10 Budget Dinners Under $10
I feed my family of six for $75 a week and nobody eats sad food. Babcia fed her family on kopeks during some of the leanest years in Poland, and she never served the same dish twice in a week. The frugality gene is real, and it’s alive in my kitchen. These 11 recipes all cost under $10 to feed our entire family — most are under $6. Budget cooking isn’t about eating boring food. It’s about being strategic: buying cheap ingredients, using them across multiple meals, and knowing the techniques that make affordable food taste expensive.
Polish Budget Classics
Authentic Pierogi (Potato-Cheese)
Flour, potatoes, cheese, onion, sour cream. Total cost for a batch of 60: about $5. Pierogi are peasant food — designed to fill stomachs inexpensively. Make a big batch, freeze, and eat for weeks.
Placki Ziemniaczane (Polish Potato Pancakes)
Potatoes, onion, egg, flour, oil. Total cost: under $3 for a full dinner. Babcia’s ultimate budget meal — she could feed a family of eight on two dollars’ worth of potatoes and make everyone feel full and satisfied.
Zupa Pomidorowa (Polish Tomato Soup)
Canned tomatoes, broth, cream, pasta. Under $4 for six generous servings. Polish tomato soup is the ultimate cheap comfort food — mild, creamy, satisfying, and beloved by every child who’s ever tasted it.
Pantry-Powered Dinners
Creamy Tomato Garlic Pasta
Canned tomatoes, garlic, cream, parmesan, pasta. Everything comes from the pantry. Under $5 for six servings. This is the recipe I make when I haven’t grocery shopped and the fridge contains nothing but disappointment.
Cheap Protein Winners
Ground Beef Taco Skillet
One pound of ground beef, taco seasoning, whatever toppings you have. Under $8 for a build-your-own taco bar that feeds six. Ground beef is the budget protein that never disappoints.
Pantry-Powered Dinners
Chili Crisp Noodles (10-Min)
Noodles, chilli crisp, soy sauce, sesame oil. Under $3. Ten minutes. The cheapest and fastest dinner on the entire blog. A jar of Lao Gan Ma chilli crisp is a $4 investment that transforms dozens of budget meals.
Spicy Peanut Noodles
Peanut butter, soy sauce, noodles, sriracha. Under $4 for six servings. Peanut butter is the secret budget protein — cheap, shelf-stable, and it creates a creamy sauce that tastes far more expensive than it is.
Cheap Protein Winners
Chicken Fried Rice (Better Than Takeout)
Day-old rice, an egg, leftover chicken or whatever protein is cheapest, soy sauce. Under $5. Fried rice is the original budget recipe — designed to use leftovers and transform nothing into something extraordinary.
Cabbage: The Budget MVP
Budget Cabbage Dinners (6 Ways)
At $0.50-1.00 per head, cabbage is the cheapest vegetable in any store. Six dinner recipes that prove a $1 vegetable can anchor meals spanning four cuisines. Babcia built an entire cuisine around cabbage not because she lacked imagination, but because cabbage rewards imagination.
Pantry-Powered Dinners
One-Pot Pasta Dinners (5 Variations)
Five different flavours, one pot each, all under $6 for the whole family. The noodles cook directly in the sauce, absorbing all the flavour. One pot to cook. One pot to wash. Budget cooking AND minimal dishes.
The Budget System
Budget Grocery Haul + Meal Plan ($75/Week)
The complete system: real prices, real meals, real grocery list. How ingredient overlap, sale-driven menu planning, and strategic use of cheap staples (rice, pasta, cabbage, potatoes, beans) keeps our family fed for $12.50 per person per week.