Cooking on a budget

have a preplan recipe of the week so that you can grab your items that only be needed in the supermarket. try to have dishes added with vegetables then steak or grilling once in a while.

You can use pasta or rice as a filler with chicken or beef. Using lots of different spices, or sauses, can take the same dishes, and change them, keeping the cost very low.

I find it easier to cook for two than one but make big meals then freeze the leftovers to heat later less cooking that way

I'm a single mother of two and I'm always looking for cheaper meals OR if I have a more expensive meal then the rest of the week I balance it with cheaper meals. We love pasta. I make a big pot of sauce myself and then freeze enough for a dinner in ziploc containers. When I need it I just remove it from the freezer (don't thaw) plop it into a saucepan and it's ready in no time. I also use a slow cooker. You can buy the cheapest cuts of meat and they will turn out so good. Save left over veggies and meat to make soup. My son loves ground beef so I can make quite a few different things with that. I love meat loaf, he loves taco and believe it or not he loves hamburger helper. Hope this helps.

Eat lots of beans. They're filling, inexpenive, and good for you. You can make bean burritos, add beans to soup to fill them out, add them to salads. Check the new sales flyers each week and see what's going to be on sale, write up a menu for the week, and stick to the menu. Choose a cooking day on the weekend and cook up a few meals ahead of time and freeze them, then during the week if you run short on time you're not tempted to run out for fast food or to order pizza.

The best advice I could give you is try to plan your meals ahead of time. That is what me & my other half tend to do. We plan out however many meals we need until the next time we get paid. It works & we have almost more than seven dishes to choose from so we can look at what we want.. Or what we are feeling like eating & pick one out of the list of what we are wanting to cook. As well you could look up recipes on the Internet & look at what the recipe calls for. Look for recipes that don't require ingredients that may become rather costly. As well like one of the people had stated in this discussion.. Get something that you don't need to watch every minute. For example.. I'll make crock pot beef stew occasionally.. I'll cut up stewing beef & onions or carrots, & then take two cans of beef broth & mix it with all of the ingredients & put it on high. And allow it to cook on it's own up to 8 - 10 hrs. It all depends upon what time you put it in at. I do go back to stir it & check on it every once in a while. But some people even go to work & just leave the crock pot on all day. I prefer to be in the house when cooking, even if I am using a crock pot. But I know that you can find a variety of different recipes on the Internet. And you can make the choice of whatever one you want to make. Look for ones that don't ask for to many expensive ingredients. And you can find cheap cuts of meat as well or cheap vegetables & so forth.. You just need to look around. I find the best time to go is in the morning as everything is fresh then. But yeah crock pots really come in handy. And you can make soups in there, or whatever you'd like. As well maybe look up different recipes.. And go from there.. I wish you all of the best.. I always cook for me & my other half & I find it's a lot easier than having to cook for a group of people.. I hope you find recipes that work out for you.

Well, I just ran to the grocery store on my lunch break and bought the fixings for homemade vegetable soup. I already had some leftover beef, so I just bought frozen veggies, potatoes and plopped it all in the crock pot with some herbs and spices. Total cost was probably around $5 and I'll have leftovers for lunch tomorrow. It's healthy and inexpensive. You can do the same with chicken soup. You could buy a whole chicken (couple dollars), put it in the crock pot on high till it's falling off the bone. Remove the chicken, add some chicken broth to the crock pot, debone the chicken, put it plus some veggies back in the crockpot on low. Cook some eggs noodles then add it to the crockpot about 1/2 hour before it's done. Enjoy!