6/27/2023 0 Comments Family meal planning on a budgetEat less meat: “Instead of a meal with the meat front and centre, make a curry with vegetables, make a soup or stew with shredded chicken, make bone broth, and stretch that meat for a few meals where it usually would last only one,” says Heather Kasvinsky, owner of the food and travel blog This Noshtalgic Life.Incorporate inexpensive staples: Think things like dry beans and lentils, eggs, whole grains, pasta, seasonal produce, frozen veggies, oats, bananas, tinned fish, and peanut butter.With our list of meal planning tips, you can make easy, healthy meals on a budget and rest easy. We had extra rice left from the Mediterranean bowls so I cooked up some rice to serve with this as well.It’s no secret that food prices have increased over the past few months across the country, and if you’re wondering how to continue eating healthy while not breaking the bank, you’re not alone. Cook using your desired method and enjoy. Add the diced peppers and cook about 3-4 more minutes.Īdd the beans, corn and tomatoes into the pot with the turkey and peppers. I brown a half pound of turkey and season with salt and pepper. I’ll share with you how I make this but feel free to tweak and adjust how you like.įor this recipe, you can cook this in a crockpot (4 hours high/8hours low) and instant pot (use the chili setting) or on the stove (let simmer for at least 30 minutes). I don’t really follow a specific recipe for this one but have kind of adapted this recipe from lots of other ones I have found online. This recipe also provides enough for leftovers the next day. The fat content is a little higher but that helps to make this a little bit heartier and adds some flavor. It’s about $1 cheaper than buying a pound of fresh turkey. I also purchased the ground turkey from the freezer section. This is a pretty spicy chili so if you want to take down the heat you could use regular diced tomatoes. I served this with bananas as a side and it was so good!īy purchasing the seasoned chili beans and the tomatoes with chili’s I’m able to get a really flavorful chili without having to buy too much extra. If you have an extra egg or some other leftover protein you can also stir that into your mix. Pour your sauce over your cooked noodles and vegetables. You can also add Dijon mustard or some honey for different flavors. In a small bowl, I mix 2-3 packets of ramen seasoning with soy sauce ( I used 5 packets of soy sauce which I believe is about 1/4 cup soy sauce). Once the noodles are cooked, drain the water from the noodle and vegetables. I add chopped carrots and broccoli and cook until they soften. But soy sauce is usually a pantry staple of mine.įor this recipe I bring about 6 cups of water to boil in a pot. We actually had some soy sauce packets leftover from take out a few weeks ago so I used those. This recipe calls for soy sauce which I did not include in my budget haul. There are plenty of ways to jazz up ramen noodles and make them a more substantial meal. I will only use 3 of them for my recipe, so I will serve the rest as carrot sticks as a side dish or even a snack during the day. In this trip I bought a bag of whole carrots. I also purchased applesauce and bananas which I will serve at each meal as a side. The best part is, I actually came in under $30 and spent only $22.84 before tax.įor this meal plan I only used a couple of kitchen staples including butter, salt, pepper and soy sauce. So if you’ve only got $30 to allocate towards a dinner budget this meal plan will get your through 5 days. I’ve done 7 meals for $50 at Aldi and 7 dinners for $40 dollars at Walmart but I know sometimes planning out 7 dinners in advance isn’t always possible. But we’ve needed to scale back some of our spending and the grocery budget is one place that we definitely have some room to reduce our spending. I consider this a pretty large grocery budget that includes breakfast, lunch and dinner. I always to try keep our grocery bill to around $125 a week for our family of 4. I wanted the meals to be easy and quick to suit our busy weekday schedules but also include fruits and vegetables at every meal. This week I wanted to challenge myself to spend only $30 on 5 dinners for our family of 4 and come up with an extreme budget meal plan.
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