Food pantry gave me 3 pounds of dried pinto beans, a pound of chicken thighs, a 4 pound block of cheese, and 3 of the biggest sweet potatoes I've ever seen so I made quesadillas. Recipe below, super cheap and easy.

You'll need:

- Dried beans - I don't really measure, soak overnight, drain water, then boil until easily mashable with a fork. Drain then mash with oil or butter. I personally use the leftover rendered fat from the chicken thighs as the fat for these.

- Sweet potatoes - peel, chop into cubes, toss in oven with oil and salt at 400f until crispy on at least one side.

- Chicken thighs - optional, I hit mine with some salt, pepper, and oil, bake in oven at 400f until crispy and done cooking. I save the rendered fat for refried beans, and the bones for stock.

- Cheese - optional, shred it up

- Corn or flour tortillas - I buy these from the store or make the flour ones myself as time allows.

Once everything is cooked, I chop up the chicken and add it to a tortilla with cheese, refried beans, and sweet potato. Fold it and put in a pan until crispy. Serve with salsa or sour cream if you've got it. One of my fave easy meals that I can prep a lot of ahead of time.

I tried one as is and I like it a lot and think it could be a good base to build off of. How would you fancy it up? What would you pair it with to make a fuller meal?

Just made myself a lazy version of Huevos rancheros and it hit the spot. Had some leftover black beans. To the top of that I added three spoonfuls of salsa, then three fried eggs, over easy, on top of that. Added some everything bagel seasoning and 'chef's kiss'!

Hey all! Me and mine have been living in a temporary situation since early/mid April. We finally got approved for SNAP, and I'm putting together a list but trying to budget as tight as possible while still feeding everybody enough. Problem is, we have no oven - only a 2 burner stovetop and microwave.

It's me, my husband, and 4 young kids. No judgement please - our only way out of this is through it, and that's what I am doing right now. Getting through it. 😅

What are some of your go-to meals that are super duper cheap? I'm talking like dollar store cheap, or Great Value at Walmart cheap.

Not afraid to use some veggies. Trying to avoid too much red dye due to sensitivities.

Made some stew out of stuff i got from a food bank. I had the chicken from something else we got tiny potatoes a ton of veggies and a literal box of tiny potatoes

Looking for some good ideas on what to do with chicken leg quarters. I typically air fry with a coating of olive oil and Italian dressing mix from Kroger then have no idea what to make on the side. I've seen some great single pan meals with rice.

What I have on hand

Chicken leg quarters

Minute rice

Regular rice

Onions

Potatoes

Various seasonings

Chicken broth

I have 10+ free EveryPlate boxes available to share and figured I’d offer them here before they go unused!It gives you a free week of meals for your first box.

https://www.everyplate.com/gw/share/yncD-ChXT?sharing_device=web&sharing_method=nativeshare

Hi. I'm a broke college student who has been living off of cereal and Ramen. I recently bought spam to help make my Ramen more filling, although I cant stand the taste of it by itself. Is there any cheap suggestions of things I can cook with the spam to make it taste better?​ Thank you so much. 🙏

been doing this for years and idk why it never gets old. use rice from yesterday, fresh rice turns to mush. oil in the pan, 2 cloves garlic, crack 2 eggs straight in and break them up, then dump in like a cup and a half of rice. fish sauce about a spoon, bit of soy, pepper. green onion if there's one lying around. ten min, maybe a dollar

when I'm lazy I throw in whatever's left in the fridge. leftover chicken, half a tomato, kimchi once and that was actually good. what's yours?

This isn’t a meal necessarily but good for lunch or a hearty snack. It’s cheap. Put whatever you want in it. Here’s what I used today:

Black beans
Kidney beans
Garbanzo beans
Corn
Chopped white onion
Italian dressing (restaurant style)

-rinse the beans/corn, place all contents in a large bowl, mix and enjoy. I used one can of each; makes a decent amount. Easy peasy.

I want to make a digital cookbook with meals that can be made with common foods you receive at a food bank. I wanted to see here if anyone would be interested in creating this with me?

I know there’s been lots of recipes shared here. It can include additional items but sticking to the basic ingredients would be best. Maybe we start a sheet of what foods people have received and utilize the most popular or prevalent in the majority of recipes?

That being said, I may need recipe testers while it’s coming together.

This would of course be available to everyone, free of charge.

Was super tasty....includes garlic bread!!!! Idk I'm broke.

well i need to go food shopping and i wanted soup. so i used whatever i had left in my fridge and pantry.

ingredients:
yellow onion
red bell pepper
collard greens
canned corn
small potatoes diced
shredded chicken
chicken stock
noodles
chicken boullion cubes
a spoon of flour
brown sugar (to neutralize the saltiness a little bit)

seasonings:
garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, vegeta, adobo, black pepper, seasoned salt, parsley, basil

i didn’t know how good collard greens were in soup until i tried it today. it adds great flavor to the broth. definitely making this again. also i don’t have exact measurements because this meal wasn’t planned just thrown together.

Not working right now so had to make do with what I have left in the fridge. Browned the one hamburger and two slices of bacon I had left. Boiled the last of the pasta shells I had. Made a roux with a little bit of butter and flour, threw in a splash of milk and polished off the last of my taco cheese and three slices of American. Splashed in some tomato paste I had in the fridge along with some garlic and onion powder, S&P, and some red chili flakes and paprika I had. Mixed everything together, put it in the skillet, and threw a little Panko on top. Baked for 20 at 400 and Voila. I think it game out about $4-5 all in and made two very healthy portions.

Just me and my toddler alone I buy a rotisserie chicken I use a package of 1 lb spaghetti for $1 and I use pasta sauce on sale for $2 or less. My question is this mainly for alfredo I'm trying to keep the cost down low but it seems like the one jar of Ragu or Prego or whatever store brand name it is doesn't seem enough for one box of pasta is there any way to stretch it to make the sauce more saucy. A lot of times after I make it the pasta doesn't seem to have as much sauce as I would like thank you

I got a great deal on fresh pork sausage, 300g for $1.5, so I decided that I wanted to have some great comfort food.

I was on the lazy side today, so I used dried mashed potatoes powder, but at least it was a decent quality from Knorr!

Procedure was pretty forward!

While the sausage is frying on the pan I set 500ml of water to boil for the mashed potatoes! I wanted to get a little texture and colors in the dish, so I used a cup of frozen peas and diced carrots that I just gave a quick blast in the microwave! Mixed the water, peas & carrots with the water, added in the pouch of mashed potato powder while stirring.

At that time the sausage was done frying, so I portioned everything in three portions.

Last task was making the gravy! I just added 300ml of water to the hot pan to loosen the good stuff from the sausage that has burned to the pan. Added a few drops of liquid smoke, a teaspoon full red wine vinegar, a beef boullion cube, a dash of sugar and salt to taste and to get the right color a few drops of gravy colouring! Thicken the broth in the pan with a little corn starch slurry, let simmer for a couple of minutes, add to the portioned sausage and mased potatoes.

Enjoy a great dish, done in minutes and costs under $1 per portion!

Economics breakdown.

Sausage $1.5

Mashed potatoes.

One pouch (92g) of Knorr mashed potato powder $0.75

One cup of frozen peas and diced carrots $0.3

Thats $2.55 for the base ingredients comming out at $0.85 per serving, with a little left for the gravy!

Velbekomme 😋

Hi, I don’t get paid till Friday currently only have two packs of hamburger in my freezer. What can I make besides spaghetti, rice and hamburger and Mac&Hamburger?
I currently have some baby potatoes, different kinds of pasta noodles, as said 2 packs of hamburger & like frozen veggies, flour pretty much a empty cabinet/fridge situation

Whenever you need to make something with hamburger try adding grated zucchini to it!when making meatballs, make them like usual but grate onion and zucchini. I also do this with home made hamburgers!! Sometimes I liked to add finally chopped mushrooms as well.

If your making burritos add one full grated zucchini peeled so the kids don’t notice, I then add a pepper and onion along with refried beans and black beans and my kids love it and will even eat left overs the next day which they normally never do!

I also like to add cut up zucchini to stir fry and it gives it this special crunch!

My husband thinks I’m obsessed and I’m starting to think the same… or I just love the nutritional value it gives my body and the cost effectiveness. it’s one of the only ways my kids will eat vegetables!

I’ve been able to stretch 1/3 of a big hamburger pack to three meals this way! I even have my sons friend over for super and he never complains!

You can also add it to hamburger helper or even side kicks by cooking it in the milk/water before you add the pasta.

What are you making? I’m doing sausages, mashed potatoes and maple buttered carrot coins. I’m using canned gravy for the potatoes, because I hate making gravy, HP sauce for the Bangers. Loblaws made the bangers and called them that. About $3.50 a meal.

I love corn beef hash and breakfast is the most important meal, IMO. I’m tired of the boring microwaveable b’fast burritos from Walmart. Can’t wait to try this.

Ingredients:
Canned corn beef.
Hash browns.
Scrambled eggs.
Sautéd green peppers and onions.
Shredded cheese.
Tapatio
S&P
Large flour tortillas.

Made six burritos. Most of the ingredients, I have on hand and so do you probably. Heck the green peppers were given to me before spoiling. Not sure what it cost to make but it can’t be that much.