Looking for cheap healthy meals for your family? Me too! Groceries are insanely expensive right now and so I know I’m looking for budget friendly meals your family will love. I’ve took some time to gather the best cheap homemade meals that your family may like.
I tried to gather some cheap and delicious breakfast recipes, lunch recipes, dinner recipes, and a few dessert recipes, because I’m a firm believer that sweets sometimes makes the hardest of times a little easier.
Cheap and Easy Meals For The Family
These cheap and easy meals for families, big or small, are perfect for keeping your grocery bill down. I know I’m spending hundreds more a month, for less groceries, and we don’t even get extra stuff! And for my friends with bigger families, their grocery bills have skyrocketed. And if you believe the news, it may get higher. Though, I’m praying it doesn’t.
But hopefully these affordable meals will help you as much as they’ve helped us! Also, keep in mind that prices often fluctuate and one week one meat may be cheaper than another, so plan and substitute accordingly!
Cheap, Easy, and Delicious Breakfast Recipes Your Family Will Love
1. Delicious Fried Mush Recipe
Fried mush is a Great Depression recipe that originated, I believe, in the Midwest. It’s really good though, simple to make, and hearty. All it requires is: water, cornmeal, milk and oil. Enjoy it with some butter and add syrup! Yum!
2. Simple Egg In A Hole Recipe
This is my husband’s favorite breakfast. Egg in a hole is so simple, and cheap. It’s literally, bread, butter, and an egg. Have the yolk runny or hard! Make it your favorite way.
3. Versatile Oatmeal Recipe
Oatmeal is so versatile! I like old fashioned oats, brown them in butter, add a little cinnamon and water. Once it is done I like to add a little brown sugar. My husband likes cinnamon oatmeal, with a dollop of greek yogurt on top, and a diced apple. You can make it savory with an egg and green onions. Or add berries and honey to your oats. Your bowl of oatmeal is yours to transform.
4. Yummy Breakfast Hash Recipe
Dice up a potato and add any extra vegetables you have in the fridge. Whether it’s onions, peppers, spinach, or mushrooms, cook it all together. Once it is done add a fried egg on top. Or scramble an egg into the hash.
5. Simply Delicious Banana Toast Recipe
Toast is a staple of cheap meals. Adding a little peanut butter or other nut butter and cut up a banana and put that on top. Don’t like bananas? Then use apples! It’s sweet, there is protein, fruit, and carbs. Yum!
6. Sweet and Moist Banana Bread Recipe
Make banana bread or banana muffins. Use up those brown bananas. Banana bread lasts us all week. Add a little butter on top, and it’s a sweet and yummy breakfast.
7. The Best Pancake Recipe
Pancakes! Pancakes are usually a treat in my house, but I found I can make a large batch. What we don’t eat get’s frozen and I thaw them when we need them. And you don’t have to put just syrup on them. Use honey instead. Or use peanut butter, or jelly, or sometimes I just like pancakes with butter.
8. Apples With Yogurt Peanut Butter Dip
This is a favorite in my home. We usually have vanilla yogurt on hand. Mix in some peanut butter, and honey if you have it on hand, and dip apple slices in it. So good.
9. Baked Breakfast Potato Recipe
Take a sweet potato, bake it, and once tender add an egg and put it back into the oven. It’s cheap, filling, and very healthy! A baked breakfast sweet potato is perfect!
10. Delicious Omelette Recipe
Sometimes an omelette is perfect for breakfast. Use leftover vegetables, meat, and cheese to make this delicious omelette recipe.
Super Yummy Budget Friendly Lunch Recipes For Your Family
11. Classic Grilled Cheese Recipe
Nothing is better than a grilled cheese sandwich. You can add some soup with it if you want, but a classic grilled cheese is a perfect cheap and easy lunch recipe.
12. Simple Cheese Quesadilla Recipe
Tortilla and cheese is all you need for this simple cheese quesadilla recipe. Have extra vegetables or taco leftovers? Add those too! Bulk up that quesadilla!
13. Easy Sandwich Ideas
Sandwiches! The epitome of cheap eats. Add lettuce, meat, cheese. Meat too expensive? Have a veggie sandwich! Need something heartier? Tuna salad or egg salad. Peanut butter and jelly, peanut butter fluff, or use whatever nut butter you like.
14. Easy and Tasty Tuna Pasta Salad Recipe
My mom made a big bowl of this tuna pasta salad, and we would eat it for lunch and dinner. Shell noodles, mayo, tuna, and pickles or celery is all you need for this simple meal. It’s easy, a crowd pleaser, and it goes a long way.
15. Yummy Tuna Patty Melt Recipe
Bread, tuna, and a piece of American or cheddar cheese is all you need to make a tuna melt. Toast the bread, add the tuna salad, and place the cheese on top and melt it. Warm, toasty, and tasty. It’s so easy to make. My mom taught me this recipe as well.
16. Deliciously Easy Pinwheel Recipe
Tortillas, cream cheese, some ham or turkey, and pickle spears are needed to make a pinwheel. It’s so good, despite the combination sounding weird. My aunt made these for us, and I still love them. Or did… before I became lactose intolerant! Oh cream cheese, how I miss you.
17. Budget-Friendly Vegetable Italian Pasta Salad Recipe
Grab some protein pasta, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, black olives, and Italian dressing! This Italian pasta salad is such a simple dish, nice and cool for hot days, but also cheap, and full of veggies, which is a win-win.
18. Simple Salad Ideas
Salad is cheap. Iceberg lettuce, carrots, cucumbers, some cheese, a boiled egg, and dressing is all you need. Have some extra bread? Make your own croutons. The protein is filling, and the veggies are cheap and healthy.
19. Last Night’s Leftovers
If we have leftovers, oftentimes we will eat them for dinner obviously, but if there is only a little bit of something, I’ll eat it for lunch. That was actually very common amongst housewives in the 50s.
20. Easy Chicken Wrap Recipe The Whole Family Will Love
Tortilla, mixed salad, and chicken with a dollop of dressing and you have a salad chicken wrap! The best part is, you can easily eat this all week whether you buy raw chicken and cook it yourself or buy chicken strips.
Budget-Friendly Dinner Recipes For The Whole Family
21. Easy Chicken Garden Soup Recipe
Grab your veggies, chicken, broth, and noodles and make a great big pot of garden soup. This chicken noodle soup is full of vegetables, is super flavorful, and makes enough a small family could eat on it all week!
22. Pork and Potato Pierogi Recipe
So, this recipe is time consuming, just be warned. But when I have extra pork, I’ll turn it into homemade pork sausage and use it for pierogi. Or if I have some extra cheese and potatoes (only my husband can eat these ones now) then I’ll make potato and cheese pierogi. I make a big batch, they’re not very expensive, and we’ll eat them for 3-4 days.
23. Simply Delicious Spaghetti Recipe
Want something your family can eat all week. Spaghetti is it! I don’t know anyone who doesn’t make enough spaghetti to feed an army. Yummy red sauce, noodles, and bread. Perfectly filling!
24. Slow Cooked Pork Roast Recipe
An onion, a pork roast, a cup of apple juice and a crockpot is all you need for this. I was able to get a pork roast on sale not long ago, a big one for about $12. That bad boy fed my family for over half a week. We ate it with gravy the first day, 2 days of bbq sandwiches, and then 1 day of bbq pork baked potatoes.
25. Tasty Cabbage, Potatoes, And Sausage
This is a classic cheap and easy meal. Potatoes and sausage are hearty and cabbage is good for you. It’s easy to make, you can make a lot of it, and it tastes great!
26. Lentil Potato Dahl Recipe
If you’re like me and have a million seasonings on hand this recipe of lentil potato dahl shouldn’t be hard. It’s a vegan recipe, but so tasty and so filling! Pair it with some flat bread and you’re golden!
27. Beans and Cornbread Recipe
I won’t lie, my family loves corn muffins over cornbread, but you can do either or. But a big pot of slow cooked beans and ham hocks are so tasty, cheap, and easy to make. You’ll be eating it for days.
28. Taco Salad Recipe
My mom used to make taco salad too. She would buy whatever ground meat was on sale, cook it with taco seasoning. Add it to iceberg lettuce, add a little cheese, some beans, crunch up tortilla chips, and a little dressing. I’m not saying this is the healthiest, but it was cheap and easy to make and enough to feed a family of 6.
29. Stuffed Peppers Recipe
Get some bell peppers, mix up some ground meat, rice, and salsa or just tomato sauce, whatever you prefer, top with cheese, and bake! Simple, tasty, and hardy. And most importantly, cheap!
30. Chicken, Broccoli, Rice Skillet
This is simple, tasty, and healthy, plus it won’t break the bank. You could easily eat this multiple times a week if you buy 1 big pack of chicken breasts, at least 3 times depending on the size of your family. This chicken, broccoli, rice skillet is great for any family.
Best Frugal Desserts Your Family Will Love
31. Hot Chocolate Recipe
Sometimes a glass of hot chocolate is all you need. I know if I’m being mindful of my weight and spending this is a treat for me. It’s better than spending money make dozens of cookies or a whole cake. Or it is in my opinion.
32. The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe
If you’re gonna spend the money to make cookies, you definitely want extra. And these cookies will give you extra. You can make a dozen and freeze the rest of the dough. That way when you want some in the future, you can just unfreeze them. It’s cheaper than buying box after box of cookies.
33. Fried Apples Recipe
Apples, butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon make the perfect dessert. It’s sweet, fruity, and tart! If you have ice cream on hand, a scoop of that really hits the spot.
34. Berries and Cream
When strawberries are on sale I will buy them and a pint of heavy whipping cream and make my husband strawberries and whipped cream. It’s simple, costs a few bucks, and my husband can enjoy it for a few days.
Cheap, Budget-Friendly, Affordable Meals For The Family
Hopefully this helps. I know times are tough, and sometimes we have to change the way we do things and that includes how much we are shopping and spending on groceries. How much we’re eating, what we are eating. But I hope your family loves these recipes! Cheap meals don’t have to be boring or gross, they can taste great!
What budget-friendly frugal recipes does your family enjoy? I’d love to hear from you, comment below!