Cheap Family Meals: 8 Dinners Built on Rice, Beans, Pasta and Eggs

Most cheap family dinners start from the same 4 pantry bags: rice, beans, pasta and potatoes.

Add eggs or a little meat, and those bags turn into a week of dinners.

Below are 8 cheap family meals, meatless ones first, each with who it suits, what you buy, how long it takes and a first step.

Here’s how to pick fast:

• Payday is still days away: #1 and #5 run on rice, beans and eggs.
• Picky eaters get familiar food in #3 and #4.
• A freezer stash starts with a double batch of #7.

8 Cheap Family Meals, From Pantry Staples to a Little Meat

Cheap family meals are dinners built on rice, beans, pasta, potatoes and eggs, with meat as a small add-in or left out entirely.

The 8 below start with meatless dinners, then move to ones that stretch ground beef or chicken.

1. Red Beans and Rice

Simmer beans until creamy and spoon them over rice.

It’s a full dinner from 2 pantry staples.

• Best for: families who like bold flavor. Skip it if your kids won’t touch beans yet.
• Cost: Dried or canned kidney beans, rice, an onion, a bell pepper, celery and Cajun seasoning.
• Payoff: One pot that covers dinner tonight and lunch tomorrow.
• Time: About 2 hours with dried beans, under 45 minutes with canned.
• First step: Check your pantry for rice and beans before you shop.

Red beans and rice takes 3 simple moves:

1. Simmer the beans with the chopped vegetables and seasoning until soft.
2. Mash a ladle of beans against the pot so the sauce thickens.
3. Cook a double batch of rice, because you’ll want it cold for #5.

Cooking extra rice tonight sets up a second dinner later this week.

2. Pasta e Fagioli

Simmer small pasta and beans in tomato broth until it’s thick enough to eat with a spoon.

It’s pasta night and soup night in one pot.

• Best for: cold evenings and noodle-loving kids. Skip it if your family groans at soup.
• Cost: Small pasta, a can of white beans, canned tomatoes, broth, an onion and a carrot.
• Payoff: A pot that feeds the table, with a soup base that freezes.
• Time: About 40 minutes.
• First step: Add a box of ditalini or elbows to your list.

Pasta e fagioli means “pasta and beans” in Italian, and that’s really all it is.

The pasta keeps soaking up broth as it sits, so cook it separately if you plan to save some.

Once this pot is in your rotation, other pantry staple soups work the same way.

3. Breakfast for Dinner

Scramble eggs, flip pancakes or fry potatoes, and call it dinner.

It feels like a treat and needs almost no planning.

• Best for: busy weeknights and picky eaters. Skip it if you’re out of eggs.
• Cost: Eggs, flour or pancake mix, milk, and potatoes or bread.
• Payoff: A hot dinner from what’s already in the fridge.
• Time: Under 30 minutes.
• First step: Keep a dozen eggs and a bag of pancake mix on hand.

Put 2 or 3 of these on the table:

• Scrambled eggs with cheese and toast
• Pancakes with sliced bananas
• Hash browns from shredded potatoes

If you have eggs and bread, you have dinner.

4. Sheet-Pan Bean and Cheese Quesadillas

Bake a whole tray of quesadillas at once instead of frying them one by one.

Everybody eats together, and you wash one pan.

• Best for: kids who like food they can hold. Skip it if nobody at your table eats beans.
• Cost: Flour tortillas, a can of refried beans, shredded cheese and salsa.
• Payoff: A tray of wedges that feeds the table at once.
• Time: About 20 minutes.
• First step: Buy a large pack of tortillas, which keep in the freezer.

Here’s how it works:

1. Lay tortillas on a sheet pan with half of each hanging over the edge.
2. Spread beans and cheese inside, then fold the outer halves over.
3. Bake until crisp and cut into wedges.

The same short list covers plenty of other cheap Mexican dinners.

5. Egg Fried Rice

Fry cold leftover rice with eggs, frozen vegetables and soy sauce.

It turns yesterday’s rice into a new dinner.

• Best for: using up rice from #1 or #8. Skip it if you have no cooked rice.
• Cost: Cooked rice, eggs, frozen peas and carrots, and soy sauce.
• Payoff: A second dinner from rice you already bought.
• Time: About 15 minutes.
• First step: Store tonight’s extra rice in a covered container in the fridge.

Day-old rice works better than fresh, because cold rice is drier and fries instead of turning mushy.

A plain pot of rice can quietly cover 2 dinners.

6. Loaded Baked Potatoes

Bake potatoes, set out toppings and let everyone build their own plate.

One dinner suits the whole table.

• Best for: picky eaters and nights with leftovers to use. Skip it if you need dinner in 15 minutes.
• Cost: A bag of russet potatoes, plus cheese, broccoli, beans or chili.
• Payoff: A topping bar that clears out the fridge.
• Time: About an hour in the oven.
• First step: Buy potatoes by the bag and keep them somewhere cool and dark.

The chili from #7 makes a great topping 2 nights later.

And when the bag is half gone, these cheap potato recipes use up the rest.

7. Beef and Bean Chili

Brown a little ground beef, then bulk it up with beans and tomatoes.

The beans carry most of the pot, so the beef goes a long way.

• Best for: big families who want leftovers. Skip it if your kids won’t eat spice; go light on chili powder instead.
• Cost: Ground beef or turkey, 2 or 3 cans of beans, canned tomatoes, an onion and chili powder.
• Payoff: A big pot that freezes well.
• Time: About 45 minutes.
• First step: Buy the family pack of ground beef and freeze it in smaller portions.

Beans work here as a meat extender: a cheaper food mixed into meat so less meat feeds more people.

The catch?

A bean-heavy chili can taste flat, so brown the beef well and toast the spices in the pan before the tomatoes go in.

8. Chicken and Rice Casserole

Bake rice, chicken, frozen broccoli and a creamy sauce together in one dish.

Thighs or leftover rotisserie chicken keep it affordable.

• Best for: families who want meat, grain and a vegetable in one dish. Skip it if you need dinner in under an hour.
• Cost: Chicken thighs or rotisserie chicken, rice, frozen broccoli, cream soup and cheese.
• Payoff: A full casserole with a vegetable in every scoop.
• Time: About 1 hour.
• First step: Next time you buy a rotisserie chicken, freeze some of the meat for this.

One rotisserie chicken can split across this casserole and a tray of quesadillas from #4.

If you’d rather let a slow cooker do the work, these crockpot meals for big families follow the same idea.

How to Stretch Ground Beef or Chicken

To stretch ground beef or chicken, cook less meat and fill the rest of the dish with beans, lentils, rice, oats or grated vegetables that soak up the same seasoning.

The mix-ins take on the sauce’s flavor, so the dish still tastes like the meat version.

Each mix-in fits a different dish:

• Lentils in spaghetti sauce or sloppy joes
• Black or pinto beans in taco meat
• Grated carrots or zucchini in meatballs
• Oats or breadcrumbs in burgers and meatloaf

Start small, like one can of beans in the taco meat, and add more once your family stops noticing.

How to Plan a Week of Cheap Family Meals

A week of cheap family meals works best when 5 or 6 dinners share one shopping list: rice, dried beans, pasta, potatoes, eggs, frozen vegetables and one family pack of meat.

Here’s one week built from this list:

• Monday: red beans and rice (#1), with extra rice
• Tuesday: beef and bean chili (#7), half frozen
• Wednesday: egg fried rice (#5)
• Thursday: loaded baked potatoes (#6) with leftover chili
• Friday: breakfast for dinner (#3)

Working with a set amount, like $100 a week for a family of 4? Price your list in your store’s app before you shop, and swap the priciest item for another meatless night.

For more dinners to rotate in, browse these budget dinner recipes and use the meal planning steps to turn them into a list. Double the chili or soup on a slow night, and a few freezer meals will cover your busiest weeks.

More ways to trim the bill live in these grocery saving tips.