Need cheap recipes for large family

Chicken breasts, salsa, taco seasoning. Put it in a crockpot and let go all day. Make as much as you want. I have a family of four. I use 2 jars of store brand salsa (2 for $3), one or two packs of taco seasoning, depending on your tastes. Can add black beans as well. The ratio of all of the above really just depends on what your personal preference is. Sometimes I take (99 cents) flour tortillas, use a pizza cutter and cut in triangles, spray with a little pam, sprinkle with some of the taco seasoning and pop in oven to crisp up to go with it. Hope this helps!

5 lbs. of chicken breasts
28 oz. can diced tomatoes (I drain mine-recipe calls not to-too runny for me)
Jar of salsa (I use mild)

Put all ingredients together in crock pot and cook on high for about 3-4 hours. Shred chicken before serving. Put over a bed of spinach leaves or place in tortilla wraps. My family loves this. I make it every weekend. Quick, easy, inexpensive, healthy, and delicious.

Thanks for starting this thread. We're a family of 5 and I can't wait to get more ideas!

Had 4 teens with extra friends over and this was always a hit.

Boil one to two pounds of elbow macaroni (depending upon how many people/meals)

In a skillet brown I onion diced, one bell pepper diced, garlic if you like and 1 pound of hills hire farms or jenni-o sausage that is diced, in some olive oil to taste. Add any seasonings, salt, pepper, parsley etc., that you like.

Drain the pasta, add the vegie/sausage mixture, stir and serve.

Cheap, tasty and filling. You can make it with white pasta, whole wheat pasta, full fat sausage or turkey sausage. It filled up a lot of hungry teenagers at my house many a time.

Slow Cooker Pulled Pork

1 (2 pound) pork tenderloin
12 oz. can or bottled root beer (I know, not healthy but it really makes the difference! You can use the Zeevia brand-made with steevia but pricey)
18 oz. of your favorite BBQ sauce

Place tenderloin in crock pot. Pour root beer over the meat. Cover, cook on low about 6-7 hours. Pork should shred easily. Drain well! Stir in BBQ sauce. My husband loves this over a hamburger bun. The kids and I eat it by itself with a nice salad. Very tasty!

Been there before!

Buy a roasting hen and roast it. Set the neck and offals aside.

Take the meat off the carcass and submerge the carcass, neck, offals and drippings from the roasting pan in a deep pot. Simmer for 18-24 hours. You are making stock for a soup and skimming off a little for an enriched broth for a casserole.

The nice large pieces of breast meat, thighs, and drumsticks with roasted skin in-tack put on a platter with roasted vegetables. Prepare your family's favorite grain on the side. Make fat & flavor rich condiment for the veggies. Think of adding to...mayonaisse or sour cream or greek yogurt and combo thereof things like a pinch of salt + garlic + tumeric + cumin + ancho chili + pinch mint + .....

Package the lesser pieces of meat for a chicken pot pie wth top crust only. This top crust can be mashed yukon or sweet potatoes drizzled with melted butter and sprinkled with salt. Inside the pot pie might some leftover veggies with some fresh corn, peas or another legume, plus the usual celery, carrot, onion, mushrooms. For the broth combine leftover conditment with a cup of stock plus some powdered tapioca or cornstarch to thicken, then stir in tsp salt and 1/2 tsp ground pepper. Pour over the casserole dish before topping with your mashed vegetable mixture. In the autumn I combine mashed rutabaga with my mashed tubers. Don't forget the drizzle of butter and sprinkle of salt ontop of the mashed toppping!

For the Italian pasta fagioli soup: strain bones etc from the stock. Return the stock to stove and reduce by 1/3 to 1/2. Flavor your stock with garlic, bay leaf, oregano, savory, tumeric and a bit of salt. Add a can of rinsed & drained cannelli beans or fava beans. Add chopped celery, carrots, onions, a fair amount of diced tomatoes. Shortly before serving add chopped kale. To serve put some leftover grains into bowls and ladle soup on top and float a bruised basil leaf. Make garlic bread with a little melted mozzarella ontop.

No one will know that you are cooking on a shoestring!

I've been using beans and vegetables lately to bulk out the meat. 3 bean and beef chilli uses 500g pack of mince and 3 different tins of beans. Macaroni cheese using strong cheeses so you'll need less with butternut squash purée as the base of the sauce (both Ellie Krieger recipes). Also I've been using a large joint of meat to make 2 sometimes 3 meals - very economical. Check out the recipes online from Economy Gastromony' they're really good. Good luck!

I second buying a whole chicken for roasting- honestly the meat goes MUCH farther than a packet of chicken breasts. A large packet of minced beef can do 2 meals for 6 people, cook half the mince to use as a base for cottage pie, and the other half as spaghetti bolognese. Easy and cheap!

Another couple good web sites. Not all the recipes are healthy, but there are a lot of recipes on each that are.

http://www.keyingredient.com/

http://www.myrecipemagic.com/home/recipes

I've tried a number of recipes from both sites and have been pleased with all of t hem so far.

One bag of Light 'n' Fluffy Egg Noodles(about five bucks for a pound), four cans of Condensed Campbell's Cream Of Mushroom Soup(between four and six dollars), and some mushrooms(four bucks). Boil pasta, sautee mushrooms, heat soup with two cans of water for thich, creamy sauce. Mix the mushrooms in with the sauce and mix into drained pasta. For a side, 1lb of tomatoes, a package of spinach, and any other salad toppings that your family will like. Toss into a salad. This should be enough for one maybe even leftovers.

turkey goulash
turkey franks
turkey dinner sausage
turkey burgers
turkey sloppy joes
turkey spaghetti

I'm a big fan of Cooking Light magazine; here's a section they have on their website with their 25 best budget-friendly recipes. Hope this helps!

http://www.cookinglight.com/food/top-rated-recipes/best-budget-recipes-00412000074866/page28.html

HI!! We have a family of 7 here!! Crockpots are my best friend....I own and use all 3 of them lol I will agree 100% with purchasing a whole roasting chicken because you get a great amount of chicken off of it! If not, then this is what I do:

boneless/skinless chicken breast- I throw about 5lbs in my crockpot with a can of low sodium chicken broth, a chopped onion for flavor and some seasoning like paprika, cumin, garlic powder,etc. I leave it on for like 6 hours on low and drain it and then shred it up. You can always let it cool down, put it in freezer bags and toss in the freezer for later use.

pork loin- same as above and I use a 5lb pork loin (expensive here if not on sale). Or when drained, shred it and add BBQ sauce.

Wheat pasta, brown rice, lots of veggies, "Salad Night" (lots of lettuce and salad fixins), whole wheat tortillas for wraps, baked potatoes, "Breafast" for dinner. That's just off the top of my head lol

My teens love English muffin pizzas: I use Thomas' Whole Wheat English muffins, pasta sauce (low sodium if possible) otherwise I use salsa and of course low fat cheese.

Ever tried cooking a whole chicken in your crock? I cut up a carrot to act as a base to take the bird away from the direct heat of the crock. lay a whole chicken upside down on top of the carrots, don't add liquid and let it go on low for about 7/8 hours. Comes out a treat!

Veggies, lots and lots of veggies! Veggie burgers are cheap and if you find a good recipe they are also delicious. Veggie soup is cheap as chips. I cook a mean lamb shank (2 shanks only) and pearl barely soup which is cheap delicious and packed with veggies and can be done in a crock pot. If you make it the day before and put it in the fridge the fat sets on the top and you can take it off easily with a spoon.
http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/19683/lamb+vegetable+and+barley+soup
I don't know the age of your kids but if we are skint we have breakfast for dinner a night or two or have pancakes for dinner with stewed fruit (whatever is cheap and in season).
I am in Australia so I dont know how relevant this is but I always find shopping at the market cheaper than the supermarket for weeks when I have to make the dollar go further.

Bump!

I have a family of 6. Some of my favorites:

Lentil Soup

2 lbs dried generic lentils
2 cans diced tomatoes
2 lbs diced ham (I usually buy the small diced ham, but I've used lunch meat before too)
2 cans carrots

Sort & rinse lentils & cook boil in 16-20 cups of hot water. Add everything else, cover & slow boil for about 30-40 minutes until the lentils are soft. Serve with Jiffy cornbread ($0.60 a box around here). You'll need eggs & milk for the cornbread. We can eat this for several days.

Chicken & Rice Casserole

3 lbs shredded chicken. I use boneless, skinless breasts when I have the money, but it's cheaper to buy the whole chickens (about $5 a piece at Wal-Mart) & take the meat off the bone after it's been cooked in the crockpot.
4 cups dry white rice (I use generic parboiled in a bag)
4 cans generic cream of chicken soup
A couple of bags of your favorite frozen vegetables--I use peas & carrots & corn, but you could use broccoli or a stir fry mix.

Cook the rice, mix in the soup, shredded chicken, & veges. Sometimes I put this in a cake pan & bake it in the oven, other times I just mix it up in my huge pot until it's warm. We can also eat this for several days.

Nachos (this is a little more expensive because of the chips & cheese)

5 lb roll of ground beef from Wal-mart
6 packets of McCormick Cheesy Taco seasoning mix
2 cans black beans (drained & rinsed)
2 lbs of frozen corn
2.5-3 cups of white rice
2 cups of milk

Cook, drain, & rinse the hamburger. Put it back into a large (huge) pot & add the cheesy taco seasoning with however much water the package recommends & 2 cups of milk (the directions say to use more milk but I can't tell the difference in flavor & milk is expensive), add the rice & the water you need to cook it, add the bean. Cover it & cook it up until the rice is done then add the frozen corn.

Serve it over tortilla chips with cheddar cheese. You could also make your own tortillas & eat it as burritos for cheaper. We eat this for several days too. I like to just make a big pot of something & eat it until it's gone. I don't like to cook.