Cheap Dinner Ideas?!?!?!?

Doesn't get much easier (or cheaper) than this tuna noodle cheat:
O. or two packages of Butter & Herb noodles ($1 ea or less, generic/store brand is fine) and O. or two cans or pouches of tuna in water ($1 ea. if bought on sale). Make noodles as directed on package and stir in the tuna after they are cooked.

I am going to suggest my usual... Chili! Love chili. So easy to make and lasts a while and fills a belly up.

Other suggestions:

Kraft Mac n Cheese with a can of tuna and peas
Spaghetti and meatballs
Chicken Salads - head of lettuce, veggies you prefer and a lb of chicken
Breakfast for dinner, omelletes, pancakes, french toast

I offer this all the time on here. I have been cut and pasting tons of quick and easy recipes into a word doc for years. If you or anyone else wants it, just message me your email address and I'll be happy to send it. Good luck!

Enchilada Casserole

Ingredients
• 1 cup (4 ounces) shredded sharp cheddar cheese
• 1 cup chopped tomato
• 1 cup cottage cheese
• 1/3 cup sliced green onions
• 1lb ground chicken/turkey/beef
• ¼ cup taco seasoning
• Black beans
• 9 (6-inch) corn tortillas
• Cooking spray
• 1 cup enchilada sauce
• 1/4 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese

Preparation
• Preheat oven to 350°.
• Saute meat in pan. After meat is cooked add ¼ cup taco seasoning and ¾ cup water. Mix and let simmer for another 2 minutes.
• Combine first 4 ingredients in a medium bowl. Arrange 3 tortillas in bottom of an 11 x 7-inch baking dish coated with cooking spray. Spread half of cheese mixture over tortillas. Spread layer of black beans and then layer of meat. Repeat procedure with 3 tortillas and remaining cheese mixture.
• Pour enchilada sauce over and then sprinkle with Monterey Jack cheese. Bake at 350° for 15- 20 minutes or until cheese melts.

maybe boring, but our staples are:
chicken and rice: I have a family of 7 and 2 large chicken breasts and three cups of rice cooked with cream of mushroom soup in a crock pot is always a hit.
spaghetti with meat sauce: one pound of ground beef fried with an onion and drained, then a jar of prego and a pound of cooked noodles.
stir fry: 2 chicken breasts cut into small pieces, your choice stir fry sauce and frozen stir fry veges from a bag with about 3-4 cups rice cooked on the stove.
enchiladas: cook 4 chicken breasts in the crock pot with one can of green enchilada sauce ((and broth if you wish) until you can shred. Cover tortillas with a layer of refried beans (from a can). Add a layer of chicken. Add a layer of mexican or cheddar cheese. Fold and place in a baking dish. Cover with enchilada sauce (green or red, your choice) lightly and cheese and bake.
My budget for dinners is about $12 a meal for a fam of 7 and these seem to work well for us. We supplment with some bag meals from Costco and simple lasagnas and veges/pastas we throw together. Hope that helps.

I made stir fry last night for the first time in years - a bag of frozen stir fry veggies (.99 cents), chicken (on sale at albertsons for $2.99/lb!), red bell pepper, fresh chopped ginger, oil, soy sauce, lemon juice (could have used orange or none) and brown rice - total cost for a family of four @ than $5.

Took about 30-40 minutes total, and I am slow and was cooking with the "help" of two toddlers.

I make tacos and stretch the meat we add mashed up beans, like black to the meat as my kids would never eat them as a taco topping. We put out lots of veggies to top it with and portion out cheese(a little more cost to this ingredient so we buy when on sale and in bulk grate and freeze in portions). We get sour cream on sale/salsa and build a taco bar. Also buy your shells not cooked in the plastic bags and warm them myself in a pan sprayed with oil.

We also do a baked potato bars with lots of cut up veggies.

We do pasta nights cook up 2 types of pasta, drizzle with a little olive oil and make 2 sauces along with toppings of veggies, cheese.

Chili mac night with the left over pasta from the night before

All my things are fast easy and cheap as we are on a tight budget. They also are alot of interactive prep eating at the table to get everyone around the table and eating together as a family. Left over cut up veggies work well as they sit in the fridge and are great for quick snacks too. I also love the website crockpot 365 where a woman made a year of crockpot meals and blogged about it. I also have used tips from Hilbilly housewife.

You don't indicate how large your family is but I now have a family of 5 (3 teen boys, 1 grown man and me).

I can do a huge salad for cheap if I buy the greens myself and cut everything up. We always have the ingredients for some kind of salad dressing because I have a variety of oils and vinegars on hand with various seasonings. I tend to pick up what is on sale to throw into my salad so it is different everytime but yummy and filling.

Beans are tasty and can be economical when cooked from their dried state. You need to soak them for hours before rinsing and cooking but again they are super yummy.

Soups created from what ever you have on hand in the fridge thrown into a stock pot or crock pot with some veggies, potatoes, and/or rice.

Gravy over rice is always sweet. Anything you cook which has liquid save that liquid for making gravy. I love gravy.

Potatoes (white or sweet) are divine inspirations that can be tricked out in many ways. Don't be afraid to be creative.

Rice - another staple to any great diet. Advance from your usual traditional white rice and move toward some flavored rices like Basmati or Jasmine rice. These are great with chicken, fish or pork.

Often I get away with only using meat to flavor foods instead of being the main thing about the meal. This is hard with guys but since I'm buying the food and cooking the food, I get to have my reign.

Pasta goes a long way and so does humus.

Get inspired and step out of your usual box and try some new things you never tried before. We love eggplant, bok choy, soy, tomatoes, olives, onions, potatoes, greens (all kinds), peppers (all kinds), ginger, garlic, cucumbers, celery, parnips, turnips, etc. Don't be afraid to try new recipies along the way. Have fun, be creative because it doesn't have to cost a fortune you just have to be prepared.

FYI - I switched us from jar spaghetti sauce to hunt's or delmonti in a can. It is more economical for the same amount and tastes great. It seems to be less watered down than it's jar contained competition.

Hamburger gravy over rice.

Cubed chicken in cream of chicken soup over rice or potatoes or pasta. Cook the chicken breast (bone in skin on) in a frying pan. When it is done, pull off the bone and cube the rest. Put the cream of chicken soup mix in the frying pan and add the cubed chicken and desired veggies. (I use onions as both a spice and a veggie.)

Spaghetti. I put diced onions, hamburger, mushrooms, finely cut celery (mostly the leaves) parsley, italian seasoning and other spices in an alfredo sauce and pour over spaghetti noodles.

Chili mac. Add a can of chili with or with out beans to cooked noodles. The noodles don't have to be elbow macaroni. You can add diced fresh chilis to taste. If you want the flavor, but not the heat, remove the seeds and white membrane inside the chili. That's where the heat comes from.

Try allrecipes.com for recipe ideas.

Good luck to you and yours.

In a skillet warm up some olive oil. Cut chicken into cubes and cook it. Add a little garlic and other seasonings you like. Once chicken is pretty much cooked. Add a can of Cream of chicken or cream of mushroom(doesnt matter which one), a small block of velvetta cheese and a can of rotel. Melt the cheese while the other imgrediants warm up. We put this on flour tortillias. My girls love it. You can also use precooked chicken. I also sometimes will melt everything without the rotel and pull pull some out for my 6 yr old. Then add the rotel for everyone else.

C.,

You can usually save money by buying fresh ingredients instead of canned or jarred. I make a starter called sofrito by chopping onions, peppers, garlic, tomato and cilantro. You can freeze it in 1/2 cup portions or keep it in the fridge in a vacuum sealed mason jar. Then when ever you cook just add it to the pot. I'm making rice and beans today. Very cheap, very easy, and very nutritious, and most important very yummy!

Good luck,
R

I just tried a new idea in the past few weeks and my family LOVES it - Chicken Fajitas! I buy one of those pre-cooked rotisserie chickens at Walmart for about $5 and cut it up into small bites. I have flour tortillas, shredded lettuce, grated cheese, sour cream and if they are cheap enough, I buy avocados for guacamole. It takes about 5 minutes to put everything out and I let everyone make their own and warm them in the microwave.

This is what we had last night:

http://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/baked-shells-with-pest...

I use jarred pesto sauce, Italian sausage in place of ground beef, & add some red wine to the mix. It's quick, easy, relatively cheap & absolutely delicious.

I get lots of ideas from this blog: http://eatathomecooks.com/

Also, kraftfoods.com

I do lots of crockpot meals on busy days.

Also, finding filling meatless meals saves lots of $$!

You can find 3-lb bags of tilapia or swai fish for cheap at the grocery store. Either of these are good just pan-sauteed with a little oil, salt, pepper and your favorite herbs or spices. They cook in 5 minutes or less. I make these along with a bag of steamfresh microwaveable veggies, and have a healthy, inexpensive dinner ready in no time.

Something I'm trying for the first time this year is growing a small garden. It doesn't have to be anything elaborate or time-consuming. Grow plants you can continually harvest, such as Swiss chard, beets, radishes and turnips (harvest these three once for the root, or leave growing and continually harvest the greens), and there's nothing better than home-grown tomatoes. All of these just require a little watering and pest management (usually I just pick the bugs off) and the rewards are great. With food prices constantly on the rise, I'm glad I have a small garden.

Chili. We use whatever we have and always keep beans on hand. Beans are cheap, then if we have peppers or onion or even a little shredded carrot, all we need is a pound of meat and we have chili. We have a garden and whenever we get a bunch of tomatoes we put them in a chili or stew.

You can also make tacos or meatloaf or spaghetti and meatballs. Noodles make cheap dinners.

I like chicken, too. You can bread it, cut it up, season it, bake it - we like ginger, garlic and butter on bite-sized pieces just fried up in the pan til they are golden. Served with noodles and whatever veg we have handy.

Corn in season can be really inexpensive, too.

Stir fry is another good, fast meal. Once you decide on a meat, then it's just adding veg. Again, we vary on what we have on hand. We use potatoes for a vindaloo if we feel like it. We buy curry sauce mix on sale and keep it in the pantry. Easy to stretch with rice.