7 Cheap Family Dinner Meals – With Shopping List!

If you are stuck for ‘What to make for dinner tonight’ – then fear no more!  

Here’s a free weekly meal plan that has simple family recipes that are cheap to make – and totes delicious! It’s our Cheap Family Dinner Meal Plan with Shopping List (at the bottom!).

Meal 1:  Homemade Pizza

Making a delicious homemade pizza is easy – if you have the time to make the pizza dough in advance.  The good thing about this recipe is that it is super cheap to make – and you can freeze the dough so on nights that you need to make it in a hurry, you can just unwrap the dough, defrost, roll it out and you are done! So I highly recommend that you make a huge batch on the weekends and then freeze individual balls for later!

Grab the recipe HERE!

Meal 2: Old Fashioned Pastie Slab

You can pick up sausage meat in the meat section of your local supermarket.  Most of the time you can pick up at 250 gram pack for about $2 – $2.50 – so pretty cheap!  You don’t need to use the vegetables specified in this recipe – you can pretty much use whatever you want – just make sure you steam them first in the microwave so they cook through first.

Grab the recipe HERE!

Meal 3: Cheesy Chicken and Broccoli and Rice

This is a good weeknight dinner because it’s easy to put together – plus who doesn’t love a good pasta dish!

Grab the recipe HERE!

Meal 4: Homemade Chicken and Apple Croquettes

When you make this mixture, you make them really small (homemade chicken nuggets) – you can make them medium sized (croquettes) – or you can even make them into chicken burgers and serve them on a roll with lettuce and tomato.  Plus you can use either fresh chicken or chicken mince depending on what you have on hand!

Grab the recipe HERE!

Meal 5: Tuna Mornay

Remember Tuna Mornay from when you were a kid?  Have you forgotten how good Tuna Mornay was?  Tinned tuna is so cheap and very versatile – it’s always good to have some on hand!

Grab the recipe HERE!

Meal 6: Chicken Rice Casserole

This recipe is a good way to use up leftover cooked chicken.  It doesn’t really matter how much or how little chicken you have because you can bulk out the recipe with veggies and cheese!

Grab the recipe HERE!

Meal 7: Baked Stuffed Sweet Potato

This is a good recipe for ‘Meat Free Monday’.  Sweet Potatoes are cheap to buy and are delicious and filling.  If you don’t have tinned beans, you can always use baked beans which go perfectly with sweet potato.

Grab the recipe HERE!

Shopping List:

Here is a list of all the items you will need to make all seven recipes above!

Meat:

• Cooked Chicken (2 cups)
• Chicken Mince (200 grams)
• Chicken Breast (500 grams)
• Tin of Tuna (425 grams)
• Sausages Mince (250 grams)

Dairy & Frozen:

• Sour Cream (250 grams)
• Butter (1/2 cup)
• Cream (1/2 cup)
• Milk (3/4 cup)
• Cheddar Cheese (4 cups grated)
• Egg (2)
• Puff Pastry (2 sheets)

Vegetables:

• Sweet Potatoes x 4
• Potatoes (2)
• Carrots (2)
• Minced Garlic (4 teaspoons)
• Lemon (1)
• Cabbage (2 cups shredded)
• Brown Onion (4)
• Cannelloni Beans (1 tin)
• Broccoli (2)
• Red Capsicum (1/2)
• Granny Smith Apples (1)
• Mixed Frozen Vegetables (1 cup)

Pantry Items:

• Chicken Stock (4 cups)
• Jasmine Rice (3 cups)
• Cornflakes (2 cups)
• Cream of Chicken Soup (1 can)
• Plain Flour (500 grams)
• Worcestershire Sauce (1 teaspoon)
• Breadcrumbs (2 tablespoons)
• Dry Yeast (3 teaspoons)
• Sugar (3 teaspoons)
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil (4 tablespoons)

You’re welcome!