Family friendly meals for $10 or less

by Bethany Sanders (Subscribe to Bethany Sanders's posts) Oct 26th 2008 3:00PM

Categories: Money & Work, Eating & Nutrition, Mealtime

Whenever I try to trim our budget, I always return to our food spending. Even though gas prices are falling, experts say it's unlikely that we'll see any relief in the form of falling food costs. That's not good news for families on a who live on a tight budget.

USA Today recently challenged several dietitians to come up with family friendly meals that can feed four people for under $10. For that amount, it might seem like you'd have to serve everyone mac and cheese, but the group came up with a surprisingly diverse and nutritious menu. My favorite are the black bean sloppy joes, but they also recommend egg dishes for families who really want to stretch their food dollar.

We've had to give up some of our favorite "treat" foods as cost rise -- Starbucks frappachino drinks and pre-made hummus are two that come immediately to mind. But this article shows that with a little thought and creativity, it's still possible to stretch your food dollar enough to feed your family a variety of nutritious meals.

What's your favorite low-cost dinner?

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Comments (7)

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

c_rousseau05 10-26-2008 @ 9:40PM

My favorite low cost dinner is baked chicken breast and white (or jasmine) rice topped with chicken of mushroom soup. Add a tiny bit of salt and it tastes great, feeds a lot of people ( I come from a family of 5 and we always had leftovers) and is very satisfying.

Lindsey 10-26-2008 @ 10:58PM

The San Francisco Food Bank just put out a 'Hunger Challenge' to bloggers to create recipes for meals that would feed a family for $1 per meal per person, since $21/week is the amount provided in food stamps each week.

Here's an article about the challenge: http://www.blogher.com/hunger-challenge-how-eat-3-day

And here are the recipes: http://hungerchallenge.blogspot.com/

rebecca Biernesser 10-27-2008 @ 9:25AM

Since it is getting cold outside, Stews and soups. Favorites are

15 Bean Soup with polish Sausage, rounded off with cornbread

Potatoe Soup and Sandwiches

Beef Stew with Cornbread

We also enjoy doing things like Taco Night and Pizza Night. Both are favorites of the kids.

I also enjoy Casseroles and have a great simple recipe for a chicken casserole that can be used with leftover chicken and puts new meaning to the word cheap :)

Karen 10-27-2008 @ 12:39PM

Spaghetti.

Ellen from MindBites.com 10-27-2008 @ 1:03PM

This is a great question. My kids love simple things and my husband and I love spicy, spicy and more spicy food. We try to figure out the easy, cost effective meals that we can cook for the kids and then amp up the spice for us.

An example of this is mac & cheese (add tabasco), spaghetti and tomato sauce (add fresh basil & crushed red pepper), grilled cheese (add jalapenos and tomato- yummy!), baked potato with butter and cheese for the kids (add spicy taco meat, jalapenos, fresh tomatoes, corn & salsa). These are all less than $10 a piece.

I would love you guys to show us how to make some of these great meals for kids http://www.mindbites.com/content/the-baby-formula. You just might win $1500 for trying!

mel 10-27-2008 @ 2:02PM

My family loves Thanksgiving in July (or May or Feb....) We can make 3 meals from one turkey breast. I will roast the breast and we will have potatoes and stuffing, just like it's Thanksgiving. The next day I will use the meat to make Turkey Tetrazzini and then I will boil what's left of the breast and make Turkey Noodle Soup. November is a good time to buy a few breasts for your freezer since they are often on sale for the holidays.