Since there's lots of budget talk lately - what's your best cheap dinner?

[FriedClams]

Other than left overs!?!? :)

 

Some of our favorites include -

 

vegetable risotto (or cheesy rice) with a salad

baked potato night - again - with fruit or salad (and better if there are good leftovers like chili around)

breakfast casserole (or "breakfast for dinner" night)

quiche

crock pot soup with fresh bread

 

Going meatless a couple of times a week or more really helps us to save.

 

My DH is very flexible with meals - hot, [somewhat] healthy and home - so what works for us may not work for others. But I think if we share we might some up with a great pile of meals to work with for the dreaded weekly meal planning! :)

[Snickerdoodle]

We eat a lot of soup with homemade bread.

 

Lentil soup

Minestrone soup

tomato and noodle soup

[kewb]

potato cut into fries. Oven baked and served with assorted toppings (ie:whatever we have in the house)

soup

pancakes or eggs

pasta with vegetables

[stripe]

For $6 worth of chicken breast, I can make enough chicken stew for several meals for my whole family. I eat with rice.

 

Chicken legs are incredibly cheap and yummy. Also with rice.

 

Beans are a bargain. Vegetable stews of all sorts are great.

[athena1277]

I made this so often for a while that dh banned it for now.

 

Cook rice, then add canned chicken and cream of chicken soup (I make mine b/c of dd's gluten-free diet, but canned is easier). Put in square casserole dish and cover with shredded cheddar cheese. Bake. I usually cook green beans, carrots, or other veggie to go with it.

[Guest Alte Veste Academy]

My kids' favorite is breakfast for dinner. We have eggs and homemade pancakes or waffles with fruit. Simple, easy and cheap! Another breakfast for dinner that we like is sausage and egg frittata.

 

Lemon Pasta - It's just any type of pasta with a drizzle of olive oil, a squeeze of lemon and a sprinkling of parmesan. My kids love bow-ties and linguine the best.

 

Homemade pizza and calzone are budget friendly as long as you don't use too many ingredients. I like to make extra to freeze for later.

 

Nachos - I use whole wheat tortillas and make my own chips in the oven. Then I add refried beans, cheese, chopped tomatoes and green onions. (Great for movie night. Ditto for the pizza/calzone.)

 

Red Beans & Rice with cornbread (or pinto beans and cornbread--This qualifies as a meal in the south!)

Fideo (I make mine with ground beef. This is on my kids' top 5 list.)

Jambalaya

Chicken Creole

Swedish Meatballs

Tortilla Soup

Chicken and Dumplings

Chicken Pot Pie

Roasted Potato and Onion Soup

Tacos, Tostados

Enchiladas

 

Honestly, the two things that save me the most money are cooking from scratch (which is usually healthier anyway) and eating leftovers (even if that means freezing half for later).

 

I am going to be starting a garden in the spring because I feel like some things are just too expensive relative to how easy they are to grow. Fresh herbs are expensive but easy and cheap to grow. When you use them in your cooking, you feel like you're eating fine food. Tomatoes and bell peppers are very expensive and fairly easy to grow. My daughter's favorite food in the world is the yellow or red bell pepper (which sells for $1.79 EACH at my local grocery!!!) so we'll definitely be adding bell peppers to the garden next year. I can't afford not to! I'm going to try to grow my own salad garden because we like to have salad every day and that is getting very expensive.

 

Kristina

[texascamps]

Pasta, butter, parmesan cheese, garlic powder, touch of milk and flour.

with a salad, of course.

 

or Split pea soup. Bag of peas .50. Carrots, piece of ham hock ($3). Cook until it becomes a puree. Serve over rice and top with sour cream.

[lynn]

beans (anykind) with curried rice.

[Garga]

Linguine noodles topped with Hormel Chili without the beans. Yum!

[JoyfulMama]

This is one of my DH's favorite family recipes - we think it's one of his grandmother's depression era meals:

 

Elbow macaroni - boil to cook, then drain and fry in a touch of oil until a bit crunchy. Salt and pepper to taste.

Serve with heated baked beans.

 

To round it out, you can eat it with a salad - but then again, they used to make a big salad, and just eat that for dinner!

[LibrarianMom]

My favorite is rice and beans: one can of diced or stewed tomatoes, one can of chili beans. Bring to a boil and then add a cup or so of instant rice. Cook until done. Add cheddar cheese and eat. Can add onions, chili power, cumin, or whatever other seasonings suit your family.

[FriedClams]

These are awesome!! Thank you for the ideas - I think chicken and rice is on the list for next week!

[BusyMum]

Rice, tuna and broccoli.

 

Cook the rice and the broccoli then add the tuna and mix together. Yummo! Its also nice with cheese on top.

[stripe]

I cook a lot of not really traditional American food. Many foods like, say, Indian food have a lot of really tasty and cheap things that won't taste cheap at all. I guess some people find that too adventurous or "weird," but casseroles and such can get expensive from all the dairy and meat. You can make really, really good lentils maybe $1.25 total cost for a big pot. I find this way of eating beans is much nicer for my taste. I cooked some awesome spinach made from a bag of spinach and one potato the other day and it was heavenly (recipe in Julie Sahni's "Classic Indian Cooking").

[Guest Lorna]

Cheap means meat and dairy free in the UK.

I love this recipe for root vegetables with dumplings because it tastes so substantial and comforting for winter. It is also very cheap and if I am generous with the vegetables and double the dumplings, it lasts a couple of days. Most importantly everyone here loves to eat it!

 

Hot Pot:

300g carrots

400g parsnips

1/2 a small swede

800g potatoes

1 onion

1/2 a head of green cabbage

1.5 litres vegetable stock

2 tsp clear honey

1 tsp coriander seeds

1 tsp cumin seeds

1 clove garlic

3 tbsp olive oil

 

Dumplings:

1 onion

20g vegetable or beef suet

200g self-raising flour (all purpose with baking powder added)

2 tbsp chopped fresh herbs (parsley, sage, thyme)

3 tbsp freshly grated parmesan

pinch of nutmeg

butter or olive oil for frying

Instructions

1. Peel and chop the carrots, parsnips, potatoes, and swede into chunks finely chop the onion and garlic. Roughly slice the cabbage. Fry the coriander and cumin seeds, garlic and onion in the oil until soft. Add 1 litre of the stock, the honey and the root vegetables and simmer until tender.

 

2. For the dumplings, fry the onion in butter until soft. Mix the suet, flour seasoning, herbs, parmesan and nutmeg and season. Add the onion then add enough water to make a dough. Shape into small dumplings and poach in the remaining stock for about 10 minutes.

 

3. Stir the cabbage into the hotpot and simmer for 3 minutes.

 

Serve with the dumplings.

[Stacey in MA]

This is so yummy! We have a large 6qt crock pot.

 

Crock Pot Lasagna

Lasagna Noodles (about $2)

15oz (fat free or choice) ricotta ($1)

16oz bag sredded mozzerella ($3)

Large jar of spaghetti sauce ($2)

1-1.5 lb ground turkey or beef (optional - $4)

Italian spices (if you have them in your cupboard!)

 

1. Cook the meat, then mix it with the red sauce

2. Place 1/2 or 1/3 of that mixture into the crock pot.

3. Break the lasagna noodles in thirds and place on top of the meat/sauce to cover.

4. Put about 1/2 of the ricotta on the noodles (I mix my ricotta w/ seasonings)

5. Sprinkle w/ 1/3 of the mozzerella.

6. Repeat this until all of the ingredients are gone. Make sure to finish with a nice layer of mozzerella, as it will brown a bit on top - yum!

7. Cook on high for 3 hrs or low for 6 hrs. Watch towards the end b/c the cheese around the edges will suddenly get burned. (This happened to me last night! No big deal - just eat around it...)

 

Serve w/ salad or broccoli and/or homemade bread. My family of 6 (2 adults 4 younger kids) eats maybe 1/2 - 2/3 of the this, so there is enough for lunch or another dinner. The whole pot costs about $10, and can feed us 2 meals! Without the meat, it would be even cheaper - more like $6! (If you choose not to use meat, try mixing a thawed box of frozen spinach in with the ricotta, toss in a layer of canned diced tomatoes, and mushrooms if you like, to create a "veggie lasagna"!)

 

I love all these other ideas! Sounds great! Keep them coming....

 

- Stacey in MA

[jplain]

Crockpot ham soups: recipe link

I think I could eat split pea soup with ham every day if I had to. :D

 

Black beans and rice: recipe link

[klmama]

Bean burritos. Tortillas, refried beans, and a little shredded cheese, with salsa if you like them spicier (my dc don't). Lettuce and tomato salad on the side. Quick, cheap, and very easy.