Healthy Grocery List for Family of 4 on a Budget #7

This week is all about comfort foods. From French Toast, grilled cheese & tomato soup, and then Sloppy Joes for dinner!

This meal plan can be made any time of year, but it does utilize the oven for a few meals so you may want to use this during Fall or Winter.

Now we know that having a plan without snacks and sweets is not realistic, so we include those in our plans as well. This is a full breakdown of how I would make this frugal meal plan work.

Healthy Meal Plan for a Week

Breakfasts

Scrambled Eggs with Cheese & Toast
Vanilla Yogurt with Strawberries and Leftover Pineapple
French Toast with Syrup & Bananas
Peanut Butter Toast with Bananas

French Toast– We are going to use half of our loaf of French bread for French toast. The other half will be used for the Sloppy Joe Bread. Since French Bread has a nice crust on it, I would make a baked French toast by slicing the French toast in 1–2-inch slices. We need to the bread to be cut lengthwise for the Sloppy Joe Bread, so the French Toast will look more like French Toast Sticks, then traditional slices. My favorite way to make French toast is to take 4-5 eggs, a little milk, cinnamon, and a splash of vanilla extract. I beat the egg mixture together until it turns a light yellow and then pour over my bread in a casserole dish. You can bake this at 350-degree oven for about 20-25 minutes. This baked French toast is really good the day of or as leftovers the next day. When I use it the next day, I just microwave for 20-30 seconds, and it is just as tasty! Bananas goes really well with pancake syrup as well, so I typically serve French Toast with sliced bananas on the side.

Vanilla Yogurt and Strawberries/ Pineapple– Since we will have half of a can of pineapple leftover from the Orange Chicken Dinner, we can use it up for breakfast. I would probably do yogurt with pineapple one day and yogurt with strawberries on a separate day. If the pineapple is too strong by itself, you can mix the fresh strawberries with the pineapple and then top the yogurt.

Lunches

Salad with Leftover Parmesan Chicken
Pasta Salad with Hard Boiled Eggs and Tomato, Cucumber, and Parmesan Cheese
Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup
BLT Sandwiches with Side Salad
Dinner Leftovers

Salad with Leftover Parmesan Chicken– I love a simple green salad with cooked chicken on top. This salad reminds me a little of a Ceasar salad with the parmesan. If you have croutons, you can throw those in, or you make croutons really easily with stale bread. I will typically throw in some tomatoes and extra parmesan cheese for a super simple and tasty salad for lunch.

Pasta Salad with Hard Boiled Eggs and Tomato, Cucumber, and Parmesan Cheese – We can make a super simple pasta salad for lunch and use up 1/2 the box of pasta. We will use the other half for buttered noodles on Parmesan Chicken night. Typically, I will make the chicken early in the week, so I can go ahead and cook all the pasta at once. Then I just make half the pasta for dinner and put the rest in a large Tupperware. The assembly of this salad is super simple with chopped hardboiled egg, tomatoes, cucumbers, parmesan cheese, and Italian dressing. I actually like this salad a lot better when it has been refrigerated for at least 12 hours. This lets the salad dressing to soak into the pasta and the flavor is much better.

Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup– For Sloppy Joe night we are going to be using tomato soup, so let’s buy a family size can and make lunch with the other half. To make the canned soup taste better, I add a can of diced tomatoes and Italian seasoning blend to it. You can cheat by buying canned tomatoes that already have garlic and basil added to it. I don’t drain the tomatoes and use that extra juice instead of adding water or milk to the condensed soup. Pair the soup with a classic grilled cheese and you have a hearty lunch that is pure comfort food!

BLT Sandwiches with Side Salad– We are going to bake the whole pack of bacon in the oven on the “Breakfast for Dinner” night, so the leftover bacon will be used for BLT sandwiches. Technically BLTS already have lettuce and tomato on them, but I still like having a side salad with my sandwich. You can use tortilla chips as a side if you are not feeling the side salad.

Dinners

Orange Chicken with Pineapple over Brown Rice
Sloppy Joe on French Bread with Cheese and Canned Corn
Kielbasa, Potatoes and Green Beans in the Crockpot
Tex Mex Pizza with Taco meat, Refried Beans, Salsa, and Cheese
Parmesan Crusted Chicken, Butter Pasta, and Broccoli
Breakfast for Dinner: Scrambled Eggs with Cheese, Bacon, Fried Potatoes, and Sauteed Apples

Orange Chicken with Pineapple over Brown Rice– I must admit when I first saw how to make this sauce, I was highly skeptical, but it turned out really tasty. We are going to take 2-3 chicken breasts and cut them into 1-inch chunks. Then we will cook the chicken in a medium sauté pan. Typically, I start my brown rice first because it takes a good 20 minutes to cook. Try adding some butter to your recipe at the beginning to add a little extra flavor. Back to the chicken, once the chicken is completely cooked, we will add 1/2 cup of orange marmalade, 1/2 cup of bbq sauce, and 3 tsp of soy sauce. I let the sauce cook to melt the orange marmalade, and the result is a tangy orange sauce! I would taste the sauce and if it is orangey add some more bbq sauce, if it is too BBQ-y add some more orange marmalade. I totally eyeball this and adjust as needed. Once the sauce tastes good, I add half of the can of pineapple chunks. You can also add some of the pineapple juice to the sauce if you want to add more sweetness. I serve the chicken and sauce over the rice and will serve with whatever leftover vegetables are on hand or a side salad.

Sloppy Joe Bread– I have a confession to make about sloppy joes, and it is that I don’t like sloppy food. I also am not a fan of canned sloppy joe sauce, so over the years, I have made a super easy homemade version. First, we will start with browning our ground turkey. We are going to use the ground turkey for 2 meals, so after we drain the fat, I will go ahead and remove about 1/3 of the cooked meat and store that in the fridge for Tex Mex Pizza Night. Once our meat is ready, we are going to add 1/2 of the family size can of our tomato soup (save the other half for Grilled Cheese Lunch), 1/2 cup of ketchup, 1 tbsp of Worcestershire sauce, 2 tbsp of mustard, and season with salt and pepper. (You can also add some BBQ Sauce for additional flavor!) I will cook this for another 10 minutes to let the sauce thicken. You can also add chili pepper if you like your sloppy joes spicy! When the meat and sauce is ready, I will top half of the French bread loaf. I like to cut the bread lengthwise so I am just dealing with one large piece of bread, but you can cut it into individual slices if you prefer. Once the bread is topped with the sloppy joe mix, I will then top with shredded cheddar cheese. Bake in 400-degree oven for about 15 minutes until the cheese is melted. This is a super quick meal, so I typically serve it with canned veggies like corn. I may also add some sliced strawberries to the plate to add a little extra sweetness.

Kielbasa, Potatoes and Green Beans in the Crockpot– I tend to forget that I even own a crockpot because I am not always a big fan of dump meals. They tend to be very mushy, so I typically only use my crockpot for making soups and stews. This meal always works out and is not overly mushy. I like to cut up about 4-6 potatoes depending on size into 1-2 inch chunks. I place these in the crockpot and then dump the green beans on top (don’t drain the juice because we want that liquid). Then I top with my sliced kielbasa or smoked sausage. As far as seasonings go, I have used ranch powder or just a mix of salt/pepper/and garlic powder. I typically put on medium/high for a couple hours, and then let it switch over to low for a couple of hours. My kids love this with some sour cream and cheddar cheese on top.

Tex Mex Pizza with Taco meat, Refried Beans, Salsa, and Cheese– I like to make homemade pizza, so it is so much easier when most of my toppings are ready to use and I only have to worry about making the dough. For the ground turkey, I will heat this up in the microwave for 2 minutes with 1/4 cup of water and half of a packet of taco seasoning then set it aside to cool down.

I like to use this very basic dough recipe:

2 cups flour
1 pack of dry active yeast
1 1/2 tsp sugar
3/4 tsp salt
2 tbsp oil
3/4 hot water
seasoning (we will use the other half of the taco seasoning pack)

I can mix this together easily with a fork for a very biscuit like crust or make this in a stand mixer for a lighter crust. Both ways work well and comes down to personal preference. After the dough doubles in size, I will spread it out on a greased sheet pan. Next, we will take our canned refried beans and mix it together with about 1/2 a cup of salsa. We will use the bean and salsa mixture as the sauce for our pizza. Then you can top the sauce with cheese and our seasoned ground turkey. This pizza can be a little heavy, so I typically just serve with leftover veggies or a side salad.

Parmesan Crusted Chicken, Butter Pasta, and Broccoli– This is another dish that sounded weird to me but turned out awesome! We are going to use 2-3 chicken breasts, and if they are pretty big, I like to slice them in half longwise. The bigger the chicken breasts the longer it takes to cook. This chicken tastes like it took forever to make but it is actually super simple! First, we need to prepare our breading and I like to use what I already have on hand, so we can use crushed tortilla chips or make our own breadcrumbs with sandwich bread. (Toast in the toaster, and then chop in food processor until fine). Either option is great for breadcrumbs, and we don’t have to buy an additional ingredient. We are going to take our breadcrumbs and parmesan cheese and mix it together in a bowl. I then like to take about 1/2 a cup of mayonnaise and add salt and pepper to it in a bowl. Our process is going to be to coat the chicken in the mayonnaise and then bread it with the crumbs and cheese. I then place the chicken on a greased sheet pan and bake for about 30 minutes in a 400-degree oven. While the chicken is cooking, I will go ahead and cook our entire box of pasta. We are going to use half for pasta salad so make sure to put half of the noodles aside. I usually go ahead and mix the pasta salad together since I have time while the chicken is cooking. For the noodles I keep it super simple and add about 1/2 cup of butter and Italian seasonings. Once the chicken is cooked, I will slice it cross ways and then lay it over the butter noodles. My family loves broccoli on the side of this dish so that is what we typically serve with it.

Breakfast for Dinner: Scrambled Eggs with Cheese, Bacon, Fried Potatoes, and Sauteed Apples– My kids love breakfast for dinner, so we typically do it about every other week. For the potatoes I will microwave a couple of potatoes that I poke with a fork first, then cook in the microwave for about 3 minutes, then rotate them and keep cooking 3 minutes until they are softened. I will then chop the potato into 1-inch bites and sauté in oil with French fry seasoning or just salt and pepper. For the bacon, I love to lay out the bacon on cooling racks on a sheet pan and bake in the oven. For less mess, I typically put aluminum foil on the sheet pan first, so it catches all the bacon grease, and I can just throw it away. Don’t forget to put some of the bacon in the fridge for BLT lunch! For the sauteed apples, I mix butter, cinnamon, and 1/2 cup of pancake syrup and add in apple slices or apple chunks. I let this cook for about 20 minutes until the apples are soft. These apples are a huge hit with my kids!

Snacks

Chips and Salsa
Peanut Butter and Apples
Yogurt Bites

Yogurt Bites– My kids both love theses yogurt bites and they could not be any simplier to make. We will start with a sheet pan with a piece of parchment paper on top. I use a small baby spoon and dip it in the yogurt and make little, small mounds on the parchment paper. Once my sheet pan is completely covered with little spots of yogurt, I put the whole pan in the freezer for a couple of hours. Once frozen, these tasty little bites are a great snack!

Sweet Treat

Homemade Orange Popsicles

Homemade Orange Popsicles– I am not a fan of buying ingredients that only work for one meal and then just sit in my fridge until I make that meal again. While I was looking for ways to use up orange marmalade, I found a super easy way to make popsicles! All you need to do is heat your orange marmalade and some water in a small saucepan until it is thinned out. Then you pour the orange mixture in some popsicle molds. Pro Tip: At the end of summer, most stores heavily discount popsicle molds and I usually can pick them up for less than $1.00. You can also find mold for super cheap at the Dollar Tree or other discounted retailers.

Healthy Family Grocery List

Look through this broken-down by section grocery list and see if you have any of these items already in your pantry or freezer. This will help lower your grocery costs by using what you already have.

This is all the fresh vegetables and fruits we need for the week.

Produce Items	Have on Hand?
Strawberries
6 Bananas
Lettuce
Tomato x2
Cucumber
Potatoes
Apples
Total: (7 items)

This is all the meats that we will need from the deli and meat counter.

Meat Items	Have on Hand?
Bacon
4-6 Chicken Breasts
Kielbasa Sausage
1 lb ground turkey
Total: (4 items)

This is all the dry goods and shelf stable items that we need for our meal plan.

Dry Goods Items	Have on Hand?
Sandwich Bread
Canned Pineapple
Pancake Syrup
French Bread Loaf
Cinnamon
Peanut Butter
Italian Dressing
Pasta
Large can Tomato Soup
Canned Tomatoes
Orange Marmalade
BBQ Sauce
Soy Sauce
Brown Rice
Canned Green Beans
Taco Seasoning
Refried Beans
Salsa
Worcestershire Sauce
Mustard
Canned Corn
Mayonnaise
All Purpose Flour
Dry Active Yeast
Total: (24 items)

These are the frozen items needed for this week’s meal plan.

Frozen Items	Have on Hand?
Frozen Broccoli
Total: (1 items)

These are all the dairy items needed like milk and cheeses.

Dairy Items	Have on Hand?
Eggs
Shredded Cheddar Cheese
Vanilla Yogurt
American Cheese
Parmesan Cheese
2% milk
Butter
Total: (7 items)

Weekly Meal Plans on a Budget

I have priced out this meal plan at multiple stores, and at most places it typically runs a little over $100. If you have some of the items like the dry goods already in your pantry, you can spend even less!

Store	Total
Save A Lot (Kansas City, KS)	$102.16
Walmart (Kansas City, KS)	$93.26
Hy-Vee (Des Moines, IA)	$110.51
Fareway (Des Moines, IA)	$104.11
Meijer (Detroit, MI)	$98.44
Aldi (Detroit, MI)	$102.22
Schnuck’s (St. Louis, MO)	$112.20
Fresh Thyme (St. Louis, MO)	$155.75
Albertsons (Bozeman, MT)	$114.05
Smith’s (Bozeman, MT)	$97.42
Fareway (Omaha, NE)	$137.30
Family Fare (Omaha, NE)	$107.68
Kroger (Morgantown, WV)	$98.08
Giant Eagle (Morgantown, WV)	$105.57
Price Chopper (Stroudsburg, PA)	$119.42
ShopRite (Stroudsburg, PA)	$102.44
Smart & Final (Phoenix, AZ)	$124.70
Target (Phoenix, AZ)	$110.90
Food Depot (Dublin, GA)	$100.69
Walmart (Dublin, GA)	$96.18
Total Stores (20)	Average Total: $109.65