Cooking meals with LITTLE TO NO MEAT for a family, need your ideas!

jambalaya

You can cut your chicken breast and sausage into small morsels so it's filled.

Not sure if cheap.

I use chicken thigh plus chicken stock. I boil chicken in chicken stock. Then get chicken out when cooked and re-add bones to concentrate stock. Do an infusion but with star anise and a hint of chilli. Vegetables use mushroom, carrot and bok choy. Whatever noodles you like.

It becomes more expensive when you add dumplings. I found these frozen polish dumplings ( but not anymore )

Can be filling. Like when Bruce Lee visit USA and bought soups at the airport.

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When we had lots of kids and little money I made a batch of bread every day and cut our grocery bill more than in half. We made pizza, rolls, cinnamon and orange rolls from the same dough. I baked loaves in tall juice cans so they were round and made round sandwiches for lunch and the kids loved them.

Also you can make pasta with a creamy garlic sauce and you don’t miss the meat. Mushrooms, vegetables, pine nuts make good toss ins. Even just pasta with parm tossed in is good. Pancakes are cheap and filling.

Just to add, I made the bread every day while I was working full time. I had a ktek bread mixer and didn’t bother to proof the yeast. Just toss it all in and stir. Took less than five minutes to make the dough.

Lot's of good vegetarian chili recipes out there.

Exactly.

The so-called elite will always eat meat. They will take it away from the masses because without meat we do get weaker. Especially children. Look up Weston Price. If vegan and vegetarian was so good they would be eating that way but they don’t. They know better.

One roasted chicken for the two of us will last several meals: 2 or maybe meals 3 as roast chicken. I don't cut the whole thing, but carve off what I will serve for that meal. Next comes chicken salad and chicken sandwiches. The rest of the carcass goes into soup.

One ham steak will yield dinner servings, smaller servings chopped up into an omelette or with leftover brocolli in a quiche, and a bit to flavor the beans.

We like macaroni and cheese, so we have it often, but I add more cheese and maybe 1/4 -1/3 cup Greek unflavored yogurt to make it creamy and add more protein.

For a filling bowl of Top Ramen, add grated carrot, and some slices of green onion tops for color. Finish it off with a boiled egg sliced. Multiply for more people. My husband scoffed the first time I ever served it, but changed his mind by the end of the meal.

Make cabbage rolls with more rice and onion but less meat.

Weird, still $5 here

Unfortunately this vegan is right about the meat tax. And after that, the banning of beef farming. The powers that be don't want you to eat meat. Meat will be a luxury for the ruling class only.
Like the movie Soylent Green.
It is all propaganda and lies, but it is coming.

Humans are engineered to eat meat, as evidenced by their teeth. Vegetarian diets work OK for monks and nuns of various religions, but certainly not for growing kids or people working manual labor. The supplements vegans need to stay healthy are another indication that humans need meat for health. Meat was one of the first foods people had to eat, and has been with us for a long long time.

People who do not want to eat meat for various reasons should not be coerced or forced to eat it, and those who don't want to eat it should abstain.

Look up some recipes because some of these recipes have different ways to make them and you may like one type over the other.

Chicken and Dumplings is a southern dish. You boil the chicken (legs and thighs are great for this) and remove from the bone, put back in the water/chicken broth you cooked it in. Then when it's boiling, you take flour, salt and water and mix into a dough to roll out and cut into strips that you drop into the boiling chicken. The flour on the dumplings will thicken the broth up into a thicker soupy dish. Eat with cornbread and turnip greens mixed with spinach or some greens.

Some people will take refrigerator bisquits, roll them out on flour so they don't stick and get some flour on them, cut them up and drop them into the boiling chicken. It doesn't take long for dumplings to cook. Some like fluffy dumplings, some like flat. I like flat dumplings.

When you buy hamburger helper or make your own out of cheese and mac, you only put in a half pound instead of the entire pound. No one will notice the difference.

Make red beans with sausage and rice today. Take a can of chili flavored tomatoes, spices, jalapenos, whatever you want to make chili out of the left over beans for the next day. Eat both with cornbread.

Rotisserie chicken is good for 2 meals at least. Make chicken alfredo over pasta with green beans and garlic bread. The second dish would be chicken fried rice. You can also make chicken salad for sandwiches. You can make chicken mac and cheese. You can make chicken pot pies as the chicken will make 2 pot pies. Chicken spagetti. Lots of stuff you can use chicken for.

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Definitely a few-dayer for me too. Can’t beat it....well, Ramen but that gets old quick.

Might want to cancel your internet instead of cutting into your food budget.

That said...

Whole chickens you can stretch into 3 or 4 meals and only cost like 1.50 a pound cause you aren't paying for butchering.

Bake it. Meal 1.

Seperate leftover meat chunks from base carcass (including wings and drumsticks the kids eat.) Save all.

Meal 2 is whatever you want to do with the leftover meat chunks. Don't use all. Say chicken fried rice for example.

Meal 3 is soup/stew made from carcass/bones. Be sure to save some of the broth. Chicken and dumplings is a good example.

Meal 4 is whatever you want to make from broth and meat leftovers. Example here is chicken casserole.

we use lentils in chili/tacos/curries, chickpeas in chana masala, my kids love rice cooked with those tomatoes/green chilies or salsa and then at the end I dump in a can of drained black beans or kidney or pinto beans and frozen sweet corn if we have it. Fried rice with eggs, and all the veggie odds and ends in the 'rotter' (our name for the veggie drawer in the fridge), mince an onion, finely chop cabbage and saute low and slow with a little bacon or sausage for a filling dish. Potatoes roasted, with cheese, mashed or baked with toppings (in college I went most of a semester with a baked potato topped with cottage cheese, minced onion, and bbq for a cheap healthy dinner - veg on the side)

There are lots of food pantries now too...don't discount them. Many give out fresh meat or fish if you are willing to eat it. As we head into hunting season, many states have programs that allow hunters to donate extra venison to pantries. Our community also has local cupboards that they have put out in rural neighborhoods and the locals keep stocked (through a county 'mutual aid' society).

breakfast for dinner is another good way to be creative - french toast, biscuits and gravy, eggs scrambled with whatever, pancakes or waffles and fruit..lots of choices. Some farms will also trade for work, check out localharvest.org and see what's near you. Some CSA's even have share the wealth programs that allow subscribers to purchase an extra share to donate to another family.

Yup. No meat! Won’t kill ua and definitely lowers the food bill.

This.

Farms that advertise and sell meat are expensive as they claim to raise it "better." But regular farmers who dont sell in general probably would sell extra if asked.

your family will become obese.

Go keto, meat and veggies. no starch, no potatoes, no sugar. Buy meat on sale, buy kolbasa, cheese, have chicken day every sunday, Roast chicken with carrots & celery. Butter is fine, oil is fine.

If you do this you will feel more full, get the munchies less and feel much better after 12 weeks, as your body adjusts to it and you will lose weight.

Enchiladas.. I add green onions, and sliced or chopped black olives. Most times I add chicken, but they are great without chicken also.

I make 60 at a time, they freeze GREAT. I set them on trays to freeze seperate then put them in a resealable (save sealer) Easy to grab just 1 for a snack or a bunch for a quick easy meal.

This spanish rice is awesome as well with them.

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Eat cheaper cuts & offal.

cheap braising steak. Ok it takes longer to cook to be nice but its cooked at low tempreture so does not cost much to make a stew.

Pigs trotters. Yeah, yuk, i know.. But, once boiled you would be suprised how much very tasty meat falls of them.
Great for ham & pea soup or a thick bacon and lentil stew.

Ox hearts and lambs hearts.
Stuff them with rice and mushrooms and bake them.

Cows cheeks.
Stews and caseroles.

Chicken livers.
Very nice fried and served on toast with butter.

Black pudding.
Use it instead of expensive bacon for breakfast.
Cheap and high protien, nice with an egg yolk on a fry up.

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If anyone in the family can hunt, get a license and go deer hunting.
I don't know what a deer tag costs in your State but here in Ontario Canuckistan it's about $45 and if you get a deer it's 80-100lbs of meat.

Not to mention the squirrel, rabbit, duck, geese and whatever else you can hunt.

Yes! I was getting ready to add lentils to the list. They are such a versatile food. Can add them to spaghetti sauce to make a faux meat sauce, an asian inspired entree and put over rice, add canned chicken to them and mexican spices for quesadillas, etc. There are a lot of great recipes of lentils online. They are packed with protein.

Yes, and they are also a legume that some of us who can not eat legumes actually can eat. No idea why.

Meat addict, I could outwork the lot of you & I am strictly vegetarian.

Ya, smart humans let animals do the work....you go work harder rather then smarter. You've shown your intelligence. Body of an Ox...eating plants...sounds bovine to me.

talk to local hunt clubs, they usually have venison they give away this time of year

I used to have a big disdain almost a hate for people who would just resort to ramen noodles because they were cheap.

But, I've added a lot of good stuff to the noodle dishes and I will admit it gets to be damn tastey.