6 Yummy Meals & Dessert for Under $70 at Walmart! (week #39)
If you have been hanging out with Low Dough Family for a while you know that we started our meal plans as breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert for under $100. This was a great way to show how to use ingredients in multiple ways. We also highlighted ways to cook ahead or pre-prep to make cooking easier later in the week.
I got a few requests to do something similar to that, so I wanted to show you this super easy menu that you can easily get a jump on and pre-prep an entire week’s worth of meals at the very beginning of the week.
What do I mean? Well maybe you have more time on the weekend or a certain day to get as much prep done as possible. I would suggest baking off all the chicken drumsticks at one time, and also cooking all 3lbs of ground beef up front.
The great thing about this is you can go ahead and pull the chicken meat from half the drumsticks, and then freeze that chicken for later, or refrigerate for a few days until you are ready for the 2nd meal.
The cooked ground beef can easily be cooked ahead of time and split into 3 containers or bags. Those can then be frozen for anytime. It is so easy to reheat frozen ground meat too, just pop it in a pan with a little water and put on the lid. Cook on medium high heat and your ground meat is ready to use!
Easy Make Ahead Meals this Week
Shopping List
We always price our menu out at Walmart and this week we are using zipcode: 76006 which is Arlington, Texas!
Lots of pantry staples this week so make sure to check what you already have and save a bunch of money!
If you want to save time, you can check out My Walmart Grocery List for this week’s meal plan! *This is an affiliate link, and I do make a small commission on any purchases, but at no additional cost to you!*
You will notice that we ended up using 100% ground beef frozen hamburger patties this week instead of a regular ground beef. Why? It came out much cheaper this way, plus they are so easy to work with! Just remember 4 patties equals a pound, and you can easily just pop them in a pan with no defrosting required!
(If you want to defrost them ahead of time, I just pop them in a ziploc and put them in the fridge the night before!)
Meals for the Week
This one is a great one to use a new seasoning for a change up. Try out that new seasoning blend on the chicken or even try out a marinade!
Do you love salsa verde or the green enchilada sauce? That’s an easy switch to make and have a totally different taste!
You can easily make your own Sesame Ginger dressing at home with pretty common ingredients as well! That can save you a few extra dollars!
The pasta shape really doesn’t matter here, so use what you have! I wouldn’t use any long thin spaghetti or linguine noodles, but this can easily be made with egg noodles, penne, bowtie, etc.
You can also make your own sloppy joe sauce as well to save a few dollars. It is really mostly a condiment-based sauce so you probably already have them on hand!
Honestly the type of apple doesn’t really matter here. I would probably stay away from Granny Smith (very tart) but really any of them will work! Just pick whatever is on sale or cheapest in your area. I love Gala apples because they are a great all-purpose apple.
Don’t like mushrooms? Totally leave them out. Have some different frozen veggies in your freezer like sweet peas, corn, or green beans? Those are totally easy switches to make to use what you already have!
Not only is this like a super yummy almost apple pie taste, but it helps us use up some apples that maybe don’t look great anymore. Also helps us use up those last few tortillas too!
I usually make a huge batch of the apple filling part and any leftover from this dish gets used in Overnight Oats!
Free Printable PDF (Grocery List & Recipes)
This is a totally free print at home version of the meal plan. This will print on standard paper (8.5x11inches) unless you adjust it.
What about next week?
We really hope you enjoyed this week’s meal plan! If you want to see new menus every week, we encourage you to join our Facebook page where we post new menus every Saturday morning. Check it out here: Low Dough Family Facebook Page.
You can also join our email newsletter, so you get notified every time there is a new menu!
