The Never Boring Strategy to Eat Your Way to Financial Freedom! Better Rice and Beans Recipes

[Music] rice and beans can solve a lot of problems if your budget is tight you're trying to pay off debt save some money or just make it to Payday these rice and beans recipes can help I pulled together 25 of my best recipes for rice and beans so that you can eat well for cheap without getting bored this first recipe is from Skinnytaste vegetarian black bean enchilada and we're going to make homemade enchilada sauce because it's cheap and easy you want to start off by putting oil in the bottom of a pan you can use whatever oil you want I used a half a teaspoon of olive oil and then you want to use two cloves of garlic minced grated chopped however you want to mince it up I happen to be using my microplane this time and I know in my last video I was like I'm going to chop it by hand yeah that's not going to happen not every time at least I'll taste the garlic for a minute and then add one and a half cups of canned tomato sauce or I just use like marinara sauce and it still tasted good so whatever you have on hand three quarters a cup of chicken broth or bouillon whatever you have on hand one tablespoon of Chipotle chilies and Adobo sauce chopped now I know this might not be something that everyone has around the house but definitely something I recommend stocking up on because like tomato paste once you're done using it it comes in like a small can but you only need a little bit of it you can put it in the freezer and use it another time for spices we're adding a half a teaspoon of chili powder and it says a half a teaspoon of cumin I actually happen to be out of cumin so I used coriander because I don't know it seemed similar to me and the sauce still tasted good so the good thing about enchilada sauce is that it's pretty forgiving and it will taste good because you have your chili flavor you have your Chipotle flavor and you have your tomato sauce and that that's delicious as it is I want to bring that to a boil and let it simmer for seven to ten minutes now while that's cooking I'm gonna get started on my vegetarian enchiladas add two tablespoons of olive oil or again whatever oil you have over medium heat in a large Skillet to that you want to add one cup of chopped Red Onion I think that a regular yellow onion would do just fine here and if you didn't have onion you could use onion powder as well there are a lot of options that can make this a more budget-friendly meal so I am using fresh onion and I'm going to use fresh chopped red bell pepper and fresh chopped broccoli you need one cup of each but you could 100 use like a vegetable Frozen vegetable mix for this so if you had like a stir fry mix I think that that would be absolutely fine in this and it would still taste delicious you may want to add some onion powder and then do like a stir-fry veggie mix and this would still taste really good then cook those onions for about seven minutes on that Medium heat till they were translucent then I added the broccoli and bell pepper and I'm going to cook that over medium low heat so I'm going to bring the heat down and then cover the skillet I'm going to cook stirring occasionally for about nine minutes meantime the enchilada sauce is done you can see how good it looks and then once that nine minutes is up your vegetables are going to be softer pretty much cooked spices you want to add in one teaspoon of cumin and a quarter teaspoon of cinnamon now I didn't have that cumin but I did add in cinnamon and some salt and the cinnamon flavor in this is absolutely phenomenal like do not skimp on that if you have cinnamon use it don't be afraid it tastes so good with that enchilada sauce the recipe calls for five cups of packed fresh spinach which I did not have so I didn't add it in this case I think you'd use frozen too if you had it I did have frozen but I did not go down to the depths of my freezer to get that so once everything's cooked up for another minute and I didn't add that spinach I'm just putting that into a bowl because we're going to end up adding a few things to this to make the final bits of the filling for the enchiladas so you want to add in a quarter cup of cheese they recommended monterey jack and I ended up just using fresh shredded cheddar that I had and then the leftovers have a little bit of mozzarella so you can use what you have on this I think that's absolutely fine I bet it would taste really good with pepper jack too and then you want one can of drained black beans so I had already drained my beans and just added those right in the next step is to add a few tablespoons of that enchilada sauce right into your filling and there's just so much flavor in this this was absolutely amazing like I know it's a very veggie packed bean dish and maybe it might concern you if you're not a huge veggie person but my husband does not love vegetables and he was like this is actually really good so I think it's one of those secret veggie dishes that you know don't be afraid to serve to someone who you who may generally say oh no that's not for me can hide those veggies in there grease a 13x9 pan and then you're going to want to add a quarter cup of that enchilada sauce in there which I forgot to do so you can see I'm also using my Dollar Tree tortillas because those are great for something like this and they are so cheap so totally forgot to add the sauce to the bottom but that's okay I went back and added it later and they were still very good so if you forget that portion you can always go back that's a great thing about a recipe like this it's pretty forgiving this recipe makes eight eight inch tortillas so whatever type of tortilla you have is totally fine you want to fill the tortilla down the middle with the mix you can do about a half a cup for each tortilla and then roll it up and place it seam down so just showing you my mistake I pulled all those rolled up enchiladas out I put a quarter cup of sauce on the bottom of the pan and spread that a lot around and then put the tortillas back on top of the enchilada sauce so that didn't stick to the bottom and I do think this part's important because a lot of the flavor and the way that the enchiladas turn out is it's kind of like a soggier bottom to the enchilada but the flavor is so good so don't be afraid of that I say in osaki is usually like a bad word but as far as enchiladas go you kind of want that sauce to be on the bottom of them so do not uh do not skip this step take the remaining sauce and pour it over the enchiladas now if you're using enchilada sauce that is a store-bought you're going to want two cups of that enchilada sauce so use a quarter cup on the bottom a couple teaspoon tablespoons inside the mix and then you're gonna put the rest of it over top I'm also using the rest of my cup of cheese to cover the top with so I'm using the rest of my shredded cheddar that I had like a block of so just shred it up myself and then I'm also going to add in some mozzarella that I happen to have on hand because you know what you can't go wrong cheddar and mozzarella I think actually go very very well together you want to bake this at 400 degrees for 20 minutes and it turns out so good we served ours with a little bit of rice on the side some sour cream and some salsa and it was a huge hit in the family and I was just so happy to get the kids and the family to eat some more veggies the next recipe is called easy rosemary garlic and white bean soup from Budget Bites and it is a budget saver and it is so easy and it is so delicious so you just want to take you're gonna need three cans of Great Northern beans so we're gonna take one of those cans and blend it up with all of the juices that are in the can so you do not want to drain that I'm just using my NutriBullet to do this but you can use like a regular blender or even if you didn't have something like that you can just mash them around obviously the puree is going to make it thicker and give you a better flavor but I think this would still taste very very good if you just mashed up some of your beans and that would be just fine so once those are pureed we can just get started over on the stove I'm just putting a couple tablespoons of olive oil in a small pot this makes about enough for it says four but I think maybe three it's not they're not huge servings but it's still really really good so put some oil on the bottom of pan with four cloves of minced garlic and saute that for about a minute until fragrant then you want to add your pureed cannellini beans and then you have two other cans of beans now I actually had one so I just worked with what I had and I drained one can of beans and I added that right to my soup it would have been a little heartier it had I had a second can of beans but the one was also just fine and the flavor was still there that is the key all about the flavor and all about the taste you want to add two cups of vegetable broth or I'm using chicken bouillon so whatever you have and then we're gonna add some spices we're going to use a half a teaspoon of dried rosemary and a quarter teaspoon of dried thyme and a pinch of crushed red pepper since I I was just eating this and I was not going to serve it to the kids I was going in there with the red pepper because I like a little spice and then you want to add fresh cracked black pepper if you'd like to taste and we're almost done and this has been fast right you just want to place the lid on the pot turn the heat up to a medium high and bring it to a boil and then once it's boiling you want to turn the heat down to medium low take that lid off and allow it to simmer for 15 minutes and here is the final product wow this is such a good lunch it's so so so delicious it's insanely cheap and it's a great base too that's what a lot of the people in the comments were saying like you could just add chicken to this you could add extra different types of beans there is a lot of flavor you could add vegetables it is a great great soup in this next recipe we are working with tortillas again so you can use whatever type of tortillas you have we are making beans rice and cheese burritos like simple but delicious I have a can of refried beans from Aldi I have a cup of shredded cheddar cheese and I have a package of Spanish rice so you can make Spanish rice however you like you make it from scratch you can make it like a Rice-A-Roni I just happen to have that microwave packet so it made it easy for me we're just going to roll up these burritos it's that simple so first you want to start by putting your tortillas in the microwave for about 20 seconds just to soften them up and then at the bottom of the tortilla you want to add a little bit of refried beans some rice and then some cheese we're going to roll them up by Rolling in the left and right side of the tortilla and then we're going to roll them from the bottom and Tuck The Edge under now there are a few options that you can do now that you've made your delicious burrito you can cook them right away that's what I did I ended up putting them in a pan and I cooked them at 350 degrees for 15 minutes and they were absolutely perfect and I sprinkled a little cheddar cheese over the top and they were a great dinner you could also wrap them in parchment paper label them and freeze them for up to a month so you can do this dinner ahead so it's a nice freezer meal for you or you can take them and you can actually pan fry them so I love burrito when you put it in on your pan with a little bit of oil so it's kind of like a grilled stuffed burrito from I don't know maybe Taco Bell that's what that reminds me of and that is such a good option too so these are just so easy it's such a great way to use refried beans and it's nice because it's not like the ones that you buy in the freezer section and they're just kind of like want those they they hold up really well and you know that they're homemade this next recipe is my mother-in-law's recipe for spinach rice she's made it the whole time that I have known her in probably many years before and it is always a hit always a winner you want to start with two cups of regular white rice to that we're going to add in one entire stick of butter that's right an entire stick of butter I guess that's what makes it taste so good I feel like everything with butter is better then you're going to want one can of chicken broth or in my case I'm just using a cans worth of chicken bouillon so I've added my water and I'm gonna add in a little over a teaspoon of chicken bouillon you also need three chicken bouillon cubes which is again one teaspoon of chicken bouillon so I've added basically a little more than four teaspoons of chicken bouillon which adds a lot of flavor it's in itself then you want one Frozen package of spinach and one onion finely minced you want to bring your rice and spinach and everything up to a boil mixing it around and then cover it and cook it for 30 minutes now mine took more like 35 minutes so make sure to check and make sure it's done it's definitely it feels like it's not enough liquid but it is this is so good full of spinach and my kids loved it which is a great way to get spinach into them so I think it's a hit now this next recipe was actually called Maria's rice but I'm going to rename it onion soup rice because I did not follow the recipe I just put the ingredients that Maria's rice said and I cooked it on the stove weird I know that I altered the recipe that was named after myself in my own way so I can't rename it Maria's rice anyway you want one cup of uncooked white rice and then you want a half a cup of butter and you want to cube that up whether that's 100 necessary I'm not sure because it was going to be baked and we're not baking it to that you want to add two and a half cups of water one beef bouillon Cube and one packet of onion soup mix now the original recipe said french onion soup canned and beef rough canned and I was gonna do it my way because I wanted to use french onion soup mix and I also did not want to bake this I wanted these all to be stovetop recipes so once you do that you want to bring everything up to a boil turn the heat down to Low cover it for 25 minutes and this is the rice and I'd have to say I cooked both the spinach rice and the onion soup rice on the same day and I don't know if it's because my husband has eaten the spinach rice for years but he was a much bigger fan of the French onion soup rice so you can see everything is all on one plate here but both were so delicious so budget friendly so easy to make they are both hits the next recipe is huevos rancheros now this is a great way to use some refried beans and it's also a fun way to make breakfast a little bit different maybe on a Sunday or a Saturday morning and spice things up for your family I usually have corn tortillas on hand and some refried beans so this is super easy start off by adding a little bit of olive oil to a pan over medium high heat and then for my refried beans I'm just going to throw those in the microwave I am cooking for one this morning so I bet I have about a quarter cup but you could use an entire can and probably get enough for a family a four you want to cook your tortillas over that medium-high heat for about one to two minutes per side until they're a little bit lightly browned maybe even a little puffy but you want to make sure that they're not crispy foreign the oil did spatter quite a bit so if you have a spatter guard go ahead and add that you want to remove your tortillas from the pan and put those right on your plate you can do a few more batches if you're making it for more to cook the eggs add a splash more of oil to the pan and then usually about two at a time because you really want to get these cooked correctly I'm going to try and do a sunny side up egg so we're not going to flip the egg and mine turned out okay I've definitely done them better in the past I think it's all about watching them and the timing on this you can very easily just go for an over easy egg or you can even do scrambled eggs over this and it's still delicious so whatever your favorite type of egg is go ahead and do that or you can go ahead and give the Sunny Side Up a try I've also done a really good sunny side up egg with a bunch of water in the bottom of the pan so if I were to do it next time I might actually just do water instead of the oil in order to cook these through I am kind of like piercing the whites and it does seem to help cook them through and you don't want to cook it on too high of heat so the recipe itself didn't say to turn down the heat but I would turn it down to a lower temperature just so that you're not burning the bottom of the eggs now I was struggling to get the top of the eggs to set so I did put a cover over the top of the pan and this will cook the eggs however I left my cover on just a little bit too long because in the meantime I was putting my refried beans over my corn tortillas and my eggs just overcooked slightly to assemble the huevos rancheros go ahead and take your heated up refried beans however you chose to heat those and put those right over your tortillas Now the recipe that you'll find in the description box is awesome because it actually does have a homemade refried bean recipe so if you just have pinto beans go ahead and use those canned pinto beans and make a delicious refried bean according to that recipe I haven't tried it but I guarantee it'll be good because it has all of the ingredients for a delicious refried bean now if you have some queso fresco on hand go ahead and put this over your refried beans I did not so I'm just using a shredded cheddar that's kind of how we do around here just whatever I have on hand I don't necessarily like to go out and buy things specifically for a recipe if it's not on sale and then you see my eggs I'm plopping right over the top you see how the tops of the eggs got a little bit cooked inside they're actually cooked perfectly but I would like to see that orange top to the egg but oh well it's real life and that's that's how how we're doing I'm not going to cook more eggs just because they're not perfectly orange on top the recipe also has an amazing fresh pico de gallo recipe that sounds so delicious but timing was not on my side this particular morning so we were going with our store-bought salsa but overall this was absolutely delicious something funky and something new and a great way to use refried beans another welcome addition to this recipe is some fresh cilantro maybe some sliced scallions or some sour cream all those things would taste absolutely delicious with this dish [Music] [Applause] welcome back to the frying pan the next recipe is going to be a refried bean quesadilla now if you follow my channel you know that my husband believes that quesadilla is the perfect food so we're going to make him a quesadilla for lunch with some refried beans start with the oil of your choice today I'm using a cooking spray but a lot of times I do like to use a butter for this I'm using dollar store tortillas about a quarter cup of shredded cheddar cheese and a quarter cup of shredded mozzarella cheese add about a third a cup of refried beans on top of the cheese and do the best you can with this I initially went into it thinking oh we'll just be able to spread it on top well with the cheese before it's melted it's a little bit more difficult but it's totally fine you don't really want to wait until the cheese is melted because then the quesadilla will take too long and the refried beans won't heat up with the cheese think of it like a lasagna when you're spreading the lasagna you think okay the ricotta is going to go perfectly on top of the red sauce and it never does and that's totally fine next add about a quarter cup of corn on top of your refried beans the recipe also calls for about a ounce of feta cheese which I didn't have so I didn't add but I do think that would taste absolutely delicious kind of like that bitter flavor against the refried beans so if you do have feta cheese go ahead and add that now now this quesadilla is absolutely fine on its own without an additional protein but I did happen to have some chopped chicken so I decided to add that you could go with some ground hamburger meat you could go with some save steak you can probably put any sort of protein that you like in here even add some black beans and then the recipe has you add some crushed up tortilla chips which I didn't have so I grabbed some taco shells and broke those up and it tasted absolutely fine with those in it kind of like makes it that Taco Bell Crunchwrap type thing I don't know I've never put those into a quesadilla before but what a great idea and then I'm just going to top it off with about a little less than a quarter cup of cheddar cheese and mozzarella again and then because there was so much on this quesadilla I decided to put a cover on the pan and let it cook for a little bit so that that cheese could melt before I put the top on the quesadilla if I didn't say this before you do want to be cooking this over a medium low heat so that your tortilla can cook for a long time without burning now with all the hubbub I completely forgot to get a video of the quesadilla on a plate but this is basically what it looks like it tastes amazing my husband loved it and I will definitely be using a recipe similar to this and hey if I have some feta cheese now I want to go in and make this quesadilla another time but go ahead and add those refried beans you can make a quesadilla with plain refried beans or you can add them to one with a protein and you're going to be in great shape it's a great way to use them up this next recipe is for a refried beans rice skillet I was very excited about this one and rightfully so because it was delicious you want to heat two tablespoons of olive oil in a skillet over medium high heat and then the recipe actually calls for a couple Links of sausage sliced up and you're going to Brown those links of sausage and also cook your rice stirring for about three to four minutes until your rice is opaque I didn't have sausage on hand so I didn't end up adding an extra protein to this but I think that you could use like a kielbasa I already pre-cooked sausage you could use like a pork sausage you might want to cook that ahead of time though same thing with ground beef or ground turkey you could add really any meat to this that you would like or even the addition of black beans similar to your quesadilla I think all those things would be perfectly fine or even chopped chicken forgot to mention that once your rice is about opaque add one teaspoon of ground cumin and two cloves of crushed garlic I decided to do like a minced and it still turned out absolutely awesome if you don't have fresh garlic I think you could use garlic powder in this no problem stir those ingredients and cook for about one minute until fragrance [Music] now you want to add in one can of diced tomatoes undrained and I used fire roasted because they are so delicious so if you have them use them if not totally fine too then you want to add in one can of corn drained I happen to have leftovers from the quesadilla actually and it was almost a quick can so I thought paint that's perfect let's not open a new can just for this and then two cups of water you want to bring that to a boil and then cover it and reduce your heat to medium low and we're going to simmer for about 15 minutes [Music] at the 15 minute Mark we are finally going to add our refried beans yes I would know you were wondering is this even really a refried beans dish well it sure is so I just want to stir everything around a little bit and I could tell everything is getting really well cooked and this looked delicious and smelled amazing it's that garlic and cumin I swear it is a fantastic scent just just cook up some garlic and cumin on your stove and uh the kids and your husband will come running I promise or you know whoever else lives in your household so along with those refried beans we are going to add in about a half a can of salsa so I just had one in my fridge I was like this is perfect don't even have to open a new can don't even have to buy a new can this recipe is going to be a staple because it's fantastic and I didn't have to even get anything special for it like these are things that I always have on hand so it was super easy and super delicious this is going to be a great weeknight meal addition for us you want to mix everything until well combined and then cover and cook for another five minutes until your rice is fully cooked through uncover go ahead and mix it around a little bit and you can top this with your favorite cheese I'm using a shredded cheddar also slicing up some scallions with some kitchen scissors and if you have cilantro go ahead and add that too this is fantastic as a main dish or as a side dish it would go great with tacos so either add a meat to it or serve it on the side or as it is it's totally fine filling dinner serve it with some sour cream if you want and it's so fantastic like I said this is being added to our regular rotation this next recipe is a simple rice and beans recipe but it was a combination that I had never tried before I am simply cooking up one serving of rice according to the package instructions now I'm going to use black beans for this I'm just using a can that I had in my pantry but if you have time or you think ahead or you're going to try and save a lot of money go ahead and cook up some dried black beans either in the instant pot or in a pot I'll put some recipes down below to save some money on those for my canned beans I am just going to rinse those off before I cook them I chose just to microwave mine and add a little bit of onion powder garlic powder salt and pepper but you can totally add some chili powder or even taco seasoning to that or you can buy already seasoned black beans now this is the part of the rice and beans dish that I hadn't seen before you're going to cook up one over easy egg or as many as you're making for servings I was just making this for lunch and it was just for me so one serving but this made enough for all my whole family to eat if I were to make it for them I would have just made four eggs I just want to put rice in a bowl top that with your black beans and your fried egg and that is it and this is the same as those potatoes you can make it your own you can add anything you want to it so I think a diced up avocado would taste good with this as well as some salsa or sour cream or you can go in a different direction and maybe even do like soy sauce and some vegetables this meal as is is absolutely delicious such a great lunch and it comes in at 44 cents a serving so this is kind of a no-brainer for when you're just grabbing things putting it together for the family this is delicious they will love it that egg yolk in there tastes so good this next recipe is for a poor man's burrito bowl and this is for when you are craving Chipotle but you just don't have the cash for that chipotle price tag you want to start by cooking up some rice according to your liking you can just follow the instructions in the back of the bag and then you're going to take one or two cans of black beans depending on how much you want to make and then a half a teaspoon each of garlic powder and cumin and just heat those until your beans are fully cooked through the rest of this is purely assembly add in a cup of rice to the bottom of a bowl followed by a half a cup of your cooked black beans a quarter cup of salsa whatever your favorite kind is whatever the cheapest is also if you don't have salsa that's going to be totally fine just use a hot sauce I've done this with hot sauce many times and it's still delicious whatever you have in your cabinet will do then I had some cheddar cheese and I'm just grating that over so whatever your favorite type of cheese is or whatever type of cheese you have on hand you just want a Sprinkle of that and you're going to top it off with something spicy if you like it a little bit of jalapenos these happen to be from Dollar Tree so they're super inexpensive just top that off with that that's a beautiful little garnish and it is that simple the flavor on those beans with the rice and your you know whatever you're using for spicy stuff your hot sauce or your salsa on their own are absolutely delicious and this makes this so inexpensive so easy to eat and you do feel like you're at a restaurant because you can order one of these at Chipotle for like ten dollars so let's make it much cheaper and make it at home this next recipe is for a pasta Caesar salad that I saw on Tick Tock and it looked too good not to make now I'm using a leftover piece of a Parisian loaf that I had from the night before and I recommend that if you have some leftover bread around just go ahead and use that I wouldn't necessarily go out and buy a crusty bread like the recipe said too because that's kind of a waste of money it's just use whatever you have lying around I'm sure you have a few slices of bread and then you just want to cube those up at Walmart you can get an entire loaf of bread for a dollar so if you do need to buy bread go in the direction like that don't buy the expensive artisanal bread because then you're going to have leftover bread that you can use for something else and you're using something very inexpensive for only a dollar and you're actually going to have way more than you need then you just want to take your cubed bread and place it over about like half of a baking sheet because on the other half of the baking sheet we're actually going to bake our chickpeas you want to drain rinse and pat dry and you want to make sure that these are very dry otherwise they're not gonna roast nice and crispy one can of chickpeas or garbanzos whatever you want to call them and then place these on the other half of your baking sheet foreign and your chickpeas with a little bit of olive oil you can just toss them after you drizzle it on [Music] then you want to season your croutons with salt garlic powder onion powder and Italian seasoning and the recipe just says to season with your heart so that is what I did thank you you want to make this in a preheated oven at 450 degrees for 10 minutes [Music] in the meantime I'm boiling my water and cooking my pasta according to the package directions I'm using eight ounces of farfalle the original recipe had penne so you can use whatever your favorite pasta is for this I love the falling in it though you make sure to Salt your water too and I'm going to cut up really small we're going to mince up a quarter cup of red onion [Music] foreign [Music] then you want to grab a medium to large size bowl and I'm just taking one washed head of romaine lettuce and tearing that up I'm just going to use that whole head of lettuce I love this recipe because lettuce can be a little bit more expensive and comparatively pasta is much cheaper and especially when you're cooking for a crowd using pasta to kind of fill the void there and using less lettuce is amazing because you're actually saving a ton of money but you're also providing something very interesting to people because I served this at a birthday party and everybody absolutely loved it and they were so surprised and excited and intrigued to try something different that had lettuce and Pasta in it then you can add the Red Onion right on top of the lettuce and your timing should be just about perfect because it should be about 10 minutes and at this point we are going to take those croutons off of your baking sheet and I actually because I was serving this at a party later I put mine right into a tupperware container to save for later but if you're gonna eat this relatively soon just put them off to the side on a plate so they can cool down [Music] and then you do want to put the rest of the chickpeas back in the oven for another 10 minutes of cooking and once your pasta is done go ahead and drain that and then you can use some cold water to spray it off and cool it down right away because you're going to want it to be cold in order to put into your salad and not warm because you do not want warm pasta with lettuce that would not be good you can just pour those cold noodles right on top of your lettuce and mix everything around [Music] once that 10 minutes is up allow your chickpeas to cool down and then you can either store them in a tupperware like I did or you can add them right into your salad with your croutons Once I arrived at the party I just added my homemade croutons and my roasted chickpeas right to the salad and there is a recipe in the original recipe that shows you how to make some Caesar dressing I personally just went with a store-bought one I poured as much you know as it feels like is right over the top of it with some shredded parmesan cheese and this was the biggest hit of the party I have to be honest I have to toot my own horn here everybody absolutely loved it they're like who made this salad this is so cool so it's it's bound to be a hit and it's so inexpensive and so delicious and those chickpeas really make it so it's a really fun thing to just use a can of chickpeas for and some pasta that's already in your cabinet and some bread that you need to use up anyway so it is a great use up salad pasta salad barbecue side dish it being the summertime and the need for lighter meals is there for me at least too many cookouts too much grilling and I need those lighter meals during the day during the week to keep me fresh and balanced right it's all a balance and this is another salad we have a delicious Greek Caesar salad you want about a cup of grape or cherry tomatoes and just have those and then you want to slice up about a half a cup to a cup of cucumber depending on how much you like I had one mini cucumber so that was perfect for me but if you have more of like a larger Greenhouse cucumber make sure to peel it because that skin can be quite bitter and then slice that up as well you'll also want a quarter cup of fresh chopped dill and I happen to have some in my garden so that was nice and easy for me but if you don't have any fresh on hand go ahead and use dry to Dill that's totally fine you can use a couple teaspoons of that for the dressing you want a third a cup of extra virgin olive oil and as I'm reading the recipe I'm realizing it said two tablespoons of red wine vinegar but I used a third of a cup it was still delicious but it was a lot of dressing so maybe the two tablespoons is where I went wrong then you want a teaspoon of oregano one teaspoon of salt and a half a teaspoon of sugar mix it well go ahead and add in your Dill [Music] [Applause] and now you can add your solid components so put in your cucumbers your tomatoes and one 15 ounce can of drained and rinsed garbanzos [Music] now I happen to have an avocado on hand and while the salad did not say to add one I decided to and I decided to do that kind of instead of Kalamata olives because I do not love them but I do love avocados so you know use what you have on hand use what you love use what you like now this salad does not include lettuce inherently but if you have some lettuce on hand and you want to do that to fill it up maybe you don't have some cucumber the salad dressing is phenomenal and you can add lettuce to it and you could just have tomatoes or just avocados whatever you have this chickpeas and the dressing and then all of the veggies that you love go ahead and put those in and it will still be delicious and then I also added you can see one chopped scallion and you can add as much or as little feta cheese as you like I also know some people don't like Feta cheese and they may choose goat cheese instead either way this salad is fabulous and I forgot to mention the original recipe actually has you adding red onions so if you have sliced red onion you could add that instead of scallions again there's a lot of swaps you can do here and it all kind of starts with one can of chickpeas or garbanzos or whatever you want to call them but this is a fabulous lunch or side or even dinner because there's plenty of protein in those chickpeas this next salad yes another cold salad is a pasta salad and a pasta salad only so we're not adding any lettuce to this one I'm just using a green pepper from my garden because it's what I had but you can use red pepper yellow pepper you can even use like roasted red peppers you can get those at the Dollar Tree these days so you can find something relatively inexpensive to use as your pepper option or perhaps you're serving this to someone like my husband who doesn't like Peppers you can omit them all together now while you're chopping your vegetables it is a perfect time to get your pasta going so make sure to get some water boiling on the stove salt that water and add whatever type of pasta you want to use for pasta salad and cook that up while you chop your vegetables then we're going to use a few more grape or cherry tomatoes or if you just have regular tomato like Aroma tomato they're so inexpensive you can just dice that up and that would be delicious in this as well then I had a cucumber this is more of like a pickling cucumber but I still did still want to peel off some of the peel because it does it's still a little bit bitter but not too crazy so I found that sometimes I'd like to do a little pattern like this because it adds a little bit of depth of color and you have the dark green and the light green and I'm just going to cut mine into quarters and add that to my salad as well then to add more color to this beautiful summer salad add a drained can of corn and a drain and rinsed can of chickpeas and honestly this on its own would be absolutely delicious you can totally serve this as a salad this is going to taste absolutely fantastic I ended up using a pesto in my salad as my you know kind of dressing but you can use any sort of vinaigrette dressing that you have on hand similar to what we did in the first recipe drain and then shower your pasta in cold water to cool it down nice and quick and then add that to your bowl you want to mix everything together really well and like I said I just used a couple tablespoons of pesto that I had left over in a jar I just wanted to use it up I don't want to waste anything but I've also been known to use like a garlic parmesan dressing or an Italian dressing it is that simple to make a very very flavorful pasta salad with what you have on hand [Music] if you want to you can add some extra salt pepper flavor it to taste and some Parmesan cheese and this is a nice filling salad it's a perfect for a side it's perfect for a lunch as it is this is a great meal prep and this could also be a full dinner because you are getting your protein from your chickpeas it is a nice minimal cook meal and there's so much goodness in this it's so healthy for you and so flavorful next up we're making enchilada macaroni casserole for this next recipe you want to get started by making a box of macaroni and cheese just according to the package and we're going to make kind of like a Mexican enchilada casserole out of boxed mac and cheese start with one diced onion I happen to have red but if you have yellow or white that'll work or even just like a teaspoon of onion powder you can add that a little later but that's an option as well and then I had some fresh garlic so I grated that in there but you can also use powdered and then one can of black beans and one can of drained kidney beans and this is great because these are things that you already have in your cabinet I'll be honest with you I had planned on a completely different meal this night I did want to start with boxed mac and cheese because I'm like it's so cheap it's such a great staple to get started with but my meat was actually not good so I was going to use like ground turkey and that was a no-go so I'm like what are we gonna use that I have in the cabinet all right I got beans so we went a different direction and I added my cans of beans and then one can of it was like semi-drained diced tomatoes I drained out like half of the liquid of the diced tomatoes and then I added in one half of a can of red enchilada sauce and that was my enchilada sauce from the Dollar Tree so very very inexpensive again something I had on hand if you don't have enchilada sauce I would recommend just using a little bit of hot sauce and that should do it and at that point you can probably just leave the rest of the juice in your diced tomatoes and that will give you the heat that you're looking for then you want to mix in your fully cooked mac and cheese like I said it's just such a great base for a meal that can save you so much money I had some cheddar cheese on hand so I just grated some in whatever type of cheese you have if you have some go ahead and add that and if you don't have any I think it would still be completely delicious without as well you want to stir this until your cheese is melted and then if you have it on hand go ahead and use a half a package of taco seasoning I just had maybe like a teaspoon left that I had from my Dollar Tree taco seasoning so I have to put a note to self to get more or you can just use the spices that you would normally put in a taco seasoning about a tablespoon of that should do pour your meal into a greased 9x13 pan and then we're gonna actually take some tortilla chips and Crush these up Over the Top If You Don't Have tortilla chips on hand I think that the Little Tortilla strips from the Dollar Tree would work really well or you could use like Doritos I bet that would taste amazing over this even just regular potato chips would also be good and if you were in a bind you could even use like Panko bread crumbs or breadcrumbs anything crunchy really because that really gives it this nice crispy topping and then you do want to add a little bit more cheese if you can if you only have enough cheese for either adding inside of your casserole or on top I recommend that you put it on top because it's nice to have that little layer of crunch and cheese it's almost like a little nacho layer to add to it and it just really makes it very special then you want to bake this at 350 degrees for 30 minutes until your mixture is bubbling and your cheese is all the way melted and your chips are crispy this casserole is phenomenal you could do so many different things with it if you don't have beans you could actually use ground beef or ground turkey if you have that on hand I think it would even taste good with canned chicken or you could do some add some corn to it if you have canned corn that's a very inexpensive addition to the meal as well there's just so many different options go ahead and play around with it and go ahead and make it your own green chilies would also be pretty good in this and we I served it with a little bit of sour cream if you have that it's so good at its core this is truly a dirt cheap dinner it is an amazing thing to make when you do not have extra money to go to the grocery store and you need to work with what is in your cabinets already [Music] this recipe is for the best black bean Burgery you want to start off with one can of black beans we're going to drain and rinse those and then I'm dicing up a half a grain of bell pepper and a half of a small red onion and if you don't have fresh bell pepper that's going to be totally fine you can omit that and then as far as the onion goes you can always use onion powder and then I'm just peeling two cloves of garlic again if you don't have fresh you can always use garlic powder but I'm a big proponent of keeping onions and garlic on hand because they are super inexpensive and they add a lot of flavor to your food now we're ready to start making the burgers you just want to mash the black beans in a bowl with the back of a fork and then place your onions peppers and garlic in a food processor and process until finely minced take your pureed veggies and add those directly to your black beans and make sure everything is well combined and for spices you want to add one tablespoon of cumin and one teaspoon of chili powder mix that together add in one egg make sure that that becomes well beaten well Incorporated and then two thirds a cup of bread crumbs you want a good consistency here so that you can shape your Burgers so you want to make sure that it's not too dry but also not too soft so if you need to add a little extra bread crumbs go ahead and do that and if you feel like there is not enough water go ahead and just add a little bit of water into it and last minute given that these were Burgers I decided to add some antinono's burger seasoning and it was delicious then you just want to roll up your sleeves and form your patties you're going to scoop the mixture into four evenly sized patties forming them and pressing them flat with your hands just like you do with a regular burger I was impressed with how easy it was to make these the consistency was just right according to the directions that I just gave and they were perfect little circles just like a regular you know hamburger meat would be I was most impressed that they stayed together really well and they cooked really nicely so they didn't fall apart while I was cooking I think that's maybe what I've been most concerned about with cooking black bean burgers myself the amount of effort that would take to make them and kind of would they stay together and both of those things on this is super minimal and these are super inexpensive so we're just talking about one can of beans here and like I said if you don't have that fresh onion garlic pepper you know you can swap it out for the spices and you're just using bread crumbs and an egg and black beans and lots of flavor from all sorts of spices and you get a delicious Burger these were absolutely fantastic you just want to cook them for four minutes on each side side over about a medium heat and they turn out amazing I served mine with like a little bit of lettuce tomato onion and then I just made up a really quick Sriracha mayo the original recipe I think says like a use like a Chipotle Chipotle chilies in Adobo and mix that with mayo which sounds delicious I just didn't have those on hand so I just used about a quarter cup of mayonnaise and a squirt of sriracha and then a little squirt of lime juice and it made a fantastic sauce that went really really well with these but my kids just had them with ketchup and they were pleased as well [Music] and you can feel really good about yourself eating something like this because it is relatively healthy I even served it with like a root vegetable french fry that I found in the frozen section they were they're quite good it was something different and I felt like we all did oursel our health ourselves and our health of service by eating this foreign [Music] [Music] next up we have crispy black bean tacos I saw this picture on like pinch of yum and I was like I gotta make that those look amazing they do not look like a budget meal by any means and I'll tell you they don't taste like it either but they are so so good so you want to start off with one can of black beans drained and rinsed and try and get those into a food processor you know try your best not to spill them everywhere like I did I'm just using like the Magic Bullet it'd probably be a little bit easier if you use like a regular size food processor but I didn't really feel like getting that out that day then add in a quarter cup of your favorite salsa and one tablespoon of taco seasoning and then we're just gonna blend until smooth you're going to be surprised at how much flavor that this has with that taco seasoning and that salsa and that is so simple that is the filling for the tacos and I can't believe I did not try something like this sooner now we're also going to make a cilantro lime Crema and you totally don't have to do this part I understand this is a little bit more expensive than just using a little salsa and black beans but it does elevate things so if you have some cream sour cream and cilantro on hand I recommend it you want to start with one cup of sour cream inside a food processor with a quarter cup of water a quarter cup of oil two cloves of garlic about a half a cup of chopped green onions and a half a cup of cilantro leaves and you also want the juice of two limes and I'm just kind of eyeballing that because I don't have fresh lime and you just want to process this until smooth and it makes a delicious Crema for dipping your tacos I find that it was a little bit watery so I actually added like about a tablespoon more of sour cream and that did the trick it thickened it right up I left this in the refrigerator while I made the tacos and once those were ready this was nice and cold and absolutely amazing the one can of black beans will make about five or six small tortillas so I just have flour tortillas here and I'm spreading the mixture over half of it and then I'm going to fold it over and I'm gonna make up all of these ahead of time and then we're gonna heat some butter or oil in a pan whatever you have whatever you want to use over medium heat and just crisp those up on both sides I love the consistency of this Bean mixture on the inside it really Heats well throughout and at night it's nice because it sticks together and surprisingly we're not putting any cheese in here there's no dare Dairy which always kind of jacks the price up on stuff so just using that salsa and beans and taco seasoning gives you so much flavor and these would be good with regular sour cream or without any sauce at all they really really are delicious foreign next up we have our copycat Santa Fe rice and beans like I said comment below if you remember the rice and beans from Lean Cuisine and like I said maybe they still make it but that was one of my absolute favorites and I've been wanting to try this for a while and this recipe hit the nail on the head and it's so cheap it's so good and so cheap you want a can of black beans drains and rinsed as well as one can of kidney beans drained and rinsed and not only is this cheap easy and delicious it's super easy you want to start by adding one cup of shredded cheddar cheese or I had like a monterey jack blend to a bowl you need a half a cup of salsa or I actually ran out of salsa so I used the tomatoes with diced green chilies and that worked out fine and then eight ounces of tomato sauce you also want to add your drinks and rain right drained rinsed drained in rinsed beans and two tablespoons of taco seasoning which worked out perfect because I used that one tablespoon of taco seasoning from a little packet for the black bean Crispies and then I used two more for this so you can can make these two nights in a row and just use a packet of taco seasoning and you're gonna be in good shape and then one cup of sour cream and the original recipe calls for one can of drained whole kernel corn unfortunately I was out of corn so I wasn't able to add that and it was still good but I do remember the corn from the original recipe so where I made to make it again I would definitely add in corn then I'm just adding about a teaspoon of garlic powder and onion powder just because I didn't have like real salsa and I felt like those flavors were going to be missing if I didn't put them in and then the last step is to add four cups of cooked rice I had basmati rice because that's just what I had around and it's quick to cook and it tasted great like that but you can use you know short grain you can use the instant stuff whatever is going to work the rice is you know white rice it's good stuff and once everything is well mixed you do want to add that to a 13 by nine pan I used one that was slightly smaller and it really filled it to the top so this makes a ton of food and this is at least two meals worth of food for my family of five the baby ate two so there is a lot here and that's why it's such a great budget meal and then you want to cook that at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes it's going to make sure that everything is heated through and all the flavors melt and then we're going to sprinkle with one cup of cheddar cheese or whatever remaining cheese that you have and bake for another five to ten minutes until that cheese is melted and if you're wondering what's going on over there on the left in that pot that's actually a simmer pot so I just put some cinnamon sticks cloves apple and orange in a pot and simmered it on low and it makes an amazing smell in your house so I would recommend you try it if you haven't once your cheese is all melty this is ready to serve and I just decided to add some green onions over the top of mine just for fun and this did taste just like the good old-fashioned Lean Cuisine it was so delicious we kind of couldn't stop eating it it was bad but we luckily because there was so much had so many leftovers I just served mine with some tortilla chips and then I had leftover of the um the cilantro lime sauce from the Crispies and I put that over the top of this so like I said these are great back-to-back meals it was so amazingly delicious next up we have pinto bean burger so for the pinto bean burgers we need a half a cup of diced onion and as much as I usually don't care about how much onion I use when you're making like a veggie burger like this you do want to be a little careful about that because otherwise you're just going to get a burger that's all onion it just needs the ratio to be correct so I'm guessing that's going to be about one of these halves of this small to medium onion and as much as I love onion I am going to dice it really really small because I don't want huge chunks of onion in a veggie burger like this and hey I actually used a cloth underneath my cutting board this time it's not sliding everywhere for your viewing pleasure so make sure to give this video a like if you're pleased that I remembered to do that and even if you aren't you know thumbs up okay we're gonna combine all of our ingredients into a bowl to make the burgers so we have a half a cup of our diced onion a half a cup of bread crumbs I'm using panko um but I think you could use regular too we'll see I think it'll turn out fine about a quarter cup of chopped cilantro I had this left over from something so I don't want to waste it it does have some scallions in it but that's fine because scallions are delicious I know it's gonna taste good in this we're going to use two tablespoons of sour cream yeah yep hi hi Julian says hi and look at my paper airplane watch this made an awesome paper airplane one teaspoon of hot sauce I'm just gonna use Cholula here [Music] one half a teaspoon of ground cumin an eighth of a teaspoon of salt and one large egg guess I have the egg in here I don't really want to use a whisk but I do want to use a fork to kind of get everything really well mixed and I feel like a fork is sometimes a good alternative to a whisk when you don't want everything to get stuck in there I'm gonna try and mash the corn down so the recipe actually calls for about eight ounces of corn and I have a 15 ounce so I'm gonna do about half [Music] the corn so what I did was I put the cooked pinto beans kind of in this can so that I know the right amount of pinto beans to use [Music] we're just going to try and mash these up a little bit I might need to wait a few minutes because they're still really hot we're gonna make them into four patties and then I'm gonna put them in the refrigerator for 10 minutes okay I hope these stay together and they seem a little wet for my like but then again I guess I could add extra bread crumbs I don't know I'm banking on them staying together once I cook them and we'll know if I didn't trust my gut and add the extra bread crumbs then that's what I should have done all right off to the refrigerator for 10 minutes so I've heated some oil in the pan here over this is a medium low heat you can probably go medium on your pan depending on what type of pans you have and these really did solidify in the refrigerator so I'm happy about that so I'm just going to place them on I'm hoping they're going to sizzle a little bit and we're going to cook them for about four minutes on each side I'm gonna get flipping these a shot now it's been about four minutes oh look at that looks good I'm excited that was everything I was hoping for in kind of like a Frost dummies and I know that three of us will have some cheese on ours like that and comment below if you know who is going to not have cheese I just end up putting the cover on so that it can melt so I just cooked up some super fast air fryer um like potatoes to go on the side I had made baked potatoes a few days ago my tip is always to make extra baked potatoes so that you can do something like this makes it super easy the night of I just sliced them up threw them in the air fryer for like 10 minutes with olive oil and some of the antonyms grilling seasoning and they're delicious I'm just gonna have my burger with a little bit of mayonnaise I have some um Cholula and some lettuce the original recipe actually has like a chipotle sauce I didn't make that because I knew no one in my family really care for that um but I will put that recipe down in the description box so that you can see it if you want to make that sauce I always like to do like a mayonnaise whipped up with some Sriracha too that's also really good these burgers were absolutely fantastic Julian loved his ate the entire thing and they're not like veggie burgers are never going to taste exactly like a regular burger but the key is that they're flavorful they're delicious and that's what this was so I would make these again and again and I actually felt you know kind of healthy having something like this it was really great the next recipe is for a pinto bean and butternut squash chili this is absolutely delicious okay we're gonna start on our chili and just chop up about a cup and a half of onions but I have the other half of this onion from the burgers and then I have this large onion I'm just going to chop it all up because then a chili onion is delicious and then we want about two and a half cups of red bell pepper I just have this single bell pepper I'm gonna cut up the whole thing I love chili It's just extremely forgiving a forgiving meal I have many times made chili without Peppers when I called for peppers and we're also gonna want one minced clove of garlic as always if you don't have fresh garlic or onion you can always use onion powder and garlic powder and it will be still very good the fresh stuff is very inexpensive and it does add a lot but the I understand if you just have dried on hand go for it I'm just going to add our a little bit of oil to the pan I need to buy more oil our onions and peppers and then once those are cooked down maybe about five minutes we're gonna add in the garlic [Music] so I almost forgot the original recipe does not call for ground beef or turkey it's just like a vegetarian chili but I had this tube of ground turkey and I wanted to cook it up in this give it some extra protein so we'll just add that right now all right we're gonna add our garlic now just cook that for a minute you could drain this but I'm not too worried about it with everything we're putting in here it's not super fatty or anything so I'm actually out of chili powder so this is going to be kind of a taco flavored chili which hopefully is okay because this is what I have taco seasoning so hope for the best with this I have pre-cut up butternut squash that you could totally just buy one and dice it you want a couple of Cups this is probably a little more than that but hey too many vegetables is never a bad thing when you want three cups of the pinto beans I'm actually going to cut it down to two because I added that ground turkey and I have lots of butternut squash and I'm just worried there's not gonna be enough for the third recipe for the pinto beans so whatever you have you can always do like a can of black beans too I've got one drained can of corn you can always use frozen one can of diced tomatoes I think the recipe calls for crushed but I just didn't have that if I had had my favorite fire roasted I would have used those but I just had regular dice today so I think it'll be fine and then one can of diced green chilies you don't want to include the cover and you don't want to drain those the um the sauce is actually or the juice is actually going to give it flavor but look at that color on there I like it I'm excited about this this is going to be a healthy delicious meal so technically the recipe that I'm using is for a crock pot so it says to cook it on low for eight hours I'm not going to be doing that I just wanted to get this done tonight so I'm just going to cook it until it tastes good and my butternut squash is cooked all the way through so just gonna kind of let it simmer on a medium low for a while here and I will let you know at the end exactly how long it actually took all right it's been about 20 minutes the butternut squash is fully cooked through the flavor is really good just want to test that on this and I will put the original recipe Down Below in the description box for you so you can see the um like the actual chili and cumin proportions if you have chili on hand but just know that if you're ever making chili and you don't have it you can always use a little bit of an envelope of taco seasoning and a little bit goes a long way it's not going to give it the exact same flavor as the chili but it will definitely give it a similar flavor and you just have to know that it's kind of like a taco rendition of chili It's still quite good we ended up having this as lunches for the week but it did end up making about eight servings so you're getting a ton of food kind of utilizing these pinto beans and like I've said many times with this you can switch things in and out you can really make something happen out of nothing whatever you have in your pantry this next one is a Cheesy pinto bean and chicken Skillet and this is a great way to really stretch some chicken you could also use canned chicken in this this is a great option or really any other protein that you're trying to use up go ahead and fill it in and it's going to be great okay we're avoiding extra dishes so I did not wash this I just cooked the burgers on it and kind of wiped it out it's fine we just cooked on it so it's not going to be a problem we're cooking with very similar flavors too so I'm not too worried about it add in the rest of my pinto beans but if you wanted to use cans you could just use two cans of drained and rinsed pinto beans then obviously you could make your own but I bought some pico de gallo and this is about two cups which is what you want to put in here this is going to give it most of its flavor and then I think the recipe said like three cups of chicken but I have probably maybe two here and that's we're gonna use and this is like a three ingredient thing we're gonna add some cheese to it at the end so I guess it's four but the original recipe says that you can make tacos with this which I think would be a really delicious thing but what I did was I actually over here to the side cooked up some brown rice and we're gonna serve ours with brown rice and it would kind of end up being like a little burrito bowl so you can add sour cream cilantro avocado guacamole they actually recommend serving it with a few slices of lime that would be really good too sliced radishes whatever you want make it your own so just gonna heat heat this all the way through and then I'm gonna take the sprinkle sprinkle the cheese we're using monterey jack right over the top keep in that monterey jack it feels like a lot of cheese but you know what not mad so I'm gonna take this off the heat and it's gonna be delicious so I ended up serving this the next night for dinner and was absolutely delicious if you have like sour cream cilantro you can serve any of those things with this maybe some avocado extra salsa hot sauce if you want cheese I mean it's pretty cheesy as it is but it was absolutely delicious kind of like a burrito bowl but a little different now pea soup can be so budget friendly and yes it is a bean recipe using one pound of peas a can of sliced carrots Now the recipe calls for fresh garlic and onion but we are just going to use powdered then we're going to use one bay leaf six cups of hot water one tablespoon of salt a half a teaspoon of pepper we're just going to place all of that in the crock pot I cooked it on low for eight hours but you could also do it on high for four [Music] [Music] so here's what our soup looks like after eight hours on low you just mix it up I mean pea soup is not the most appetizing looking thing but the flavor in the soup was incredible and I realized I mentioned earlier that I was planning to use the chicken bouillon in this and I actually found a recipe that didn't include it and it didn't need it it had plenty of flavor and it was delicious not including the bouillon also makes it vegan so it's a great vegan Choice it's just so filling and so healthy I know I'm doing my body a good service when I eat this my husband loved it and it was just something to look forward to every day the next meal is a Weight Watchers zero point chili there are a ton of beans in this meal you'll see that there are six cans I did decide to use chopped onions instead of using a whole onion because I wanted it to be a dump and go easy meal to make on the run but if you wanted to use a regular onion you may save yourself a little bit of money these chopped onions were 1.19 and an onion probably runs about 86 cents so you can save a little bit I got two cans of black beans from Aldi for 49 cents each and two cans of pinto beans and kidney beans from Walmart and those are 50 cents each I got these hunts whole San Marzano Tomatoes at the Dollar Tree at one time and really the recipe calls for diced tomatoes you can usually get a can like this of 28 ounces for 75 to a dollar depending on the store that you shop at the recipe also calls for an eight ounce can of tomato sauce which is honestly like 40 cents but I didn't have one so I'm actually using about a tablespoon of tomato paste some sugar and eight ounces of water and that will basically make your basic tomato sauce that you would buy in a small can at the grocery store then I'm using this container of chili seasoning mix honestly if I were to make this again I would use two of these packets it needed a little bit more flavor once everything was mixed together then I had that can of corn and some garlic powder can of corn runs 49 cents at Aldi and garlic powder is 95 cents for an entire bottle do not hesitate to buy one if you add up all those prices you should be able to feed about 10 people with this chili for under seven dollars so I'm just dumping everything in I put my onions in I rinsed all of my beans and tossed them in and because I'm not using diced tomatoes I do have to break these up with my hands and I can't use my little Masher because otherwise I would mash up all the beans so probably just the wrong order that I did things in but it works just fine just takes a little bit longer had I had daised tomatoes this really would have been a 100 dump and go meal just mixing everything together I'm gonna add my seasoning packet one cup of water a tablespoon of salt and a tablespoon of garlic powder and tomato paste and don't forget to add your corn like I did I added mine way part way through when I realized that I completely forgot to add that can of corn I cooked it on low for eight hours but you could do high for four it turned out great I just added to add an extra bit of chili seasoning cumin and garlic powder I would just recommend one more chili packet and I think that would do the trick this next recipe is a slow cooker black bean soup and we need one medium bell pepper cord seeded and diced and I did not have a red bell pepper but I did have a green one and I knew that I was going to make another recipe the next day and then also cried out a green pepper and I only had one so we just split the green pepper in half it still tasted delicious both meals were absolutely fine with half the green pepper it was plenty of pepper plenty of flavor even like in my family that I don't love Peppers so they were not missing it by any means but it did add the right flavor so I mean use what you have sometimes even if I can get like one of those little containers of roasted red peppers from the Dollar Tree I will use that in a recipe like this you don't always need all of the ingredients or sometimes you can cut things down and you still get all the good flavor so yeah just slice up your green pepper [Music] and then you're going to want one medium onion diced and I just talked about onions in my 10 or less video and I will post that Below in the description box if you haven't watched it yet but basically onions are an amazing budget friendly thing to keep on hand you can find pounds of them for like 1.99 and they pretty much give flavor to everything now if you don't have onions or you don't have money for onions then it's absolutely fine to just buy onion powder and use that instead and meals like this I have often substituted garlic powder or onion powder and it turned out absolutely delicious so just your choice whether you want to buy the fresh or if you have the powder on hand already and you are really on a tight budget go ahead and use the onion powder and it will still taste delicious what I like about this recipe is it really is a true chop dump and go a lot of times when you have onions and peppers you do need to cook those prior to putting them in the crock pot but in this case you do not to the onions and peppers I'm adding two bay leaves and then one pound of uncooked black beans now I know you're supposed to wash them and I always forget and it always turns out fine so you know to each their own spices add one and a half tablespoons of chili powder one tablespoon of ground cumin and two teaspoons of kosher salt and you're also going to want three cloves of minced garlic similar to The Onion if you have garlic powder instead you can use that as a substitute probably about a half a teaspoon per clove and then I happen to have vegetable stock on hand so I decided to use that I use 32 ounces of that and then I added another 16 ounces of water and two teaspoons of chicken bouillon to this so if you have chicken bouillon that isn't always a great budget alternative to a stock or you can save your vegetable pieces Stave your meat pieces and make stock on your own another alternative is always just water and salt it does work I'm going to cook this on low for eight to ten hours there's not really a high cooking alternative here because these are dried beans and they need a lot of time to sit and get cooked but as you can see they cooked up perfectly in about eight hours so it does take a while but you get a lot and you saw how much water I added there like it seemed really soupy there it does not end up being a very soupy soup there is just a lot of beans in this and that's not a bad thing it's a very hearty it's very filling and it is absolutely delicious like my husband was so shocked this is really flavorful wow thank you like really surprised by how delicious a black bean soup could be and I served it with a little bit of Greek yogurt because that's what I have you can use sour cream some cilantro and cheddar cheese and I cooked up some Jiffy cornbread for real cheap and this was our dinner even the kids liked it and we had leftovers the next recipe is called beans and rice dinner and this is a Taste of Home recipe you just want to put a tablespoon of any oil vegetable oil olive oil whatever you have in a pan heat that up and then I'm adding one chopped onion a medium chopped pepper of course I had half a pepper but that's okay that still worked out just fine in this and then two ribs of celery chopped now if you don't have the pepper and the celery I would definitely try and find something like that on sale the great thing about peppers and celery is that if you buy them on sale you can actually pre-chop them and then put them in your freezer and save them for a time when you do need to use them so that's just an idea on how to make sure that you have these things around so when you want to make something like this you can still make sure that you're not buying it at a premium and so you want to cook those up for about five minutes in the until they're tender in the meantime I cooked up some rice on the side I just did like a quick five minute rice you can cook rice in the rice cooker it's always a good idea to just cook rice at the end of the week and have it because in this recipe you want pre-cooked rice but it doesn't matter if you made it a couple days ago you can just add that right in there so two cups of rice 128 ounce can of diced tomatoes undrained two teaspoons of Worcestershire sauce one and a half teaspoons of chili powder and one can of black beans rinsed and drained but the recipe calls for kidney beans I happen to have black beans I didn't have any kidney beans it's delicious with black beans I can't quite speak to kidney beans but I'm sure it would be delicious with kidney beans I feel like you could definitely use kidney beans or black beans and both are going to be amazing in this I just want to mix all of that up that is pretty much everything that's going to go into this and we're going to let it come to a boil [Music] at this point you want to reduce the Heat and simmer it covered for an additional seven to nine minutes [Music] can we just talk about the colors in this dish like this is so pretty and it's so inexpensive and I was laughing because my husband's I said he said what's for dinner and we just had the black bean soup yesterday and I said oh rice and beans and he thought I meant literally rice and beans I said rice and beans dinner so I put this on the plate he goes oh this is not what I was expecting at all and he was so impressed he said this is really good this I really thought you were just gonna serve me racing means he goes I mean I should have known because you served really good food thank you Dan but I surprised him with this look at that look at that Skillet that is like cheap and easy and delicious so cheese over the top with some scallions and then I served it with the leftover cornbread from the night before and a little bit of salad that I had and Betty here is trying his first food so he had some sweet potatoes and some black bean cakes actually just took the black beans and mashed those up into like so much so that they couldn't even choke on them into like little pies Little Cakes and uh he he got going on that and he really enjoyed it so you guys get to enjoy Benny's first experience with food as well the next recipe is a chickpea Curry and wow it's another super easy super delicious super inexpensive meal and I made this as a lunch but I probably will make it for dinner sometime soon because it is Hardy enough to eat for dinner so I just put a little bit of oil in my pan here whatever you have I happen to have a red onion so I chopped that up you could use red yellow or white they said it didn't really matter and then I want 14 ounces of diced tomatoes and I only had this big can so I just took half that and put the other half in the fridge add a little bit of salt and pepper and then bring this to a boil over medium heat and cook it down for about 10 minutes until like all of the juices and the tomatoes are naturally released just add one can of chickpeas about 16 ounces drained and rinsed and then we're gonna add spices it's going to be one and a half tablespoons of gram marsala one teaspoon of curry powder a quarter teaspoon of cumin now I always keep gram Masala and curry powder on hand so if you see the store it might be a good idea just to grab some if you like curries and stuff like that you want to make you know dabbling making your own Indian food they're pretty much the base to most of the things that I have made and it's really really nice to know that I don't have to run out and grab something very specific those two things pretty much work and then to this I'm adding three cloves of garlic and I am going to use my microplane for that I don't really know why I'm switching between the microplane and the garlic press sometimes just depends on my mood I guess but you can also use garlic powder as I said and again you could use onion powder in this I think it would still taste really good the key in here is the spices so you do want to make sure you have those but if that's really your main expense because you're pretty much cooking tomatoes and chickpeas it's really not that bad stir this until combined and then add one can of coconut milk now I have seen coconut milk at the Dollar Tree so no I think 1.25 so it's not too expensive sometimes I've seen it for more like a regular grocery store so if you can find it at the Dollar Tree I think that that is a deal and I wouldn't I would go with the full fat because that really thickens up the sauce I've used like a light coconut milk before and I find that it's too watery for my taste at least and it's crazy because look how thick this is and it just melts right up inside of your dish which is awesome and it gives it so much delicious coconutty flavor [Music] Now the recipe says this part's optional but I would definitely recommend it it says to add two teaspoons of coconut flour I didn't have coconut flour so I just use regular flour and then we're going to cook this for another 10 to 12 minutes after it comes up to a boil and you want to reduce the heat at that point and then cook it for 12 minutes and the reason that I say add the flour is it really does help to thicken the sauce and you do want like a hearty Rich robust thick sauce [Music] this meal actually ends up being Accidentally Vegan I serve mine over rice and it was absolutely delicious like I absolutely love it it is a great lunch for me it is so hearty so healthy I will be serving this to my family soon for dinner as well I hope you enjoyed these recipes but if you're looking for more budget friendly fun go ahead and click on this next video and make sure the next time you're on YouTube you're watching meals with Maria days go by wasted in blue

Channel: Meals With Maria

Views: 154,468

Keywords: How to make rice and beans that don't suck, what to cook to save tons of money, better rice and beans recipes, dave ramsey approved meal, dave ramsey approved recipes, baby step 2 dinner, baby step 2 dinner recipes, not bland rice and beans, budget meals, meals with maria, budget cooking, budget recipes, budget meals with maria, financial freedom, frugal meals, frugal living, frugal, never boring rice and beans, rice and beans, eat your way to financial freedom, dave ramsey

Id: buD3573tAqk

Length: 78min 20sec (4700 seconds)

Published: Wed May 10 2023