Are you too broke to eat? Yes? You might be looking for cheap meals for dinner. Here are some healthy and tasty cheap dinner recipes when you’re broke.
Many of us go through financial crises. Especially, when you don’t have a stable job. It’s a frustrating situation for all of us. But we have to look after our family. One of the main elements of living is food. As you may know, healthy and tasty food is costly.
However, if you think out of the box, you’ll find numerous dinner recipes that are cheap. These cheap dinner recipes are healthy and easy to make. Most of the cheap dinner recipes will cost you $5 or less. Moreover, you can feed your entire family.
If you’re looking for cheap meals, you’re at the right place. While researching this topic, I’ve come across some cheap dinner recipes. I would love to share them with you.
So, check out these cheap dinner recipes to add to your weekly meal plans.
Healthy & Tasty Cheap Dinner Recipes
Here I’m going to list some healthy and tasty dinner recipes that are relatively cheap. Your family members, including kids, will love these recipes.
1. Pasta
Pasta is a delicious recipe to eat when you’re broke. You don’t have to spend too much money to prepare this recipe. Also, you can make pasta easily. You need to have four ingredients to prepare delicious homemade pasta: all-purpose flour, eggs, olive oil, and salt.
For cheap pasta recipes: Click Here
2. Baked Potatoes
Potatoes are healthy and tasty. You can prepare baked potatoes in your home. Potatoes are cheap vegetables in the supermarket. You can bake potatoes with spice and herbs. You can add other ingredients to make it even tastier like tomatoes, cheese, bacon, etc.
For baked potatoes recipe: Click Here
3. Smash Potatoes
Here is another potato recipe to add to your meal planning. As you know, potato is one of the cheapest vegetables in the market. Therefore, you need to prepare recipes with potatoes as many as you can.
To prepare a smash potato recipe, you need to boil potatoes. After that, smash them and add salt, Mirchi, coriander, and oil.
4. Fried Rice
I am a big fan of fried rice recipes. You can prepare fried rice recipes within your budget. Whatever vegetables or cooked meat you have, cook them in some oil. Later on, add some rice to it. Pretty simple, isn’t it? Like this, you can turn last night’s dinner into next-day meals.
5. Egg
Eggs are relatively one of the cheapest ingredients in the market. You can prepare lots of recipes using eggs. For example – egg muffins, omelets, egg salads, scrambled eggs, etc.
For simple egg recipes: Click Here
6. Burritos
Burritos are another cheap meals that you can add to your meal planning. If you have food leftover, Burritos will make use of them. You can prepare a burrito by spending 2 dollars.
For 2 dollar burrito recipe: Click Here
7. Grilled Cheese
Grilled Cheese is one of the cheapest meals. It doesn’t require too many ingredients to prepare. All you need to have is bread and cheese. If you want to make it more delicious, you can add more ingredients.
For grilled cheese recipe: Click Here
8. Quesadilla
Quesadilla is another cheap meal recipe like Grilled Cheese. You can use your leftover food to prepare a quesadilla recipe. You can use leftover meat or veggies to prepare a quesadilla recipe within a few minutes.
For a quesadilla recipe: Click Here
9. Chicken Sandwich
Here is a delicious recipe to prepare when you’re broke. You can make a chicken sandwich by spending a little amount of money. All you need to have is chicken breast.
For chicken sandwich recipe: Click Here
10. Chicken and Broccoli
If you’re looking for something green and tasty, chicken and broccoli is the meal. All you have to do is chop chicken breast into pieces and fry it with broccoli and spices. You can have this recipe with rice.
11. Vegetable Soup
Vegetable soup gives your family nutrition when you’re broke. As you may know, vegetables are cheaper than meat. So, you can prepare vegetable soup for the whole family. Also, vegetable soup is healthier than canned ones. Moreover, you can freeze leftover vegetable soup to use for the next day’s meal.
For vegetable soup recipe: Click Here
12. Mac N’ Cheese
Have you ever eaten Mac N’ Cheese? No? You’re missing out on a delicious recipe. You can easily make Mac N’ Cheese recipe with fewer ingredients. All you have to do is cook some pasta and prepare some sauce. Later on, add basic ingredients like cheese, milk, salt, flour, and pepper. You can add more ingredients to make it more delicious.
For Mac N’ Cheese recipe: Click Here
13. Lentil Stew
Lentil stew is a healthy dinner recipe for your family. Also, it won’t cost you too much money. All you have to do is take a pot and dump all the ingredients. After that, stir it from time to time. Isn’t it easy to prepare?
For lentil stew recipe: Click Here
14. Chickpea Salad
Have you ever prepared a chickpea salad recipe? No? Well, it’s too easy to prepare. As you may know, chickpea is cheaper in the market. All you have to do is mix cooked chickpeas with vinegar, herbs, tomatoes, feta cheese, and bell pepper to prepare a delicious chickpea salad recipe.
For chickpea salad recipe: Click Here
15. Oatmeal
If you’re looking for a cheap breakfast recipe, here it is. All you have to do is cook up a bowl of your favorite oats, add fruits, and enjoy a delicious breakfast. It’ll cost you less than a dollar per serving.
For oatmeal recipe: Click Here
16. Pancakes
Pancakes are not the healthiest meals. However, it’s one of the cheapest meals for breakfast and dinner. Pancakes are easy to make and will cost you less than a dollar per serving.
For pancakes recipe: Click Here
17. Buttered Noodles
Buttered Noodle is one of my favorite meals. All you need to have is noodles and butter. To prepare buttered noodles, you have to boil noodles for a few minutes. Later on, add butter to the noodles. Also, you can add bacon or ham on top of it to make it even delicious.
For buttered noodles recipe: Click Here
18. Tuna Salad
If you like the taste of tuna fish, you’ll love the tuna salad recipe. All you need to have is two cones of tuna fish, mayonnaise, celery, and seasonings.
For tuna salad recipe: Click Here
19. Cornbread
Cornbread is a quick bread made with cornmeal. You can easily prepare cornbread. Cornbread only costs less than two dollars per recipe. That means you can prepare a cornbread recipe for your entire family by spending a few dollars.
For cornbread recipe: Click Here
20. Homemade Ramen Soup
If you haven’t tasted the ramen soup, you’re missing out on a delicious recipe. It’s one of the best dirt cheap meals that you can prepare when you want to taste some soup and noodles. You can get ramen noodles in Asian stores.
For homemade ramen soup recipe: Click Here
21. Hummus With Bread
Have you ever tried hummus with bread? No? Hummus is one of the cheapest meals you can prepare when you’re broke. It’s a Middle Eastern dip, spread, or savory dish made from cooked, mashed chickpeas blended with tahini, lemon juice, and garlic. In Middle Eastern cuisine, it’s eaten as a dip, with pita bread.
For hummus recipe: Click Here
22. Tuna Pasta Bake
If you don’t mind adding seafood to your meal planning, you can have a tuna pasta bake recipe. The best thing about tuna fish is it’s healthy yet cheap. It’s easy to make and requires a couple of pantry ingredients.
For tuna pasta bake recipe: Click Here
23. Sweet Potato and Chickpea Salad
If you’re looking for a vegan recipe, here it is. It’s tasty as well as healthy. All you have to do is fry some sweet potatoes on the pan and mix them with chickpeas.
For sweet potato and chickpea salad recipe: Click Here
24. Chicken Fajitas
If you’re a big fan of Mexican recipes, here is one to add to your weekly meal plan. You can feed your entire family with chicken fajitas. Moreover, you can freeze it to use another day. Your family will love this recipe.
For chicken fajitas recipe: Click Here
25. Homemade Beefaroni
A homemade beefaroni recipe can save you tons of money. To prepare a homemade beefaroni recipe, you need beef, macaroni, cheese, and tomato sauce. Your family members will love this recipe.
For homemade beefaroni recipe: Click Here
26. Fried Egg
When you don’t have too much money, you can go for a fried egg recipe. All you need to do is fry an egg and pour some salt on it. To make it tastier, you can add sauce.
27. Broccoli and Lentil
Broccoli and lentils are cheap ingredients in the market. Also, they are healthy and give proper nutrition. You can make this recipe in your home from time to time.
For broccoli and lentil recipe: Click Here
Wrap Up
As you can see, there are lots of cheap dinner recipes available to prepare. All you have to do is choose the best recipes that you want to add to your weekly meal plan.
You can use iBotta for your grocery shopping. iBotta is a cashback app that’ll give you money on items you regularly buy at the grocery stores. You can use this free app to save money on your grocery shopping. As a new user, you’ll get a $10 welcome bonus.
Hopefully, this article helped you to know about cheap dinner recipes. if you found it helpful, share it with your friends.
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