving size is two burritos. Serve them with rice and black beans to make them a complete meal for well under $1. Make them dozens of different ways for variety, and make these cheap meals often to stretch your grocery budget further than you ever thought possible!
Roast Chicken: Under $1 per serving
Whole chickens are very cheap, almost all of the meat is edible, and the leftover chicken can be used in all kinds of additional ways. I love to dice it up into chicken enchiladas, or fried rice. Always use your leftovers to get the most out of these cheap meals!
Italian Zucchini Casserole: less than 60 cents per serving
Zucchini issoeasy to grow andsoprolific that I always have it coming out of my ears. After feeding my family all of the zucchini bread, zucchhini brownies, grilling, sauteeing, slicing and using zucchini every creative way I could, I used to feed it to our livestock and chickens. Unfortunately, the animals also grew sick of it and ignored it,untilI thought up this meal! Now, finally, I can keep up with the zucchini!
Homemade Macaroni and Cheese: less than 60 cents per serving
We love mac ‘n cheese at our house, but my kids won’t touch the boxed stuff. Even my five year old yells, “No! Not the orange stuff!” It doesn’t take even one minute longer to whip up this delicious meal, either. Honest! My kids whip this up all the time, by themselves, for lunch. This is one of our favorite cheap meals.
Chicken Noodle Soup: less than 54 cents per serving
Canned chicken stock and other canned soups are chockfull of chemicals and toxic ingredients. It is really simple to make your own, much cheaper, and homemade stock is so full of nutrients that I’ve heard it called the ‘natural botox’ because it truly has healing properties. You just need to plan ahead a little, because it does take longer than opening a can. It’s worth every minute, though!
Huevos Rancheros: 38 cents per serving
I realize that Huevos Rancheros typically use fried eggs, but I’m cooking for kids, so I make it the way they like it best, which is with scrambled eggs. Ha, ha! When I have leftover ham or roast beef, I add that to the scrambled eggs. I also frequently sautee peppers and onions with our scrambled eggs for flavor. These are great for busy mornings as they are quick and very transportable. They also freeze and microwave well, if you like to prepare things ahead of time.
We have this meal for dinner as often as we have it for breakfast. You can make it with any combination of vegetables, or with any meat/vegetable combination. I frequently use leftover ham, cubed, with broccoli and swiss cheese. This quick, easy, delicious and filling meal will cost around $0.80 per serving. You can’t afford NOT to add it to your meal rotation!
How about a few more ideas for yummy, cheap meals?
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