Yummy Healthy Budget-Friendly Meals for Busy Moms 

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In the fast-paced world of motherhood, along with inflation, finding the perfect balance between delicious, nutritious, and budget-friendly meals can seem like a huge task. Let’s discuss how we can cook healthy budget-friendly meals that taste good and will fit seamlessly into your hectic routine. 

I understand the importance of nourishing your family with wholesome ingredients without breaking the bank. Here is a week’s worth of breakfast, lunch, and dinner ideas that are delightful and nutritious.

Say goodbye to the stress of meal planning and hello to the joy of creating scrumptious dishes without compromising on health or your budget!

Be encouraged Mama! If you’re like me, you enjoy organic, top-quality, wholesome ingredients in your recipes. However, when working with a reduced budget it’s okay if you are not able to purchase those things in this season!

Give yourself grace, work with what you have, and pray over your food. When you bless and sanctify your food, understand that it seriously works. Thank God for what you have and trust Him with the rest!

So you shall serve the Lord your God, and He will bless your bread and your water. And I will take sickness away from the midst of you. Exodus 23:25 NKJV

1. Black Bean Rice Bowl

This is a healthy budget-friendly meal that is filling and customizable! You can literally have this meal every week if you want because you can change the toppings whenever you’d like.

I like to make this with Jasmine or Basmati rice. However, a bag of cheap white rice works perfectly if you’re on a tight budget. 

Black beans are a must for this dish. I’ve used both canned beans and dry beans. I find that dry beans yield more for your money. You can cook a whole pound of black beans in an instant pot to avoid soaking them first. I use the manual pressure cook button on High for about 30-35 minutes with 4 cups of water.

I like to throw some diced onion in with the beans and water as I normally have half of the leftover onion from the other dishes I make for the week. Seasonings are a must as well for flavor.

Use what you have but salt, pepper, garlic powder, cumin, and chili powder are great! I don’t measure my seasonings, but here is a recipe I found online that you can use for inspiration. Kristine’s Kitchen Instant Pot Black Beans

Cheap Delicious Toppings

Once your rice and beans are cooked, top it with whatever you’d like. I love making a fresh pico de gallo using tomatoes, half a large white onion, cilantro, a splash of vinegar, and salt. All of these things are generally less than a dollar each. Especially if you don’t opt for organic. I started grating my cheese with a box grater. You get more cheese for the money this way and there are usually fewer preservatives in the cheese allowing for a better texture. I top it off with sour cream.

My family and I enjoy this! If you can afford a splurge, this is also delicious with chicken or beef added to it!

2. Oven Fried Chicken Legs with Salad and Potato Wedges

Where I live, chicken legs are still accessible for a great price. I’ve gotten a large pack of legs for less than $5 on many occasions! Check your local grocery and price the chicken legs because they make for great protein when it comes to healthy budget-friendly meals.

A large bag of russet potatoes is pretty cheap also.

When I purchase these items, I can generally get at least 2-3 meals from them. 

Oven-fried chicken is a great way to satisfy your craving for fried chicken while keeping it quick and healthy. Here is a recipe for Oven Fried Chicken that you may enjoy.

In addition to the chicken legs, I like to prepare a quick side salad. A side salad is a great way to get healthy veggies in for a cheap price. Lately, I’ve been sticking with romaine lettuce, tomatoes, and cucumbers. I like these because they are quick and cheap, and I can use these ingredients in other recipes. The tomatoes will also be used in pico de gallo and gyros. The cucumbers will also be used for the gyros.

Use whatever dressing fits your budget. If you keep oil and vinegar on hand, you won’t need to purchase any additional dressing. Balsamic vinegar, red wine vinegar, or apple cider vinegar are all great to pair with some olive oil and salt and pepper to dress your salad. You can even make your salad dressing if you choose too!

Use some of your potatoes to make homemade potato wedges. Wash and slice your potatoes. Season them, drizzle with oil, and bake them in the oven. Here is a recipe for potato wedges that you may want to use for inspiration.

3. Vegetarian Shepherd’s Pie

Vegetarian Shepherd’s Pie is a great healthy budget-friendly meal! I like to use this recipe when I make this dish. The great thing about this recipe is that it is flexible enough to make adjustments to accommodate your time and budget. 

I like to cut corners and use frozen peas and carrots. It’s inexpensive and saves me a lot of time. I use dried thyme from my pantry. I’ve even tried omitting the onion, garlic, and mushrooms from this dish and it was still delicious. 

Do what works for you and your family. You’ll appreciate the nutrients you get from the lentils, peas, carrots, and potatoes. I use some potatoes from the large bag of russet potatoes that I buy. I like to cook them in my Instant Pot, peel the skin off once they cool, and mash them with my potato masher before adding milk, butter, and seasonings.

4. Simple Chicken Gyros

My family and I have come to enjoy gyros! You can make this in a variety of ways. We usually buy gyro meat from Costco. However, we also enjoy the budget-friendly rendition and use chicken as well. Here is a recipe that calls for chicken breasts, but you could also cook up leftover chicken legs from this week’s meals, season them with Greek seasonings, and take the meat off the bones. 

To make this budget-friendly, you can swap the pita bread out for some basic flour tortillas. We love tzatziki sauce, however, there have been a few times when we omitted the sauce completely and it was still a great meal! 

The fastest cheapest way that I’ve made gyros is to top my tortillas with the meat, feta cheese, cucumber, and tomatoes. (The cucumbers and tomatoes were leftover from the salad and pico de gallo from previous meals.) When we don’t make the tzatziki sauce, we like to drizzle our gyros with olive oil and sprinkle with salt! So yummy!

5. Black Bean Enchiladas

Black Bean Enchiladas is another tasty healthy budget-friendly meal! It’s pretty simple and requires minimal ingredients. The most basic recipe only requires corn tortillas, black beans, cheese, and enchilada sauce. 

When I make this, I use some of the ingredients from previous recipes. I save half of the black beans and some of the grated cheese from the Black Beans and Rice Bowl and use them in this Enchilada recipe. I also save the sour cream and use it to top these enchiladas. You can also save some of your cilantro or pico de gallo if you want to. 

The sour cream is optional. I used this 4 Ingredient Enchilada Casserole recipe as my inspiration for this dish.

It’s quick and tasty and even my 2-year-old daughter eats it! 

6. Pinto Beans with Pico De Gallo and Cornbread

This pinto beans dish is quick and simple and has a Southern comfort food vibe to it. Adding toppings to the beans takes it up a notch. I used this recipe and made some minor adjustments. Pinto Beans and Pico de Gallo is definitely a filling, healthy budget-friendly meal.

I skipped the mushrooms and bay leaf in this recipe and the beans still turned out yummy! I also used Jiffy Cornbread because it was inexpensive (not the best of ingredients, I know, but sanctify it and do what you gotta do), and I didn’t have cornmeal, buttermilk, or shortening on hand.

Top this with pico de gallo and sour cream that I had left from the black bean bowl. Just make sure that you buy enough tomatoes, cilantro, and onion for all of these recipes. I was able to make seven Roma tomatoes, 1 bunch of cilantro, and 1 large onion work for all my recipes. 

Eight or nine tomatoes may be a bit more comfortable since they are needed for at least 3 recipes over multiple days. I also used 4 cucumbers for my salad and gyros and still had some leftovers to eat as a snack.

7. Crockpot Chicken Legs, Baked Potatoes, and Broccoli

The last meal that I want to share with you in this post is another healthy, budget-friendly meal. Throw some chicken legs in a crockpot and season as you’d like. This is versatile because you can use BBQ Sauce, Teriyaki Sauce, Montreal Steak Seasoning, Cajun Seasoning, or whatever else you can think of.

 This way, you have something different each time you make them. You can put these in the crockpot with a little water and your sauce and cook on low for about 4 hours. Try 6 hours if you’re using frozen chicken legs. 

I like to cook my potatoes in the Instant Pot. Wash them and slice slits in them and place them in the trivet in the Instant Pot with 2 cups of water. I use High Pressure to cook them for about 15 minutes, or 20 minutes if they are big potatoes.

 Then I let the pressure naturally release. We love to top these with butter, cheese, sour cream, and Montreal Steak seasoning. These are all things we generally have on hand already.

I’m able to get about 40 oz of frozen broccoli for cheap so it lasts for multiple meals. I heat some of this and season them with spices. This completes a healthy, delicious, inexpensive, and quick meal.

Budget-Friendly Breakfast Ideas

I like to keep breakfast simple. Two days out of the week we have Old Fashioned Oats. I cook them in my Instant Pot. I cook 3 cups of oats in 7.5 cups of water on High Pressure for 20 minutes. This provides my family of 3, hearty bowls of oatmeal for 2 days out of the week. We top ours with butter, milk, cinnamon, vanilla extract, and raisins. This makes for a hearty healthy budget-friendly meal for breakfast!

We eat Malt O’ Meal two days out of the week as well. Sometimes I’ll make a side of toast or scrambled eggs or sausage to go with it.

We love pancakes on the weekend so I make pancakes, eggs, and sausage and we eat that 2 days a week. There are so many variations of pancakes that I make so it depends on the week. Sometimes I can make gluten-free pancakes or homemade pancakes. On other days, I just use the cheap box mix from the store. 

This leaves one more day for breakfast for the week. This day varies, so sometimes I make homemade biscuits. On other days we may have fruit, nuts, cheese, and deviled eggs. Sometimes we have cereal or breakfast tacos. Flour tortillas with beans, egg, and cheese and a pretty inexpensive option for breakfast tacos. It just depends on what I have on hand and what I can work into the budget. 

Quick and Easy Lunch Ideas

Lunch at my house is very simple and easy. We eat leftovers! If we had the Black Bean and Rice Bowl on Monday night, then we would have the same thing again for lunch on Tuesday afternoon. We do this throughout the whole week. 

It’s easy for me because I don’t have to plan or cook any additional meals for lunch. I already know what we are having and all I have to do is reheat it. This is why it’s important to me that the meals are as nutritious and delicious as possible. This way, we don’t get tired of it and we look forward to it. 

One tool that is useful for reheating lunch in a simple safe way is the Hot Logic. I love this thing! It’s a portable oven and electric lunchbox. I used it when I was a classroom teacher and now I use it to heat my husband’s lunch. All you have to do is plug it into an outlet, place your container on the hot plate, and zip it up.

 It keeps your lunch warm until you are ready for it. I usually place his food in the Hot Logic around 6 or 7 am when I am preparing for my day. The Hot Logic keeps his food warm without continuing to cook it until he is ready for it which is usually well after noon. I place our leftovers in glass containers which is perfect for the Hot Logic since we avoid putting hot food in plastics due to toxins.

Final Thoughts on Healthy Budget-Friendly Meals

I hope you found some of these ideas useful! This method has been helpful to me and my family so I wanted to share in hopes of being a blessing to you and yours. Remember, extend grace to yourself, and do what you can. In all things, be thankful to God because He is faithful, and remember that seasons do change.

 As wives, moms, and keepers of our homes we are tasked with providing nutritious meals for our families. Our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit. However, we don’t have to do it alone. 

God will give you the wisdom and creativity you need in your particular circumstance. Ask Him for His help and He will come through!

Meal planning and even meal prep can be done as part of your morning routine. Need a morning routine? Download a free one below!