How to Make Tasty Dollar Tree Tuna Shells With Only 4 Ingredients

Jaime Bacon
by Jaime Bacon

Since Dollar Tree has hiked prices to over $1 an item, it can be tough to find great bargains to make nutritious and tasty meals. If you rely on Dollar Tree for some of your groceries, you understand. But in today's easy Dollar Tree meal, which is a tuna and pasta recipe, I take four items and create a simple 15-minute dish.

Tuna shells recipe

Ingredients:

I spent $5 on these four ingredients, which equals about $1.25 per serving if you feed four people. This makes a well-rounded meal with carbs from pasta, protein from tuna, plus veggies that include peas, corn, and green beans. It took 15 minutes to make.

  • 2 bags Knorr Garlic Shells
  • 1 can tuna
  • 1 can mixed veggies
Knorr pasta sides

I love Knorr pasta sides in these recipes because they are easily customizable and super delicious. There are so many different flavors. 

Canned tuna and chicken

You can get either tuna or chicken in a can for these recipes, but I chose tuna for this one.

Canned vegetables

I decided to go with the standard vegetable blend in a can.

Pasta instructions

1. Heat the water and milk

The back of the package instructs you to use 1½ cups of water, ½ cup of milk, and butter is optional.

Adding milk and water to a saucepan

I am making two bags so I poured in 3 cups of water and 1 cup of milk into a saucepan to boil. 

Draining canned vegetables

2. Drain the canned veggies

While the water and milk were boiling, I opened my cans of tuna and veggies and drained them.

Cooking the pasta

3. Cook the pasta

When the water and milk boil, add the two packages of pasta and stir. Let it simmer for 11 minutes, stirring occasionally. Don’t worry if you feel like you have too much liquid in the pot. It cooks down to make a creamy sauce.

Adding vegetables to the pasta

4. Add veggies

I added the drained veggies to the pot of cooked pasta and sauce.

Pasta shells and tuna salad recipe

5. Add tuna

Then I added the drained can of tuna and mixed it all together. 

Dollar tree meal

6. Heat and stir

I then heated it up for a couple of extra minutes while stirring. That was it! 

Dollar Tree tuna recipe

The result was delicious. I added a little extra salt, but the garlic flavor was excellent. 


This meal may not be enough for a full dinner for four. If you divide this into four servings, it’s only about 200 calories a serving. The average dinner, at least for me, should be between 400 and 600 calories.


Dollar Tree tuna recipe

You can enhance this recipe by adding an extra can of tuna to the pasta, making a side salad, or adding a basket of bread to round it out. Have you found any outstanding items for easy Dollar Tree recipes? Let us know below!

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