$5 DINNERS | FIVE Quick & Easy Cheap Dinner Recipes Made EASY! | Frugal Fit Mom

um excuse me sir excuse me don't you know who I am friends with grocery prices climbing and schedules getting more and more busy it can be really hard to come up with good kid friendly budget meals so today I am bringing you five easy fast five dollar dinners and a five dollar dessert because if you're like me you like to finish the night with a little something sweet so without further Ado let's get cooking oh but there's still time to hit the thumbs up button so do that and if you want to see any other shenanigans subscribe and we can hang out a little bit more okay now let's start cooking for our loaded baked potato dinner I'm doing a family of six so I have six potatoes now the cost of the potatoes and the cheese do add up to more than five dollars however I will use the remainder of the potatoes and the remainder of the cheese in a different dish so I'm gonna take my six potatoes on a baking sheet I'm doing mine in the oven because I'm assuming people don't have extra cooking tools like an instant pot or things like that you can do this in the microwave as well so I'm gonna prick all the potatoes with a fork so they don't explode if you've ever had that happen let us know down below you could of course do a loaded baked potato any way you want you could do butter sour cream broccoli cheese sauce but we are a big fan of chili and cheese almost like chili cheese fries but on a baked potato did I say my onion is preheating at 350 because it is on top of my potatoes I will do a drizzle of oil do olive oil this is avocado oil generously seasoned with salt and pepper I did scrub these potatoes really really well so you can eat the Skins also and these will go into a 350 degree oven for 45 to 60 Minutes depending on the size of your potatoes and your oven just gonna rub all of my seasonings in right here the foil just makes for easy cleanup afterwards and you can absolutely get potatoes cheaper than I purchased them today but I just got them at Walmart instead of waiting for a sale okay here we go into the oven okay I want to show you how to floof the potato for your toppings okay so I had a just a butter knife and you take the edges and you mush them towards each other like that and it makes them floofy that's how restaurants do it and you're going to top it with your chili however much you want this is one of the best things ever kid tested kid approved and yeah you can eat the skin for my pasta and sauce I am going to add some sausage I had this Jimmy Dean sausage in my freezer but the Walmart original brand of pork sausage it's about 238 a roll is a great substitute I think the taste is there I'm just going to use what I already had instead of purchasing new ingredients and if you want to even go further on the budget you can cut this in half you don't have to use the entire pound but you can man I love that Sizzle it's like they're cheering for me and in this pot over here I have some water coming up to a boil my favorite way to break up the ground meat is my meat Masher I got this one from the Dollar Tree but if you can't find one at your Dollar Tree I will link one from Amazon down below it's a few dollars extra but this is one of my favorite kitchen tools I use it all the time oh so splashy I'm using this rigatoni you can use whatever shape you like I did just see the American Beauty brand of pasta on sale for 88 cents a pound which is unmatched this one's from Walmart you can get this one too or you can pick some up on sale I just used this one because it was in my pantry already once again don't want to buy extras for this challenge just trying to use up what I have so this is kind of a pantry clean out as well the pasta is very inexpensive you could even run to Dollar Tree they have 20 ounces of pasta for a dollar 25. now that my sausage is totally cooked my pasta's boiling away over here I'm gonna grab a can of sauce you can of course make your own or pick whatever quality of sauce that you like you can get very expensive get the Rayo sauce this Prego one I got on major major sale for about a dollar if you can't find anything on sale the Hunts brand is very inexpensive at Walmart and if you have a hard time getting the seal open this is my little hack for you I like to crack it lightly on the counter no sweat so I've got my heat down low because I'm just warming my screw and I did put on an apron so I didn't Splash spaghetti sauce all over my clothes because that is definitely something I tend to do I'm gonna put a little water in here to get the rest of this out here we go and as soon as our pasta is finished cooking I will put it directly into here so even though this sauce feels a touch watery the pasta should soak up some of this excess water that I put in here I picked up these broccoli Cuts because they were the cheapest that I found at my Walmart five minutes okay pasta's coming in and I really hope this fits in this pan I don't have High Hopes oh no Hmm this feels a little overflowy to me but we will carefully stir try and get all of this Incorporated and then we'll go ahead and plate it's a ton of food look at this this is crazy if you have some of that shaky cheese hanging around in your fridge go ahead and feel free to top this with that if not you don't need it but if you have it it's a good way to use it up Grandma's crock pot potato soup it's budget friendly it's delicious it's family and kid tested and approved and only uses a few ingredients this recipe is on my website frugalfitmom.com it starts with six cups of peeled and diced potatoes I like to use russet potatoes for this because it's what Mom did and if that's the way my mom did it that's the way I'm gonna do it that's the rules that I've just made up mom's recipes are always better than mine one onion you could use a half a cup of onion if you don't Jive on that onion flavor I'm of the camp that if a little bit of onion is good more is better two and a half to three cups of water we wanted we want it to be just enough to barely cover the potatoes so your mileage may vary and enough chicken bouillon I have this powder that I'm trying to use up it's almost gone to equal the amount of water that you used I used three cups of water in here so I would use three teaspoons of the bouillon and I'm gonna kind of stir that in and just see how much is in here it looks like I'm not quite on top of the potatoes so I may add four cups of water today which means another teaspoon of the chicken bouillon there it is as much black pepper As You Love fresh pepper now my mom is a huge lover of black pepper so there's a lot of pepper in my version let me grab that one last cup of water okay here we go so as you can see there's not that much liquid in here but never fear after these are cooked we're gonna add one can of evaporated milk you don't have to use fat free this is just what I had and our cheese so this is all you have to add at the moment lid on and I'm gonna go ahead and put mine on high for about four hours or until the potatoes and onions are cooked you can also go low eight to ten hours after a few hours on high all of my potatoes are cooked now I'm going to add one entire can of evaporated milk and 10 slices of American cheese you could also use Velveeta or regular shredded cheese but like I said earlier this is what Mom did so this is what we will do so now we'll just take a fork or a spoon or something and push all of these to the bottom and I'll add the rest of the cheese slices now I grew up in a house where we had cheese sandwiches a lot this kind of cheese American cheese sandwiches it would be Miracle Whip one slice of cheese and served on bread there was no meat there was uh nothing else I told my husband that once and he had this horrified look on his face so if you think that's a weird upbringing where you had craft singles cheese bread with nothing else on it but Miracle Whip tell me if that's normal or is that like really really odd let me add the rest of my cheese slices now that all your cheese is in we will put the lid back on for another 30 minutes to let all of this melt and come together and we will finish it off with another serving of Freya ship is mostly melted now if you want to thicken this up a little bit you can always take a potato masher to this and mush up the potatoes that are in here but one of my favorite hacks is to use dehydrated instant potatoes little sprinkle of that will thicken this right up so let's go ahead and I was going to say plate a bowl but that's wrong bowl is that weird anyway let's serve up a bowl and add my mom's favorite edition some more cracked black pepper this is a dish that takes me right back to my childhood my mom made this dish all the time it's incredibly nostalgic for me and if you haven't tried it yet clearly you're new to my channel because I talk about this soup all the time give it a try let me know how your family likes it and happy eating all right let's make some quesadillas with a Twist now I spent a little bit of extra money to bump up the flavor and bulkiness of these quesadillas so it's not just going to be tortillas and cheese I have some refried beans here you can make your own this video is more about convenient onions than making everything from scratch like speed of which you can do things and one can will really go a long way so on top of this I am going to add a little bit of cooked chorizo it's really really spicy I've also done like shredded chicken cooked with some taco seasoning but for today I thought the chorizo was full of flavor you really don't need very much of it some other fun additions can be canned green chilies something I some tortilla chips for some crunch in the center but I'll leave that out today and some shredded cheese you can use whatever cheese you want I happen to have cheddar today because I'm using it for multiple meals and I'm going to show you the trick to making your quesadillas like absolutely hit different are the teenagers still saying that okay so here is my quesadilla this is going to be so filling and as far as tortillas the cheapest tortillas I've seen have been at the Dollar Tree a dollar 25 for a full pound of tortillas much less than my local Walmart now the trick is to make these crispy so I will start with a fat of some kind it really doesn't matter which fat you use I do like to save Bacon fat and use it for cooking so I will use that today oil is fine butter is fine it literally does not matter just enough to coat the pan look how huge this is it covers the whole Skillet I like to give it a little swirl just to make sure all of the tortilla is coated let it go until the cheese is kind of melty and it's light golden brown on the other side and make sure you have some salt ready for the flip here comes the flip now right away little sprinkle of salt on the top of that tortilla that will change your life try it you will not be disappointed this meal we can call like a mock sloppy joe or a barbecue sandwich with some green beads on the side but I'm starting with ground turkey you can use whatever ground meat you like if you like ground beef go ahead and use that I had some in my freezer so I did not purchase extra ground turkey but you can absolutely get this roll of turkey that I found at Walmart for just a little over two dollars this was a frequent purchase of mine early in my very very tight budget days and I would typically use only half the roll and cut the rest with beans so that's an option as well and we are really coming in easy with a package of buns from the Dollar Tree and canned green beans of all the canned vegetables the canned green beans are my favorite they just taste a little salty to me I love green beans they're one of my favorites so if you are Team Green Bean give me a hands up emoji in the comments so I picked up this bottle of barbecue sauce for right at a dollar on sale at my local store I don't think I need the whole thing so we'll do maybe half of it barbecue sauce is pretty strong if I was doing a container of sloppy Joe mix like Manwich I would definitely use the entire thing heat up your canned vegetables however you want microwave stovetop whatever it's all the same seriously simple easy meals like this are always a hit with my kids you know barbecue sauce has a strong flavor profile they don't have to eat a ton of vegetables if they don't want to they love the bun who doesn't love the carbs at dinner and then I definitely just dropped some on the floor so even the dog will have some ground turkey today in case you didn't know sandwiches cut in half tastes better then sandwiches not cut in half increase your serving size you turn one sandwich into two sandwiches about math also that was a joke of course if green beans aren't your jam you can do corn carrots peas whatever vegetable you prefer this is always a winner over here for our no-bake cheesecakes we are going to do one thing of cream cheese goes into your mixing bowl I love this recipe because you don't actually have to bake anything so it's perfect for summer time I know my knife looks dirty but I use it for the peanut butter so it'll be okay one cup of peanut butter which means you'll have some leftovers for something else peanut butter goes on sale in my area all the time so don't just go and pay like two or three dollars for a tub of peanut butter I can see it for a dollar fifty 99 Cents frequently and one cup of just white sugar I did not include this in my price because sugar I feel like is really a basic ingredient you don't even need a stand mixer I just have a hand mixer here mix until combined last ingredient that goes into our filling is one entire tub of whipped topping now you can get the Great Value brand for under a dollar but I stole this name brand cooler from my mops freezer if you don't want to milk your own cows and strain off the cream and whip your own cream with your own sugar that you processed yourself from your backyard of sugar cane store-bought is fine this is the finished filling look how smooth this is and I did do a little taste it's so good you can add some more cool whip if you want it to be a little floofier but then you'll have a hard time fitting it in your pie crust speaking of pie crust I went with the Simplicity of a pre-made graham cracker crust if you really want to take it up a notch you can make your own with some Oreo cookies but for those that don't want to mess with that this will also work don't forget to save this as a lid and we will stick it back in the fridge overnight is better but five to six hours will also be perfect so if you do this earlier in the morning you can have it that night for dinner it's the perfect make ahead dessert you want to lick this because you're home alone and it's your prerogative by all means cheers it has been a few hours and I am ready for a snack so we're gonna pull open our peanut butter cheesecake I can't wait to show you what I found in my pantry you don't have to do this but because I already had it I'm excited but you don't have to like how big of a slice you know like I just never know not using a pi server just a fork oh look at that texture and look what I did find in my pantry I did find Oreos and this one's broken anyway so I'm just gonna take this broken one and like do do one of those you know what I mean now we have Oreo peanut butter cheese you don't have to do that part but yum oh my gosh okay your mileage may vary when it comes to comes to prices of the items that I found but I was able to get those prices at Walmart at my local stores and at Dollar Tree here in March of 2023. if you're seeing this video significantly after that the prices may have changed up or down who's to say and you know based on where you live that might change things as well but thanks for hanging out with me in today's video and until I see you next time happy eating

Channel: Frugal Fit Mom

Views: 220,781

Keywords: frugal living tips, frugal hacks, frugal living tips and ideas, frugal living hacks, frugal living, saving money tips, frugal, frugal living ideas, ffm, frugal fit mom, frugal habits, frugal tips, budget, large family, grocery hacks, grocery budget, $5 dinner ideas, extreme budget meals

Id: DCtNHcLcI0Q

Length: 17min 1sec (1021 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 13 2023