Seeking Budget Friendly Meal Ideas for Dinner

Cream of chicken soup mixed with shell or penne noodles is really cheap and easy to make! Boil the noodles, drain, add the soup and milk, and spice to taste. Really tasty, and you can 'healthy' it up by using whole-grain noodles. We eat it about 1-2x a week for lunch, sometimes dinner. :)

Here are some great sites:
http://simplyrecipes.com/
http://www.eatingwell.com/

Baked chicken is always good - you can stuff and bake it, then use the remaining chicken for chicken salad or stir fry or in other recipes. Then you can boil down the bones for soup - throw in some noodles and veg.

A great book is the Monday to Friday cookbook - she has a good variety of healthy recipes and some weekly menus which present the idea of a "sunday startup" meal - like a roast, which can be repurposed through the week.

Here's a whole meat mac & cheese we love!! I often add various veggies and chicken to it.

1 1/2 cups whole wheat pasta
2 tablespoons flour (I use unbleached, whole wheat doesn't dissolve right)
2 tablespoons butter
1 cup milk
1 cup shredded cheese (I use cheddar, but you could use any combination)
Salt & pepper to taste

-Boil noodles according to instructions
-Melt butter in sauce pan
- Whisk in flour to make a rue. Want it to brown, not burn (a minute or so)
-Quickly whisk in milk and turn it to low. Whisk until no lumps
-Add cheese and wait until melted
- Add pasta to cheese and mix
^That's where I add cooked veggies and meat

I made creamed new potatoes last weekend it turned out wonderful.

If you don't have new potatoes, use regular potatoes cut into bite-sized pieces.

Put 22 oz to 24 oz of water in a large pot. Cut up potatoes or new potatoes until the potatoes are just barely above water. Turn the fire on to boil the potatoes.
When the potatoes are cooked add the rest of the ingredients.
Use 8 ounces of sliced button mushrooms. (I slice whole ones to save money.)
Two 10 oz cans of cream of mushrooms soup. Put the soup in the water with the potatoes and don't add additional water.
When the water boils again and makes the soup, add one jar of alfredo sauce and stir.
One 16 oz bag of frozen peas and stir it into the pot. (Break the clumps of peas apart before putting them in the pot.)
Serve immediately.
I paid $.83 for 2.5 pounds of new potatoes. $.99 for 8 oz of mushrooms. $.50 each of two cans of cream of mushroom soup and $.99 for the jar of alfredo sauce. $.99 for the 16 oz bag of frozen peas.
Serves 8-10 for $4.80 or between $.48 to $.60 per serving.
BTW, all the prices are what I actually paid.

Good luck to you and yours.

Allrecipes.com is amazing!

Make a large lasagna (it is actually really cheap to make your own!) and save it. You can have left overs for lunch, snacks, husband's lunch at work, etc.

Get whatever meat is on sale at whatever grocery store you go to and freeze it. You can get a large bag of chicken for like 5 bucks and use it a LOT! With chicken, you can stuff it with black olives and feta, grill it with garlic, toss it in bread crumbs, make bite sized chicken nuggets... there are oh so many things just to do with a bag of chicken!

If you like Rachael Ray, check out her website for her magazine. She has a section called $10 spot where all the meals are CHEAP. Not all of them are great, but you'll find a few to help. I make several for my family.

http://www.rachaelraymag.com/

This isn't to healthy, but it's not horrible and it's so easy. In the morning I put some sausage and a jar of sauce into the crockpot all day. About an hour or two before eating I slice up the sausages in to bite sized pieces. Then right before you cook up some noodles. Usually we use angel hair, but tomorrow we are using elbow macaroni becuase that's what I have a lot of right now.
Serve witha a salad and maybe some garlic bread.
We buy sausage from Sams and keep it frozen, we can make this 4 times with the $8 package. Then we only buy pasta, sauce, and bagged salad when it is BOGO. If bagged "very veggie" salad is not on BOGO I buy the ingredients to a salad and make a huge salad that we eat throughout the week.

I have gotten really into couponing since Jan. and it has saved us sooooo much money. I'm not doing the crazy stuff like those scripted ladies on the "reality" show, but I stockpile enough so that things will be BOGO again by the time I need them. It's amazing!

Have you tried www.allrecipes.com? I've gotten some good ideas there.

scrambled eggs and toast, soup and grilled cheese, hamburger helper, pasta w/butter and pamesean cheese, homemade pizza, frozen chicken nuggets. If you can find hamburger on sale you can spread that out for many meals.

Chicken stuffed shells:

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Chicken-Stuffed-Shells/Detai...

Hamburger/Tater-Tot Casserole

Pulled Beef sandwiches
Meatballs (once for with pasta & once for sammies)