5 Budget-friendly Meal Ideas That The Whole Family Will Love
I'm going to be sharing 5 delicious budget-friendly family meal ideas.
These are affordable meals your entire family will love. They all use easy-to-find ingredients, many of which you probably already have on hand.
1. White chicken enchiladas
Season two chicken breasts with salt, pepper, onion, garlic powder, and some chili powder. I baked that at 400 degrees for 30 minutes, and let it rest for a bit.
I went in with two forks and shredded it.
I got that transferred over to a mixing bowl. I add half a block of some room-temperature cream cheese, and a bit of garlic powder.
I'll also add about a cup of shredded pepper jack cheese into the chicken mixture. Give that a stir, ensuring that cream cheese is coating all the chicken. This is going to be your filling for the enchiladas.
I will spray a nine by 13 casserole dish with some cooking spray, and now I can start assembling the enchiladas. I have some regular-sized tortillas.
Place a good amount of that chicken mixture onto the middle of the tortilla, spread it out, and tightly roll it up.
Now, we'll start making the sauce that gets poured over it. I melted down three tablespoons of butter.
I added three tablespoons of all-purpose flour and a tablespoon of taco seasoning.
I'll whisk that together, getting all of the lumps out. I'll let this cook on medium heat for a couple of minutes.
Next, add two cups of chicken broth and give it a quick stir and add about half a cup of shredded pepper jack cheese. As soon as that cheese is melted, I'll add the two final ingredients: a four-ounce can of diced green chilies and a cup of sour cream.
I turned off my heat at this point. I'm stirring the warmed sauce long enough to melt the sour cream.
I'm going to pour that all over the top of the enchiladas.
Lastly, I'll take the remaining pepper jack cheese that I have and sprinkle that all over the top.
I'm going to pop that in the oven at 350 degrees. I baked it for 25 minutes, then flipped on the broiler to brown the top of the cheese.
I also made some homemade Mexican rice to go with it.
2. Chopped turkey sandwich
I have a big piece of parchment paper laid out, and I'm just laying down some shredded lettuce, enough to top two to three sandwiches.
I'll lay down a few slices of tomato, and I also added some dill pickles on top.
I'll lay down a few slices of provolone cheese. I picked up some good-quality turkey oven-roasted turkey at the deli. It's just a little bit under a pound.
I got some Duke's mayo, added a couple of good spoonfuls, and drizzled on some red wine vinegar.
At this point, I wanted to go in with my large knife and start getting this chopped and folded together because that vinegar was running all over the place, and I wanted to get it all mixed before I started adding in a few of the seasonings
Now, I'm going to add just a little bit of salt. I'll add a good amount of black pepper and some oregano.
I'll continue chopping it until it gets to the consistency I seek.
This is the bread that I chose, so I'm just taking a serrated knife, getting those cut open, and I will start stuffing it. I topped it with some extra black pepper and served it with steak fries.
I have a little side of ketchup to dip the fries in.
3. Sour cream noodle bake
I started by crumbling and browning one pound of ground beef. I seasoned mine with garlic salt, onion powder, and black pepper. If you do have a lot of excess grease, drain that off.
Add in one regular-size can of tomato sauce, about 15 ounces, and I'll season the sauce with some salt and pepper. Get that all stirred together.
I will let this simmer on the stove on medium heat while I prepare everything else.
In a medium mixing bowl, add a half cup of sour cream. You'll also need a cup and a quarter cup of cottage cheese.
Season that mixture with some black pepper and freeze-dried chives.
Stir it together, combining all the ingredients.
You'll need to cook eight ounces of egg noodles to al dente, drain them, and add the noodles to this creamy mixture.
Stir well. Spray a casserole dish with non-stick cooking spray, and layer this like you would with a lasagna.
I added half of the noodles and half the meat sauce to the bottom.
I shredded an 8-ounce block of some sharp cheddar cheese, so I'm just adding some of that over the meat sauce
Next, I'll cover that with the remainder of those noodles, then the rest of that meat sauce. Then, I'll do a final layer of the shredded cheese. I'm going to pop this in the oven at 350 degrees.
I baked mine for around 25 minutes.
You'll know it's done when the cheese is melted.
We served it with some steamed veggies and garlic Texas toast.
4. Cabbage sausage soup
I started by getting the ingredients that I would need for the soup. So my kielbasa, cabbage, carrots, and red potatoes. I heated up just a little olive oil in my large pot, then threw in my thinly sliced sausage.
Cook that for a few minutes to give it some color, and let the flavor sweat out before adding in my diced carrots and some chopped celery.
I seasoned all that with some onion powder and a big spoonful of minced garlic, some oregano and black pepper, and let that garlic cook for another minute before adding the chicken broth.
You will need six cups of chicken broth.
Next, I added my chopped cabbage and my red potatoes. I also decided to throw in some Cajun seasoning. I knew that flavor would work well in this dish.
Stir everything together.
I have this on medium-high heat and wait for it to boil. I'll get my lid on as soon as it does and turn it down to simmer.
I let mine cook for about 30 more minutes because we like our cabbage to be tender.
I served this with some homemade cornbread muffins with some butter, and it paired perfectly with this meal.
5. London broil
The recipe called for this Lawry's Beef Marinade seasoning mix.
I found it in Walmart, so I ordered it from there.
I followed the directions on the back of the package, mixed it with water, and poured it over my meat.
I'm just kind of flipping the meat around in that marinade, and I'll let it marinate in the refrigerator all day, so I will get this dish covered with some cling wrap.
I came in every couple of hours to flip the meat. It is time to cook this, so I'm just transferring it to my cookie sheet.
I put it under the broiler in the oven. I could tell that my meat was bigger and a bit thicker than the recipe, so I added a few more minutes.
I did five minutes on one side and five minutes on the other.
At this point, I took it out, tented it with some tin foil, and let it rest for 10 minutes before slicing it.
So these first few pieces look great, but the farther I got into that meat, the rarer it got, and we cannot eat it like that.
I decided to pop it back into the oven for a few more minutes, which I know is not good, especially after you've let it rest, but I just had to do that.
So here we are after that, and I cut it against the grain.
I served it with a baked sweet potato with butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, and fresh green beans.
Budget-friendly family meal ideas
I hope at least a couple of these budget friendly family meal ideas stood out to you that you would like to try for yourself.
What are you making for dinner this week? Share your recipes in the comments below.
Next, check out these 5 Budget-Friendly Family Meals That Are Super Easy to Make.
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