Healthy Family Meals when your broke & not a good cook?

I buy chicken breasts when they get to $1.99/lb and stock up. same for canned chicken when it goes 3/$5.

We eat a lot of stir fry - a little oil, veggies off choice (even sometimes a can of veg-all), and a can of chicken. Serve over rice. about 15 mins start to finish. (We also get things like peppers from the garden (or you can do it when they are in season and on sale) and slice them up in meal sized packages and freeze them so no prep work!) Sometimes we do pre-fab stir fry sauce (hubby likes it) though I prefer just a garlic sauce and maybe some lemon juice. This is great because you can make with whatever is in season, or use canned. and sometimes i add an egg or two.

Another great one we had a bit ago:
2 chicken breasts browned on the stove (or you can grill them), then cubed. Mix with a can of mushrooms (or fresh if you have them) and a bag of (defrosted) frozen broccoli. Add jar of alfedo sauce (or, a little harder, you can make your own garlic sauce) and serve over pasta. depending on the type of alfredo, it filled me up for about 450 cals and fed myself, hubby, and son (who's 3) then myself and my son for 2 more lunches. I imagine you can do the same thing with red sauce.

We did a similar one:
elbow noodles, grilled chicken cubed, red pasta sauce, some moz cheese (as little or much as you want), broccoli, diced tomatoes, garlic and a little oil. Cooked all but the cheese and noodles in a skillet. Cooked pasta. Mixed pasta and skillet. Add cheese and bake (I like it crispy - you could just add the cheese on the top the skillet and not turn on the oven)

I made stuffed peppers too for probably only $4-5 total and though I only had 4 peppers, the filling I ate alone for 3 additional lunches.

PS - I buy all my red meat and most of my pork on manager special ONLY, so sirloin for 3 will cost only $2-3.

Here is a relatively simple meal.

I am making this tonight: Simple, cheap and easy. Less than 500 cals for a generous size serving. (1/6th of the pan)

TALLARINI

Fry:

2 lb. ground meat
1 onion
1 green pepper
1 clove garlic

Add to fried mixture:

1 can tomatoes
1 can tomato sauce
1 can chopped black olives (I am omitting these)
1 can cream style corn
1/2 lb. Velveeta cheese, cubed
1 (10 oz.) pkg. egg noodles, cooked

Place noodles in bottom of large casserole dish. Cover with above mixture. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour.

3 of us- 250-300 grocery bill, prices have gone up recently...
99% fat free ground turkey
thin sliced chkn breat skinless
pork chops
tuna
ahi-tuna steaks (kinda spendy but great meal, one steak can be 2 for portion control)

whole wheat pasta
whole greain bread

frozen veggies-not canned
fresh veggies, head of lettuce, cherry tomatoes (snacks and for meals), red & green bell pepers, purplr onion, potatoes (baked and mashed),

refried black beans fat free
spanish rice

these are basic staples in my house, i can make about 4-5 meals from these, leftovers are my lunches at work...

We do buy lots of other stuff like canned mushrooms, asparagus, chopped chilies and other things to flavor the meals.

Dessert-skinny cow ice creams or slim a bear ice creams
fruit and whipped topping, lowest in fat and sugars
piece of dark chocolate

Good Luck!

I always look on line for recipies, easy recipies.....

Just another easy recipe that you can spice up with very little effort. Get a couple cans of chicken broth (or stock) and add in about 5 cups of diced potatoes (home diced or you can buy the bagged southern style hashbrowns in the freezer section). Then you add a packet of dry country gravy mix. And you have creamy potato soup. In order to spice this up a bit, i have added bacon, diced ham, onions, cheese, you name it. Made as above it is around 100 calories a serving. Added ham and cheese brings it up to about 250 calories, but well worth it in my opinion, and it only takes about 15 minutes on the stove...