10 budget-friendly dinner ideas

with full cost breakdowns for each recipe!

Caroline Chambers and Molly from What To Cook

Apr 28, 2025

Grocery bills AIN’T WHAT THEY USED TO BE! According to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. food prices increased 23.6 precent between 2020 and 2024. They remain high, and, with tariffs on the horizon, who the heck knows what’s ahead.

CBS News’s price tracker reports that between 2019 and March 2025, egg prices increased 303% (!!); steak prices increased 46%; rice, 37%; chicken breast, 36%; and potatoes, 26%.

I write WTC recipes with efficiency, flavor, nutrient diversity, ingredient availability, and creativity top of mind — but budget accessibility is always in the back of my mind, too, and we cross-reference ingredient prices across the country before publishing, ensuring that there are great swap options for pricier ingredients. Grocery prices are a big reason why we provide such thorough notes and substitutions for each and every recipe.

When you get each Saturday’s email, I want you to look at the recipe, read through all the notes and subs, and shop your freezer and pantry before you even think about adding the ingredients to a grocery list.

If I’ve called for parsley but you have a bunch of basil on the verge of dying in your fridge (or growing in your backyard), SWAP IT! If I send you a farro-tto recipe and you’re out of farro but have a bag of brown rice in your pantry, SWAP IT. If you get to your grocery store and Boursin or pistachios or another ingredient on your list is insanely expensive, read the subs and swap. it. out.

Just like everyone here has different taste preferences, cooking skills, and dietary restrictions, we’re all cooking with different budgets, too! My goal with sending such detailed emails is to help you feel confident enough in the kitchen to tweak, swap, sub, and omit with abandon to make these recipes work for YOU. Any swap we send is a genuinely delicious, perfectly good swap, not just an “in case of emergency” swap!

In addition to using what you’ve got, here are a few more tips to help cut grocery costs:

Skip the shortcut ingredients. When there’s a store-bought option that’ll save you chopping time and effort — like bagged shredded coleslaw, pre-chopped kale, or pre-cubed butternut squash — I’ll often call for that in the ingredient list. But you are 100% paying for convenience! Do your own chopping to save money instead.
Buy in bulk. Places like Costco and Sam’s Club offer lower prices than standard grocery stores, but the food is often packaged in larger quantities so you may end up with more than you need for one recipe. But you can always…
Use your freezer! Stocking your freezer with raw protein is such a good way to cut grocery costs over the course of a month and year. It allows you to shop sales — if there’s a big sale on chicken breasts or pork tenderloins at the store, buy 2 or 3 packs and freeze 1 or 2 of them for future meals. You can also, of course, freeze leftover cooked meals for future you. Having cooked rice, meatballs, soups, and more in my freezer helps me avoid ordering take out on days when I absolutely cannot cook. You can also freeze greens like spinach and kale to throw into soups or smoothies later!
Repeat meals/use a meal plan. A few years ago I introduced the concept of The Menu — a solution to meal planning that I use in my own house that truly helps me cook when I do not feel like cooking. The gist of The Menu is to not reinvent the wheel every week. Find a handful of meals that reliably work for your family and cycle through them weekly until you’re tired of them! This lets you pull from the same spices and pantry staples until they’re empty vs. buying new ones each week. When I have less on my plate one day, I know I will mix it up more — there will be a time when I’m excited to map out unique meal plans each week! But for now, The Menu works best. Alternatively, I know that a lot of people take a monthly approach to meal planning with success. Or you could use one of our 5-day really simple meal plans — we work ingredient overlap (and batch cooking) into those as much as possible.
Keep an organized, well-stocked pantry and fridge. If you’ve ever stayed at a rental house equipped with zero pantry staples, you know how quickly ingredients like olive oil, spices, and vinegars can add up. They’re expensive up front, yet their price per use is actually super low. When your pantry is well stocked — and organized, so you avoid buying duplicates — you typically just need fresh protein and veg to cook a delicious meal.
Eat more vegetarian meals. Tofu and beans are a lot cheaper than steak and chicken! Find vegetarian ideas in the index, or there’s a vegetarian swap in the notes section below every single recipe.
Use in-season locally grown produce. In-season local produce is less expensive (and more nutritious, and tastier) than out-of-season, imported produce. You can also use frozen vegetables, which, like frozen seafood, are packaged at peak freshness.
Keep some great use-what-you’ve-got meals in your back pocket. Here are a few WTC recipes that are so, so customizable — they can help you turn those odds and ends in your fridge and pantry into a gorgeous, flavorful, home-cooked meal. Use whatever vegetables are about to go bad in your fridge, whatever grain you have, and whatever protein you can dig out of your freezer (or a can of beans!) to make…
- 20-minute summer sauté — When the weather’s warm, this is my go-to meal when I think I have nothing to cook.
- Flautas — You can turn pretty much any meat/bean + veg into flautas. Same with quesadillas, another favorite clean-out-the-fridge meal in my house. You don’t need the chipotle peppers here if you don’t have any — swap that with sriracha or any hot sauce you’ve got. The toppings are delicious but also optional!
- Beef bulgogi bowls — If you cook WTC meals often, this is a good one for you. It pulls in a few ingredients you likely have lingering in the fridge, like kimchi and gochujang. You’re also invited to dumpster dive (AKA dig through the pantry and fridge) for whatever toppings you’ve got!

The protein is often the most expensive part of a meal. In general, plant-based protein is more budget friendly than animal protein — tofu is ~$3 for a 16-ounce block, and a can of chickpeas or black beans is ~$1!

As for meat, there’s a ton of price variability, like whether you’re buying conventional or organic, and where you’re shopping. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics1, here are some of the most budget-friendly meat options right now (prices noted are average prices in the Midwest as of March 2025 — they’re going to vary some based on where you live and shop):

Bone-in chicken legs/drumsticks ($1.80/pound)
Whole chicken ($2.06/pound)
Large cuts of pork (like pork loin/pork shoulder/picnic pork) ($3.73/pound)
Pork chops ($4.34/pound)
Ground beef ($5.79/pound — the cheapest beef option)
Canned tuna (~$1.50/5-ounce can2 — the cheapest seafood option)

Again, we try to make all WTC meals accessible by providing notes, swap suggestions, and permission to riff, tweak, and omit as needed!

That said, here are 10 What to Cook recipes, that, as written, cost less than $3 per serving!

We have run the numbers and included an APPROXIMATE price3 for how much the recipe would cost per serving, assuming you already have the pantry staples. In other words — if a recipe calls for 2 tablespoons of brown sugar, we’re including the price for that amount, not for the whole bag of sugar!