Cheap Dinner Ideas: One-Pot Hot Dog Pasta & Easy Chocolate Pie

Ingredients:

• Hot dogs
• Pasta
• Chocolate pie filling
• Milk
• Pie crust
• Butter
• Garlic
• Garlic powder
• Grated parmesan cheese
• Parsley
• Salt
• Cracked pepper

1. Cut and sear hot dogs

Start with cutting your hot dogs and searing them in a pan. This will caramelize the hot dogs and give them a deeper flavor.

Hot dogs are precooked so it would be okay to cut them up, throw them in with the noodles, and let them warm up. However, if you want to do an excellent job on this cheap dinner idea, searing the hot dogs will make the dish taste so much better.

2. Prepare dessert

While our pasta water is boiling and the hot dogs are browning, the other thing I'm making is an easy chocolate pie recipe. We picked these ingredients up on sale for about $1.40, and you can make a whole pie with them.

In a bowl whisk milk with the chocolate pie filling and pour it into the pie crust. The pie should be set up in 5 minutes. 

Tip: Buy milk in bags; it's way cheaper than buying a gallon. A special pitcher is provided, and you roll the bag down and tuck it into the pitcher's corner.

3. Cook the noodles

Back to our main course. Add the noodles to your boiling water. These noodles only take about six minutes to cook. In fact, I'd probably do a little less because the trick to this recipe is to put them back in the pan with butter and garlic. 

Once cooked, drain them into a strainer.

4. Prepare garlic butter sauce

Put the heat down on the stove and add butter to the same pan you used for the pasta. Yes, butter is unhealthy, but it's the reason food tastes so good in restaurants. Add the garlic to the pan and let it brown.

Once the garlic has browned pour in the noodles. This is what’s going to take the noodles to the next level. You could just make some noodles and add butter without the garlic if you prefer.

5. Add flavor

It is now time to add some garlic powder, grated parmesan cheese, a little parsley, salt, and cracked black pepper. Stir and turn the heat on the stove way down. We're not trying to cook this anymore. Mix all that up. 

These alone will be the best noodles you have ever had! 

6. Add hot dogs to the pan of noodles

Next, add your seared hot dogs to the pan. 

7. Serve

It’s now time to plate up this one-pot hot dog pasta.

Here is the chocolate pie ready to be enjoyed.

One-pot hot dog pasta & easy chocolate pie

So there you have my one-pot hot dog pasta and easy chocolate pie recipe for your whole family to enjoy! Let me know what you think of these cheap dinner ideas in the comment below. Thanks for joining!