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Cheap healthy meals?
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Ok, I need some cheap healthy meals for a family of 6 boys and 2 girls. Things are tight and I need some simple, cheap meals. My monthly meal plan will not work on our budget anymore. I need to tighten my belt, but still keep to the outside ailes of the grocery store. I don’t want to compromise our health for a “quick” fix. Maybe once or twice a week to help the budget but not nightly. Got any suggestions? Misty
One more thought…you can get this book from your library or through an interlibrary loan – More-With-Less Cookbook by Doris Longacre. Be sure to type in the hyphens or you won’t be able to look it up on WorldCat. It is FULL of inexpensive healthful meals. Also try your library for other Mennonite-type cookbooks.
Hi Misty!
I have a few suggestions, and if I think of more; I will let you know.
A lot of legume/bean meals are a great option. We are vegetarian, and those meals are healthy, low fat, and inexpensive. Now, it may be an adjustment for your kids if they aren’t used to eating a lot of beans and legumes, but I will give you a few that are hits with our kids.
Refried Beans
Buy in bulk dried pinto beans and follow the directions on the bag for preparation; you can place in a bowl with water on the counter the night before and then cook the next day. You can also prepare ahead and freeze to have available anytime.
Fill a large saucepan with cooked pintos, find a capable strong arm(11 yr old son) and give him a masher. We use a pastry masher. Have him mash away in the pan until the beans are the texture you want. This takes awhile. Then heat the beans over the stove and add things like tomato sauce, cumin, garlic pwder, chili pwder, hot sauce, oregano, salt, and taste. Flavor your way until you like the taste. Simmer over the stove until heated through. Serve with tortillas or tortilla chips for nachos. We make a huge batch, and then eat from it off and on all week for leftovers.
Dahl
Cook rice according to amount needed. In another pot place lentils and water. 1-2 cups lentils dry to twice as much water. Heat over stove and when it comes to a boil, simmer lentils until done or tender (45 minutes). I add chicken bouilion to add flavor. While rice and lentils are cooking, saute in oil 1 cut up onion, 1 tsp of chili powder, 1/2 tsp of tumeric, 1/2 tsp. cumin, 1/2 tsp. ginger pwder, and then add 2 cups of diced tomatoes.
Put saucepan of veggies and spices and cooked lentils into food processor and puree. Serve over rice. YUM. 1 cup of dry lentils gives 6 servings, 2 cups gives 12. I assumed the larger serving size in the spice measurements.
Beans on Board
Make a batch of mashed or boiled potatoes. In a saucepan, add oil and once it is heated; add 1 cut up onion. Saute til translucent, and the add 1 TBs of chili pwder. Add 4 cups of cooked beans to the saucepan. Add 4 Tbs of catsup, 1 tsp. of molasses, 1/4 to 1/2 cup of tomato juice, 1 tsp garlic pwder, 1 tsp of soy sauce and salt. Serve this over the mashed potatoes and if you want, place mashed potatoes and beans atop a slice of whole wheat bread.
If you buy the beans dry and cook ahead(like you need more to do), it will save you a ton of money and be healthier. Dave Ramsey always says to live on beans and rice when you ‘re trying to pay down debt; and it is true; it saves money.
I’ll send you more recipes late Misty.
You may want to check out http://www.thefamilyhomestead.com a homeschooling mom of 8 has recipes, ideas to make it yourself and also Super economical recipes all real and nutritious food. Also making your own laundry soap saves a bundle! (that recipe is on there too) and other cleaning supplies, start using baking soda, dishsoap and vingar or combinations of for most things. Blessings, Heather
I love this website and i’ve been making my laundry detergent for over a year with her method. It works great…we live on a farm and have lots of dirt.
And she’s all about healthy meals on a strict budget.Misty – this might relate a bit more to your other post, but I was here reading when I remembered Amy’s book…
Another book to look for at your library is “The Complete Tightwad Gazette” by Amy Dacyazyn. It is a collection of articles from the Tightwad Gazette newsletter that she published between 1990-1996. If you can’t find it as “The Complete Tightwad Gazette” you may be able to find it as three separate volume’s “The Tightwad Gazette” “The Tightwad Gazette II” etc. Because it was written in the early 90’s the price examples are not necessarily relevent (the price of energy effient light bulbs and some appliances is less now than back then) and their is little mentioned about the internet – however, in terms of principles of HOW to save money – she’s really covered about everything at some point or another and what she may have missed (homeschooling for example) she has explained how to be frugal for so many other areas, it’s not too difficult to translate that over onto something else.
I second the More-With-Less cookbook and the familyhomestead website. Both are excellent.
A last thought… you’ve already mentioned this above by saying you’re looking for suggestions for new meals a couple times a week. But from my personal expeirence, changes in my families meals/diets have gone much better as I’ve implemented them slowly. This seems to also be the case for us in terms of not spending money in other areas as well. (ie. birthday/Christmas presents, clothing etc.) I don’t know how quickly you need to change spending/eating patterns but if you have to do it fast, you might try getting the whole family involved in some way. Sometimes participating directly in the change (whatever it is) makes my kids less resistant to new things. I hope something here helps you!
http://www.momsmenu.com/cookbooks/miserly_meals.shtml
Miserly Meals book by Jonni McCoy. Miserly Moms is a great book, too, with other money-saving ideas. Blessings, Gina
I agree with briedell about the beans and rice meals. You can really do a lot to beans. I have a friend from Mexico and she does things with beans I never imagined.
I have a cookbook called “Country Beans”. I don’t know if you can get it at the library maybe. This book tells you how to hide beans in recipes by grinding them into flour. But I suppose if you don’t have a grinder, you could cook them and put them in the blender; and you could probably still hide them in food if your family isn’t used to them.
When we get depressed about the cost of food, my husband always says we should eat more beans and rice. The kids love them too.
I also agree with whoever said to get the kids involved in the cooking of different things. Mine are always more open when they made it themselves. They love to help look for rocks in the beans!
What a lot of great ideas on this post. We put our beans and rice into flour tortillas with whatever toppings I have on hand, roll them up like a burrito and fry them on a grill pan.
Quinoa is another great alternative as it is a complete protein. I fry up carrots and onions, then cook the quinoa in the same pan. Leftovers can be served cold in a salad.
When warm weather comes, we purchase whichever meat is on sale and I grill it up, slice, and store in family-size portions in freezer bags. This means I can quickly add it to pasta, rice, potato or top a salad with it.
And my last money-saving idea for today: We barter whenever we get the opportunity. We’ve bartered computer work, children’s books from my business, child-care, cakes & bread, etc. in exchange for many different things.
All my best to you Misty and the rest of my frugal friends here!
Richele
Thank you everyone for the ideas. We do like beans and I already am use to soaking them! It saves tons of money, plus I buy rice and beans in bulk. I have printed the recipes you gave and will be looking through the websites and copying more today. I am really using what I have on hand and trying to remember to make more from scratch. You know how that goes, for a month or 3 you do really well then.. time I’m guessing.. and you switch back to store bought.
I am sorry and embarassed but whta is Quinoa and where would I find it.
Also, I am a vegetarian so I love potatoes, rice, salad, etc. My family eats 2 meals typically a week w/o meat. But with the way things are as long as they are filling, and good tasting I know they wont mind. Besides I have 2 who really don’t care for meat anyway.
I will look up these books and hope that my library will have them. Thanks again.
Misty
This website has a lot of good ideas. I find you can make a lot of the recipes even cheaper if you don’t add the meat!!! I have a few recipes to dig out and send your way. I’ll try to get to that tomorrow if I can pull myself out of bed.
You probably don’t have much in the way of leftovers, but if you do, do not throw out any extra veggies or meat. I store all them in a freezer bag and when the bag is full, throw it in a pot with brown rice, beans, pasta, whatever you have on hand and a bunch of stock. Toss in whatever spices would go with the meat you have (I usually have two bags going, one for beef and one for chicken), I especially like Emeril’s Bam seasoning and you can find that mix on foodnetwork’s website. Whenever the veggies I have in my fridge are starting to droop I chop those up and toss them in as well. One nice thing is that whenever I need to bring a meal to somebody I always have a healthy and tasty soup almost done in the freezer and I don’t need to spend any money but can still serve others. The other big savings for us was switching to vinegar and baking soda for most cleaning needs and making my own laundry detergent (I use the recipe from the Duggar’s website). They are healthy for your family so not only are you saving money but saving your family from the toxic chemicals.
I second the SOUP!
It’s cheap, it goes a long way and it’s healthy for you. We have it once a week in the winter. Everyone has a different favorite. Do you have a garden? We save ALOT of money by growing our own food and canning and freezing it. My husband has been out of work for almost a year and if it wasn’t for the garden we would be in serious trouble.
And she’s all about healthy meals on a strict budget.
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