I’ve been looking for ways to cut down on my food expenses without compromising quality and nutrition. Looks like I’m not the only one concerned about this, because there have been some great recipes posted recently for inexpensive dinners:
- Mama May has a recipe for Vegetables Au Gratin, which is ideal for using up vegetables and other foods you already have. It’s also pretty affordable even if you have to buy all the ingredients.
- Lentils are one of the best frugal, healthy food finds. Here’s a great, simple cheap lentils recipe. With that recipe as your basis, you can change the seasonings to whatever you like. Lentils work well with most any seasoning or spice.
- Check out this selection of $5 pizza dinner recipes. It gives you a number recipe for making cheap but relatively healthy whole wheat dough and suggests toppings like tomato and arrugala. Of course, the topics are your choice, and this is where the overall cost of the pizza might go up or down.
- Good Housekeeping has several frugal dinner recipes, complete with their nutritional breakdown. See the shopping list to get an idea of what you’ll actually be buying for these recipes – the up front investment isn’t actually cheap. But one 14 pound turkey is the basis of 4 different meals – that’s the sort of thing that makes this a money saver.
- Not Martha links to several Chicken Pot Pie recipes. These are pretty affordable as is, but the beauty of any chicken pot pie recipe is that you can make substitutions to save money, and still get a delicious result.
- Edited to add: LifeHacker just posted a link to The Simple Dollar’s Breakfast Burrito recipe, which is perfect for this post.