7 Easy Meals for Large Families on a Budget

1. Black bean chicken taco soup

Start with half a pound of dry black beans. Rinse them well and sort through them.

Next, add in one chicken breast, a little bit of chicken bouillon powder, and a packet of taco seasoning. Then add five cups of water, pressure cook that for 30 minutes, and let it sit for a little bit.

About 30 minutes before you sit down to eat, go ahead and shred up the chicken. You will notice it has gone black because it cooked with black beans.

Add in half of a large can, or the same as a small can of petite diced tomatoes, two cans of corn, and 3 oz of cream cheese. Then just let that sit until you are ready to eat, and at the end stir it all up.

If you want to serve it the way we did, make some homemade tortilla chips, and put cheese, tomatoes, and onions on top.

2. Rolled meatloaf

You basically need to make up a regular meatloaf mixture with bread crumbs and eggs, as well as onions and bell peppers. Flatten it out on the tray, put some cheese on top, and roll it up. Bake it in the oven and flip it halfway through.

To make it taste like a cheeseburger meatloaf, glaze the top with a mixture of ketchup and mustard after you flip it, and then let it finish cooking. The center of the meatloaf was gooey and cheesy. 

We made some potato patties to go with it: some fried and some baked.

3. Enchiladas casserole

Let’s begin by making red enchilada sauce. Start out with an onion and bell pepper, and then half a stick of butter.

Add a quarter cup of vegetable oil and then a whole lot of minced garlic, some onion powder, garlic powder, cumin, chili powder, oregano, parsley, and salt. Then add a little bit of paprika, and some water, because we are going to be adding in the chicken bouillon to make it like chicken broth.

Next, add some tomato sauce. Let that cook for a while until everything is nice and cooked, and the bell pepper and onion are soft.

Moving on to the meat mixture, brown up a pound of ground beef. Add half a large can of tomato sauce and then some cheddar cheese. 

For the other part of the mixture, mix sour cream with the red enchilada sauce.

Spray your pan and then arrange eight tortillas on the bottom. 

Once they are arranged, you can start layering the casserole: put half the meat mixture down, then put one-third of the sour cream mixture down and spread it out really well.

Next, put six tortillas over the top of the meat and sour cream mixture, and then put the other half of the meat and another third of the sour cream. 

Spread that out, put six more tortillas, then the last third of the sour cream mixture and all of that cheese, and then bake it all in the oven until it is golden brown and bubbly.

Here is the casserole fresh out of the oven.

4. Chicken and stuffing casserole

Start out by cubing up one chicken breast, and arranging that in the bottom of the casserole dish. 

In a bowl, mix two cans of cream of chicken, one cup of milk, three cups of water, and some chicken bouillon powder to make the water into chicken broth. 

Pour the gravy mixture over the chicken and add two boxes of stuffing mix to the top of it. Once you get all the stuffing on your casserole, bake it in an oven at 450 for about 25 to 30 minutes.

If you want it to be crispy, wait until it becomes nice and bubbly on top. If you are not into that, you can cover it with tin foil. You could also mix the stuffing into the gravy mixture before putting it on the chicken.

This is the finished casserole.

For Instant Pot potatoes to go along with this, peel potatoes, chop them, put a little water, season them, and then mash them. Cook it for seven minutes in an instant pot.

This is what a portion of the casserole looks like, served with the potatoes.

5. Spaghetti with garlic toast

For the sauce, dice up carrots, onions, bell peppers, and basically any other vegetables. It comes out delicious. Serve with garlic toast.

6. Frito taco pies

Prepare taco mixture in an instant pot with some ground beef, taco seasoning, onion, garlic, and half a can of tomato sauce. Serve over fritos with some cheese on top.

7. Simple soup

Finally, on Saturday, I made soup with rice. 

Meals for large families on a budget

These are the meals I cooked for my family this week, and I hope that these gave you some inspiration for budget meals for large families.

What are your favorite budget-friendly meals? What do you love cooking for your family? Make sure to leave a comment below!