Favorite Frugal Meal

[SeaSiren]

Once upon a time I was able to feed my family a meal for $3 or less and was sooo proud! This of course included your 33 cent on sale, no nutritional value pasta, or your 50 cent white bread etc.

Given the need for more nutrition and the increase in food prices. What are your favorite meals for $4 or less? This would be from "soup to nuts" for a family of 4-6. If you are single you could of course cut the receipe in half or freeze portions.

Some of my fav's thus far are:

Lentil Tomato Soup I recently tried. Mmmm good.

Red Beans and Rice, using brown rice, dried kidney beans, and diced tomatoes with a side salad

Various Veggie Soups (of course) using veg cubes for seasoning.

WW Pasta on sale .99, canned Speghetti Sauce .79, side salad (with sale veggies) .75, and garlic bread (made from WW toast, garlic powder, and margerine). We generally have water for adults and soy milk for kids.

Any more ideas?

[Hummusisyummus]

I make chili and rice from ingredients I bought as Sam's club for almost nothing.

[spud]

Jacket potato, baked beans and tomato

[CharityAJO]

$ .79 pasta, $.99 jar of spaghetti sauce. :)

Side order of red beans and rice (it'll hold ya over) - $1.79

One can refried beans, one packet instant rice, tortillas - 6 burritos for under $3.50

[Tiggzie]

My supermarket had a sale of like 40 tortillas for 99 cents, and 6 cans of beans for 3 bucks. Add a 1 dollar bag of brown rice and some tomato sauce at 4 cans for another dollar and weee! 40 burritos to freeze and save for about 6 bucks. Yeah, sales are great. Oh an when you get sick of water find a good time to buy lemons. Lemonade can be a real treat every once in a while (same thing goes for iced tea).

Soups and rice and beans seem to be the cheapest things to have.

[stargirl23]

Carrot Soup :)

3 lbs of carrots (I got 3 lbs for $1 at my produce market)
5 c water
salt
pepper

Boil carrots in water until tender and then either blend in blender or use an immersion stick and blend until smooth. Even yummier with a spoon of vegan sour cream :lick:

[catgirl67]

When I'm broke (most of the time these days), things like lentils, beans, brown rice, pasta, frozen veggies are wonderful. They are really healthy too. I love fresh produce, but when I'm tapped out, frozen veggies are super. Pastas in the Asian section of the grocery store are cheaper, and I like them better.

Tonight, I had lentils seasoned with cumin, sea salt and crushed red peppers with a can of garbanzo beans, and some steamed broccoli. Yum! :lick:

[beforewisdom]

If you invest in a pasta maker you could probably use flour to make pasta even cheaper.

[beforewisdom]

Super cheap, super filling super healthy breakfast:

oatmeal
ground flax seeds
cinammon
chopped apples

[beforewisdom]

How do you make a cheap salad?

I can't even make a good salad when I spend money.

Are cheap salads basically a bowl of iceberg lettuce?

[Kiz]

Rice, dahl, and potato, pea, pumpkin and chickpea curry. Tastes good, and I can do it for $4.

Or pumpkin soup followed by roast veggies.

Cornish pastie with steam veggies on the side.

Spinach dahl with rice and popadoms.

Thick vegetable soup with homemade damper.

[catgirl67]

Super cheap, super filling super healthy breakfast:

oatmeal
ground flax seeds
cinammon
chopped apples

That sounds yummy! I think that's what I'll have for breakfast tomorrow, minus the apples. I like banana better. I've got enough oatmeal to feed a small village!

[shagginabit]

For me, the cheapest thing I make is a big pot of minestrone soup. Its really cheap to make and it lasts me for a couple days, even after giving some to others.

[MnVeggie]

How do you make a cheap salad?

I can't even make a good salad when I spend money.

Are cheap salads basically a bowl of iceberg lettuce?


Here's my favorite salad. The ingredients are not extremely cheap, but they're not bad, especially considering how many salads it makes. And I think it tastes great!

Romaine bunch
Tomatoes (in season or homegrown, of course, they're A LOT cheaper)
Green bell peppers
Black olives
Chopped walnuts
Dressing (a very small amount)

[bstutzma]

My fav cheap meal is the alphabet soup recipe in "how it all vegan!" At home we call it lentil stew. I also make it with stars sometimes. Thats definitely under $4 and just increase the portions a little to make it feed 4. I add a little more veggies than the recipe calls for.

Also for cheap eats I like to make rice and beans, puerto rican style, with plantains. That is easy under $4 for 4 people too.

My favorite salads are pretty cheap and have romaine, garbanzos, edamame (with this, not so cheap), mushrooms, red onion, broccoli, tomato and cucumber. Can put in kidney beans instead of edamame.

[synergy]

Every month or so, my stepmom and I will make bean and rice burritos and freeze them to eat for the rest of the month.
Last time I made a batch of 30 and used:

-3 cups of brown rice:
- a cup of black beans, cup of kidney beans
3 cloves of garlic, a bit of taco seasoning and a splash of soymilk made into refried beans
-whole wheat tortillas
I think all in all they cost about 6 or seven dollars to make- For 30 meals!!!!!

They are so fast and easy to heat up, for breakfast, snack, lunch, snack or dinner snack. My record was eang 6 in 4 days. I wasn't up for much other cooking :p

[Coney]

How do you make a cheap salad?

I can't even make a good salad when I spend money.

Are cheap salads basically a bowl of iceberg lettuce?


You can get a big head of romaine/green leaf/red leaf lettuce for around $1.25, cucumbers 3 for $1, carrots, mushrooms, scallions, bell pepper... all for less than $5.00 That all lasts for days, which you can use for other things too, like veggie sandwiches (add hummous, it's great!) For salad dressing, I just use some Balsamic and olive oil, salt and pepper.

Kale cut up small is great in salads, too. Just look around for vegetables you can get 2 or 3 for $1. Roasted red potatoes, chilled, on a salad is killer too. So are chickpeas.

My favorite cheap thing to make is curry chickpeas, spinach and brown rice. I think it would come out to less than $2 total. Maybe $2.50 if I added in the spices and onion. That's for 2 people.