6 Meal-Prep Dinners For Under $20 | Allrecipes

Right here in front of me are my dinners for Monday through Friday in my busy household. Each one of these meals is less than $20. I'm gonna show you just how easy it is to prep and this is going to save your life. My theory is you're not really saving time if you're gonna spend 10 hours prepping all these meals when you could just spend two hours every night. I've got it down to where minimal to no pre-cooking is required. We can prep a week's worth of meals in just a couple hours. First up, Greek-style turkey meatballs with green beans and tomatoes. This dinner is gonna be served with pita bread and a little tzatziki-inspired dip. Y'all, this is so good. This is the only meal that requires a tad bit of pre-cooking, but it's easy and it's worth it. Keeping with the $20 or under, this is the only stuff you need to buy at the store from our pantry. We'll use some breadcrumbs, some dried spices, an egg. Surely you keep those things on hand, right? We'll start by chopping some onion. I'm also adding some freshly chopped parsley. Y'all, this is an herb you just need to keep on hand. It's about a dollar a bunch and you can add it to your meals throughout the week just to brighten them up and add some freshness. And I'm only using about like 25 cents worth of that bunch, so I've got more to use throughout the week. Into the bowl goes my half a cup of finely chopped onions and about three tablespoons of chopped parsley. Next I'll add two eggs, two cloves of garlic, and half a teaspoon of dried oregano. I'm also gonna add in some lemon zest. I'm gonna save the lemon juice for our sauce later. Lemons are another great inexpensive way to brighten up a dish. And then I'll stir in some feta and add our two pounds of ground turkey and season this with salt and pepper. Mix this together and then we'll stir in a half a cup of seasoned breadcrumbs. Super easy, now we're just gonna form them into meatballs. I like to wet my hands a little bit. It keeps the meat from sticking to your hands. And roll away. This is just a good tip to do with regular meatballs that you're gonna put in your spaghetti sauce. Prepping them this way and then you always have meatballs on hand in your freezer. She's smart. I chose ground turkey for this meal because it's just a little less expensive than ground beef. You can get these two pounds. Sometimes they come in three pound packages for about 10 bucks. This two pounds is gonna yield you about 20 meatballs. So this would easily serve my family of five. All of these meals will serve about four to six people. So it's just a good deal. If you have less people than that in your family, then consider yourself lucky with leftovers. Bang, ba-bang, bang, bang. You could freeze them in their raw state but the whole point of meal prep is to save you time down the road. So we are going to par cook these for about eight to 10 minutes at 425 degrees. They're gonna be golden brown on the outside, mostly cooked through when we go to have dinner later in the week. It's gonna be super easy to cook. While our meatballs cook, we're gonna prep our other main ingredient for our dinner and that's green beans. Did you know you can freeze fresh green beans just like this? You don't even have to blanch them first. A lot of times with vegetables, in order to freeze them you have to blanch them which means you have to boil them in water first and then shock them in cold water, then dry them off, then freeze them. You don't have to do that. So I've washed my green beans, I'm just trimming off the ends. Now is the time, if you haven't already, to subscribe to All Recipes and leave me a comment on what you like to see or what you're hoping to learn how to cook. We'll get them as dry as we can before we freeze them. They have enough water within the green beans to retain in the freezer so we don't need to add more. Now just pop them in our bag. And then we'll whip up a little sauce to serve this with. I just picked up a one cup serving plain Greek yogurt. To that I'm going to add in some of that lemon zest and lemon juice that we have left and a little bit of dried dill. I love fresh dill but in an effort to save a little money here, I'm just gonna use this. Probably doesn't get enough use in our spice cabinet anyway. And this is one of the dried herbs that I really think tastes close enough to the real thing. Oh yeah, it's gonna be perfect. These look so good. They're mostly cooked through at this point. Once your meatballs have cooled completely, we're just gonna pop them into our Ziploc bag with our green beans and put them in the freezer. It's just that easy. This meal kit is ready to go. When it comes time for dinner with these meatballs, dump it all out onto your sheet tray. Add in a pint of tomatoes. Toss it with a little olive oil, salt and pepper. And then we're just gonna roast this at 425 degrees for about 20 minutes. Dinner's soon. This to me is probably the most perfect meal ever. Okay, I've got the pita bread which I have just grilled a little bit. Got our sauce we made. And then on the plate goes all your veggies and meatballs. Perfect bites all around. Look at that good meatball. This is a meal that makes mama happy. I just love it. And this one really made me happy on a Monday night when I didn't really have to cook. You know what I mean? Our next freezer meal is lasagna. Now most lasagnas require you to make the meat sauce ahead, layer it, even bake it before you freeze it. Not today, folks. The shortcut here is frozen ravioli and I have chosen a beef-filled ravioli so that I can still get that meatiness that we would normally have in a meaty lasagna. You could use spinach ravioli or just cheese ravioli, whatever you want. We're just gonna layer it up in our baking dish and pop this in the freezer. Be sure that your baking dish is freezer safe. Most heavy glassware is, but you could also use an aluminum pan. That will make your cooking and your cleanup super easy. I'll start by making a ricotta and spinach filling. We're adding a little nutrition here for not a lot of money. We're starting with just a box of frozen spinach. This is about a dollar. Ball it up and squeeze out all the juice. To this, I'm going to add a 15 ounce container of ricotta cheese, a little salt, pepper, and garlic powder, and one egg to bring it all together. And that's the most work you have to do for this dish. Just gonna lightly spray the sides of my pan. Now we just layer it up, starting with about half a jar of your sauce. If you wanna make your own sauce for this, if you wanna go through those extra steps, you do you. Don't say I didn't warn you. In goes our ravioli. I'm gonna place them pretty close together because we like our pasta. And then finally, top it with some mozzarella. I'm gonna cover this in foil, but first I like to put a layer of parchment over the top so our foil doesn't stick to the cheese when we go to bake it. You could also just spray your foil with nonstick cooking spray. Set that on top and cover with foil. That was easy. Here's one I have already frozen. Now you can cook this from its frozen state. It's obviously going to take quite a while, but look, you just pop it in when the kids get home from school and a couple hours, you've got dinner. Or you can thaw it out a day or two before and then it's not gonna take as long to cook. This one is mostly still frozen. I'm going to cook it covered for at least an hour at 350 and then we'll uncover it until it's good and bubbly. And done. Lasagna. I'm still in awe of this lasagna because we did no pre-cooking. If this tastes as good as it looks, we're in for a treat. The spinach makes you think it's healthy. What is a meal prep episode if you don't have something to throw in your slow cooker? I'm making Italian beef, the easiest Italian beef you've ever had. I'm starting with a chuck roast. This is about $20. Well, wait, Nicole, you said the whole meal was gonna be $20 or less. I didn't lie to you because this is going to make two dinners, two for the price of one. $20, make your holla. And like I said before, no pre-cooking required. I'm gonna take this chuck roast and cut it into about five pieces and pop it into our Ziploc bag. To the meat, I'm gonna add a 16-ounce jar of pepperoncini peppers. For our cooking liquid, I'm gonna add about a quarter cup of our juice from our pepperoncinis, a packet of dried Italian dressing salad, Italian dressing salad, Italian salad, Italian dressing mix, and a couple tablespoons of olive oil. All right, we're gonna get everything happy and together in here. And we need to get out as much air from the bag as possible. So here's a little trick I learned. Get it closed most of the way, pop a straw in. Now look, I'm not trying to suck up any raw meat juice, okay, just the air. Lay it in your freezer flat to save space and for easier thawing. Here's my frozen, partially thawed, if you've pulled it out the night before and just left it in your fridge, it's gonna be workable to where at this point, all you have to do, put it in your slow cooker on low for pretty much the whole day, eight hours or so till it's falling apart. If you don't have that much time, you can do it on high for half the time. Locked and loaded. It's time for that Italian beef. Oh, wait till you see this meat. As promised, we're gonna get two dinners out of this. First, Italian beef sandwiches, of course. It's always a good idea to add some of those peppers. That is a hearty dinner. Before I give you meal number two, let's just taste how tender this is. It's like butter, melts in your mouth. When you've got your leftover Italian beef, I want you to add about a quarter cup of that cooking liquid to it and you're gonna save this for the day you want a comforting, hearty bowl of pasta. These are your leftovers that are gonna create the most perfect, delicious tomato sauce. Once you do this, you will do this every time you make a pot roast. Whenever you're ready to cook it, you're just gonna add it to a pot, stir in a can of crushed tomatoes, a six ounce can of tomato paste, and about a cup of water. I'm gonna add a half a teaspoon of basil and let this simmer. Actually, make that a cup and a half to two cups of water. Just whatever you want the consistency of your tomato sauce to be. The amount of leftover meat you have is gonna vary, so you're gonna need to taste it for seasoning before you add salt and pepper. This really is the secret to making a fast pasta sauce that tastes like it's been simmering all day. If you've learned one thing from this episode, let it be this. It's as good as the sauce I make every Sunday, telling you. Next up is a slow cooker meal that is anything but boring. It's my Thai chicken curry. This comes together in just a matter of seconds using a combination of a few store-bought items with some stuff you probably have on hand in your pantry. I'm gonna start by chopping up some veggies. Little bit goes a long way here, so this is how I keep the cost of this meal down. Got one sweet potato, one bell pepper, and one onion. To our veggies, I'm gonna add a can of chickpeas that we have drained and rinsed. Add your protein without adding an expensive meat. Next, I'm gonna cut up my chicken. I'm using a pound of chicken breast because they happen to be on sale. You could also use chicken thighs here. Now we're just gonna make a delicious curry sauce to pour over our meat and veggies. Starts with a little coconut milk. To that, I'm gonna add two tablespoons of red curry paste. This is gonna add a kick to it, but it's not gonna be overwhelming, but if you don't want that much spice, just cut this in half. And then I'm gonna add three tablespoons of creamy peanut butter. Next, I'm gonna add two tablespoons of brown sugar and the juice of two limes. Finally, I'm gonna add in a half a teaspoon of dried ginger, dried garlic, and some salt. Whisk it together. Simply pour this into our bag. You wanna freeze this flat in your freezer so it doesn't take up so much space and it's easier to thaw out later. It's also helpful to label your bags with whatever else you need to add to it and what to cook it on. When it comes time to cook our curry, if you remember the day before and just kinda put it in the fridge overnight, it'll partially thaw to where it makes it easier to dump it to your slow cooker. Pop the lid on. This is going on high for four hours. To round out this meal, I'm also cooking rice. If you are not freezing your rice, you're missing out. Anytime I cook rice for my family, I make twice as much as I need and freeze the rest. This makes dinner time so easy when I can't think of another side to have with whatever we're eating. There's always rice in the freezer. And it is way cheaper to make your own rice than to buy those pre-cooked bags of rice. You'll cook rice just how you normally do and then you are going to lay it out on a sheet tray and let it cool completely before we bag it up. Once your rice has cooled completely, you'll pop it in a Ziploc bag in whatever kind of portions y'all like. This'll be great for three or four servings. And then just thaw, heat, and eat. The easiest way I have found to reheat your rice is to just do this in the microwave. So we're gonna just break it up into a bowl. If it feels kinda dry to you, you can add in a couple tablespoons of water. Cover it in plastic. Pop it in the microwave for about a minute. You might need to stir it. Add in another 30 seconds or so. The residual moisture that's on the rice is going to steam. It's gonna be perfect. Hot and steamy rice is the perfect vessel for this curry. For a finishing touch, if you have a couple dollars to spare, you can top it with some optional ingredients. I'm gonna do some cilantro. You could also do some green onion or peanuts or a combination of all of it. This is sit-down restaurant quality for fast food prices. Look at that perfect bite. This is one you're gonna wanna add to your weekly rotation. It's getting cold outside. Let's round out this meal prep with a good, cozy, hearty stew. I'm making Brunswick stew. This could not be easier. You can cook this in your Instant Pot, in your slow cooker, or just on your stovetop. So easy. We're gonna start by chopping up an onion. We'll add our onion and garlic to a bag. Then we're gonna toss in frozen corn and frozen lima beans. These are classic to a Brunswick stew. Now we're gonna add in our meat. I'm doing a combination of chicken thighs and boneless pork chops. Any pork that you would use for barbecue works fine here. You could also use pre-cooked chicken and pork and toss it in. This is gonna cut down your cook time down the road. We're on a budget today, so I chose some inexpensive cuts here. I'm gonna leave these in pretty large portions and then as it cooks, it'll shred up nice and easy. I'm gonna season this up with a teaspoon of salt and a half a teaspoon of pepper. Finally, I'm adding in a cup of a smoky barbecue sauce and some crushed tomatoes. We're gonna freeze all this together and then when we go to cook it, that's when we'll stir in our chicken stock. We don't wanna add this part to the freezer. It's just gonna freeze into an ice cube. Here's the one I have frozen and it's mostly thawed out. You can notice when I labeled it, I went ahead and added the instructions to add the one quart of chicken stock, just in case I forget. For this one, I'm gonna put it in a pot on my stovetop, get those good smells roaming the halls. If you're doing this on the stovetop, you can add the quart of chicken stock, but if you're doing it in the slow cooker, add only about half that quart. Our soup is cooked. It smells so good. I'm gonna pull out some of these big chunks of meat and shred them with a fork. You could also do it right here in the pot and then just add it back into your pot. Let's get cozy. You might even have a little budget to spare for some rolls or garlic bread or a salad. That's good soup. You will definitely be thanking yourself when you take time to prep these meals and your wallet will thank you as well. I hope you'll give one of these meals a try and let me know when you do. In the meantime, when it comes to prepping for a week's worth of meals for 100 bucks, you can cook that. Pat the baby.