Welcome back! Pull up a chair and let’s chat about one of my favorite things – food! We are at the point in the year where we are between holidays, trying to spread holiday cheer and buy Christmas gifts all the while the budget is getting a little tight. This week I want to bring you a few meal ideas on a budget because let’s face it, meals on a budget don’t have to taste like it.
Egg Roll Bowl
Let’s start with one of my family’s favorites – Egg Roll Bowl! This is a simple dish that doesn’t take a bunch of time and you can change it up to fit what your family likes.
You will need:
• A head of cabbage (or you could get a few bags of cole slaw mix)
• Meat of your choice but we like either ground pork, shrimp or chicken
• About 1 ½ cups shredded carrots
• 1 large onion diced
• 1/3 – 1/2 cup soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons sesame oil
• 3 cloves garlic freshly minced
• some ginger paste.
Here is your budget for this meal – cabbage is around $2 each, your meat is an average of $7, shredded carrots are about $2, an onion is about $.50, soy sauce is about $2, garlic is about $.50 and ginger paste is about $3, bringing your meal total to $17! Add a box of boil-n-bag Jasmin rice for $2 per box and dinner is still less that 20 bucks!
Start by putting 1 tablespoon of your sesame oil in the pan and heating pan to medium high heat. Add your onion and let simmer for 3 minutes then add garlic, ginger and meat. Cook until your meat is cooked through and then remove that mixture from that pan.
Next add your other tablespoon of sesame oil to the pan followed by the cabbage and shredded carrot then sauté for 5-8 minutes until tender. Now add back the onion and meat mix to the pan along with the soy sauce and mix well. You can serve this by itself or over rice or rice noodles, with egg rolls or pot stickers.
Crack Chicken
Now let’s move on to another family favorite and longtime go-to meal – crack chicken. This is a recipe I use my Instant Pot for, but if you don’t have one no worries I’ve got you covered.
For this recipe you will need:
• 6-8 boneless skinless chicken breasts
• 8 – 8 ½ ounces of cream cheese softened
• 1 pack of bacon
• 1 pack of dry ranch seasoning
• ½ -¾ cup of shredded mozzarella cheese (if you like things really cheesy).
If you have an Instant pot put your chicken breasts in with 1 cup of water and cook for 30 minutes on the meat setting. If you don’t have an Instant Pot you can boil your chicken breasts – the point is to get the chicken shredable.
While your chicken is cooking you will need to cook the bacon. You can do this in a skillet, under the broiler or in an air fryer – another fun kitchen tool we will discuss later. Once the bacon is done crumble it and set aside. Once the chicken is done, pull it out of the water and place in a bowl to shred.
Once the chicken is shredded add the cream cheese and ranch seasoning and mix well. You can then fold in the bacon and mozzarella cheese and voila, you have crack chicken! So, I typically serve these on a Kaiser bun or sesame seed bun with sweet potato fries but you can serve this many ways. You can serve this as a dip with crackers, put it in a tortilla or wrap then roll it up and slice and serve as pinwheel appetizers, put on mini buns and serve as sliders – there are tons of options!
So let’s look at how this meal measures up on a budget – chicken is roughly $7, cream cheese is about $1, the mozzerella is about $3 a bag, bacon is about $4, and dry ranch is about $.50/packet bringing the total for the crack chicken to $15.50. A pack of buns is about $3 and a bag of sweet potato fries are about $3 bringing your meal total to $21.50 – that’s dinner for your family for under $25!!
These are just a couple options for easy meals on a budget, with options on options to change things up. Cater these meals to your family and what they like – try adding green onions to the crack chicken or on top of the egg roll bowl, or serve these as appetizers in wonton cups, like I always say the options are endless.
To make wonton cups just take wonton wrappers and put them down in a muffin pan, brush with a little melted butter and bake on 350 for 7 minutes. I hope I have inspired you to get in your own kitchen and cook outside the box, and as always I am sending love from my kitchen to yours!
