Cut Down Your Budget With Frugal Dishes

It’s that time of the year again where we spent too much on Christmas gifts and try to make up for it from now until spring by saving money elsewhere. One place that you can quickly and easily save some cash is food. But how? frugal recipes to the rescue. Once you’ve mastered the art of frugal cooking, you can easily slim down your grocery budget whenever you need to. Let’s start with some frugal staples like:

• bread
• potatoes
• pinto beans
• black beans
• crackers
• rice

Keep as many of these ingredients as possible in your pantry and use them as fillers for meals or as quick and easy snacks. Cook up a few potatoes or a few cups of rice to stretch your main course. If you have just a small amount of meat leftover from a different meal, turn it into a casserole by adding some rice and beans and top it with some crumbled crackers. Instead of buying “cream of”… type soups to make your casserole, make your own out of butter, flour, water and some seasonings. A little dash of chicken bullion turns this simple white sauce into cream of chicken soup.

You don’t need to cook meat each night. Experiment with some beans or lentils instead. They are inexpensive, healthy and a great source of protein. You can also combine small amounts of meat and then get the bulk of your protein from beans. Good examples of this are chili and pork and beans. I use less than a half a pound of ground beef or ham each time I make these two dishes and then use plenty of beans to turn them into delicious and hardy meals.

Soups are another great way to cook frugally. Almost any leftovers can be turned into some sort of soup. I usually start with a chopped onion and any other raw vegetables I have, then I add various leftovers including meats, vegetables, rice, noodles etc. If it still doesn’t look like a filling enough meal, you can either add a can or two of vegetables or beans, or just add a homemade bread, some muffins or a dessert to complete dinner.

Don’t forget to visit my blog for more frugal tips. On Mondays’ you’ll find my frugal challenges there. They are fun ideas to help you spend less and make more with what you’ve got. Just get started and before you know it, you’ll be cooking on the cheap all the time.