While it’s always important to choose high nutrition foods for you and your family to ensure optimal health, sometimes your budget just won’t budge for the healthiest ingredients.
Sometimes, eating healthy simply means making healthier choices than you would usually make.
To help keep your grocery costs down, try buying healthy ingredients that can be used for multiple meals. These 4 simple ingredients can be incorporated into many delicious dinners:
Roasted Chicken
Have you ever stood in the grocery store, mesmerized by the crispy rotating chickens as they glisten and spin in that vertical oven?
It’s like a Ferris wheel of deliciousness.
There’s so much you can do with that tasty little chicken. You can simply eat the meat, make sandwiches or try one of these recipes:
Chicken Casserole
Casseroles always make for a quick and hearty meal for the whole family. This one is made with chicken, pasta and a creamy cheese sauce.
Visit the recipe at Spend With Pennies.
Chicken Stock
Even if you’ve used up all the meat you can off the roasted chicken, you can use the carcass to make a versatile chicken stock. Chicken stock is great to have on hand for soups and risottos.
Simply Recipes offers two methods of creating a chicken stock.
Black Beans
Black beans are a protein powerhouse without having to resort to expensive meats. To save money on your grocery bill, try to incorporate at least one black bean recipe a week into your meal plan.
Stew
There’s no rules when it comes to stew, but the recipe I found is vegetarian and uses fresh orange juice to give it a little zing!
Here’s the recipe at The Harvest Kitchen.
Chili
Just like casseroles, chili is easy to throw together and makes for a warm, filling meal. If you have a crock pot or slow cooker, this is the perfect dish to brew throughout the day.
Budget Bytes has this super easy chili using black beans.
Rice
If you’re anything like me, you always make too much rice. The good news is that you can either freeze it for later meals or repurpose it into these delicious dishes:
Rice Salad
Stir fry seems to be the first thing that comes to mind when using leftover rice, but you can use rice to make a delicious salad using dressing, fresh herbs and diced vegetables.
Check out this rice salad recipe from The Spruce Eats.
Rice Pudding
If you want to make something sweet and savory, you can use leftover rice to make rice pudding. Simply add raisins and vanilla extract for a delicious dessert.
All Recipes has a great rice pudding recipe here.
Pasta Sauce
More often than not, you can get a really good deal on a jar of pasta sauce. While you can certainly dump it onto a pot of freshly cooked spaghetti, you can also use this versatile ingredient in a number of delicious dishes:
Spanish Rice
Still have some of that leftover rice? You can combine it with garlic, onion and pasta sauce to make a feisty Spanish rice.
Food.com has this Spanish rice recipe that uses tomato sauce.
Sloppy Joes
Nothing fills up your belly and warms your soul like a good old Sloppy Joe. Ground beef is cooked up with pasta sauce, onion and bell pepper before being served on large fluffy rolls.
Whole Foods Market has this recipe for shortcut sloppy joes.
Spaghetti Frittata
If you already went ahead and made spaghetti with that jar of pasta sauce, you can even use the leftover spaghetti too! Toss it is some egg and cheese and you have a delicious spaghetti frittata.
Check out this frittata recipe from Ciao Florentina.
How often do you have these ingredients on hand? What are your favorite meals to make?
