21 Cheap, Healthy Dinners for When You’re All Out of Ideas

Let us make the decisions for you.

Eating with a budget in mind can feel challenging. Add in the desire to make meals nutritionally balanced, and the whole thing quickly becomes overwhelming. Don’t stress. Let the 21 recipes below remind you that it’s totally possible to cook a budget-friendly, nutritious meal that’s, above all, delicious.

1. Chana Masala

It’d be easy to compile dozens of inexpensive dinners around the chickpea alone, but Zainab Shah’s take on chana masala, the spiced dish found across South Asia, is a real standout. Here, a star cast of aromatics (ginger, garlic, cumin, chile and caramelized onion) amplify your choice of canned or dry chickpeas. A shower of fresh cilantro gives it brightness, but if you want to bolster the green even further, throw in some spinach or kale.

Recipe: Chana Masala

2. Parmesan Cabbage Soup

This elegant soup from Melissa Clark relies heavily on the savory (and cheap!) power of Parmesan rinds, which thicken the soup base and impart the cheese’s signature umami into the broth. Make the dish as gentle or spicy as you’d like, and throw in a can of cannellini beans, as some of our commenters have. Just don’t forget the squeeze of fresh lemon at the end — it brightens the whole thing.

Recipe: Parmesan Cabbage Soup

3. Spicy Tuna Salad With Crispy Rice

Here, Ali Slagle plays with a sushi restaurant favorite — tuna with crispy rice — but swaps in canned tuna. Mixed with mayo, Sriracha and soy, it contrasts beautifully with the part-crispy, part-chewy texture of the rice. Feel free to use leftover rice here, and any vegetable you have hanging out in place of the cucumbers. (To that end, feel free to increase the vegetables, too!)

Recipe: Spicy Tuna Salad With Crispy Rice

4. White Bean Shakshuka

Ifrah Ahmed’s one-pan recipe takes advantage of two pantry ingredients: canned white beans and jarred marinara sauce. The beans stretch the shakshuka and add protein. Serve it with your favorite bread or white rice to sop up the hearty sauce and runny egg yolks.

Recipe: White Bean Shakshuka

5. Spinach and Feta Lentil Bowls

All of the components of these customizable bowls are cooked in the same pot and can be refrigerated for the week. A meal preppers dream! In Ali Slagle’s recipe, lentils dressed with oregano and crushed red pepper serve as the base. (But grains would work, too.) Top that with a mix of cooked greens, jammy eggs and salty feta — or feel free to play: Add sliced fennel or carrots, toasted nuts or a dollop of cottage cheese.

Recipe: Spinach and Feta Lentil Bowls

6. Quick Tomato, Kale and White Bean Soup

A quickly prepared tomato and white bean soup is always cheap and comforting. This recipe from Martha Rose Shulman mostly involves stirring together canned staples (crushed tomatoes, white beans). But carrots, potatoes and kale add a welcome heft in this deeply flavorful vegetarian soup.

Recipe: Quick Tomato, Kale and White Bean Soup

7. One-Pot Chicken Meatballs With Greens

Eating vegetarian is a great way to save money. But if you’re a meat eater on a budget, may we recommend these one-pot meatballs, which can really stretch a pound of ground chicken? Yasmin Fahr covers them in leafy greens, which steam and collapse, then tops the whole thing in a zippy pan sauce. Again, adding a can of beans would stretch this even further.

Recipe: One-Pot Chicken Meatballs With Greens

8. Herb-Marinated Seared Tofu

If you’ve never torn tofu so its jagged edges better absorb sauce — and so the craggy bits get extra crispy when roasted — try this recipe from Ali Slagle (and commit the method to memory). Once cooked, the torn tofu gets tossed into an adaptable sauce made from whatever herb you have on hand: cilantro, mint, dill, chives, chervil, celery leaves, fennel or carrot tops. Use the craggy tofu bits to top whole grains, amp up roasted vegetables and leafy greens or fill a killer vegetarian sandwich.

Recipe: Herb-Marinated Seared Tofu

9. Sheet-Pan Fish Tikka With Spinach

Zainab Shah’s 20-minute fish tikka recipe is a weeknight wonder. Marinate any white fish in a mix of yogurt and garam masala, chile powder, coriander, turmeric, ginger and garlic, then roast it on a sheet pan over a bed of spinach. Serve with rice or roti.

Recipe: Sheet-Pan Fish Tikka With Spinach

10. Noodle Okonomiyaki (Cabbage and Egg Pancakes)

Here’s your chance to use that sad cabbage in your crisper drawer. Loosely inspired by Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki, Hetty Lui McKinnon’s shortcut version features thinly sliced cabbage and instant noodles tossed with eggs seasoned with soy sauce, scallions and sesame oil. Feel free to experiment with other vegetables, too, like carrots, bean sprouts, potatoes or broccoli.

Recipe: Noodle Okonomiyaki (Cabbage and Egg Pancakes)

11. Vegetable Tortilla Soup

Red cabbage stars in this soup recipe from Ham El-Waylly, who caramelizes it to bring out its sweetness and earthiness. He also maximizes another ingredient: tortilla chips, which he uses two ways — to thicken the soup, and as a crunchy garnish.

Recipe: Vegetable Tortilla Soup

12. Chicken and Herb Salad With Nuoc Cham

Putting all your leftovers to work is a big part of budget-based eating. If you roast a whole chicken at the beginning of the week and use it in salads and grain bowls the rest of the week, you’ll get a lot of bang for your buck. One idea for that chicken? Do as Yewande Komolafe does and stir it together with crisp cabbage and red bell pepper, then toss it in noc cham, the bright and spicy Vietnamese sauce.

Recipe: Chicken and Herb Salad With Nuoc Cham

13. Stuffed Peppers

Lidey Heuck’s stuffed peppers, topped with melted mozzarella, are so comforting and so filling. Her recipe calls for lean ground beef, but ground turkey, chicken or pork would also work great. The mixture is stretched with sautéed vegetables and cooked white rice — the perfect use for leftover takeout rice.

Recipe: Stuffed Peppers

14. Spiced Turkey Stir-Fry With Crisp Garlic and Ginger

This simple, flavorful weeknight dinner puts ground turkey, a relatively inexpensive lean protein, front and center. Soy sauce and fish sauce add umami, plenty of garlic and ginger lend aromatic flavor, and a showering of cilantro and basil at the end makes this dish taste ultrafresh. Melissa Clark recommends serving this over rice for a more substantial meal, or lettuce for something lighter — but there’s no reason you can’t do both. Some commenters have even gone one step further, adding sugar snap peas and cucumber.

Recipe: Spiced Turkey Stir-Fry With Crisp Garlic and Ginger

15. Loaded Sweet Potatoes With Black Beans and Cheddar

For an easy way to turn sweet potatoes into a substantial meal, top them with black beans and cheese as Sarah Jampel does in this recipe. Use that as a protein- and fiber-packed base for whatever toppings you’d like: marinated greens, a fried egg, roasted vegetables with herbs or even ground turkey or chicken.

Recipe: Loaded Sweet Potatoes With Black Beans and Cheddar

16. Baked Tofu With Peanut Sauce and Coconut Lime Rice

This recipe from Yewande Komolafe is further evidence of tofu’s ability to take on the flavors of whatever sauce you use. Here, baked tofu is drenched in a peanut sauce that takes its inspiration from ground stews found across West Africa. The accompanying coconut-lime rice sops up the sauce, but it’s not just a supporting player. It’s delicious and fragrant in its own right.

Recipe: Baked Tofu With Peanut Sauce and Coconut Lime Rice

17. Sweet and Sour Cauliflower

Sometimes when you’re hyper-focused on eating within budget or certain health parameters, it can seem impossible not to think about ordering delivery. When that intrusive thought hits, turn to this Hetty Lui McKinnon dish. It scratches that delivery food itch but uses inexpensive, fiber-packed cauliflower as a vehicle for sweet-and-sour sauce.

Recipe: Sweet and Sour Cauliflower

18. Charred Bok Choy and Cannellini Bean Salad

The beauty of bok choy is that its stalks are substantial enough to remain crisp through high-heat cooking, so you can cook it aggressively without soft and mushy results. Here, Hetty Lui McKinnon adds two cans of cannellini beans to make the dish feel substantial enough to be a main course, especially with rice or another grain alongside. You’ll want to use this punchy, aromatic dressing that features ginger and rice vinegar on all of your salads, not just this one.

Recipe: Charred Bok Choy and Cannellini Bean Salad

19. One-Pan Crispy Chicken and Chickpeas

A minimal ingredient list keeps this Yossy Arefi dish economical, but roasting the spinach and chickpeas beneath the chicken thighs means there’s no shortage of flavor because they soak up the salty chicken fat.

Recipe: One-Pan Crispy Chicken and Chickpeas

20. Caramelized Brussels Sprouts Pasta With Toasted Chickpeas

When you’re craving pasta but want to make sure you’re eating nutritiously, turn to recipes that feature tons of vegetables like this one from Kay Chun, which calls for an entire pound of brussels sprouts. They caramelize beautifully, adding a subtle sweetness. Crisp the chickpeas in oil, to give this dish texture and protein.

Recipe: Caramelized Brussels Sprouts Pasta With Toasted Chickpeas

21. Crispy Bean Cakes With Harissa, Lemon and Herbs

Whether you think of these bean cakes as a kind of vegetarian meatball or as a fritter meant for dipping, this recipe from Yewande Komolafe presents a clever way to use whatever beans you have in your pantry. Serve them over a bed of rice with a creamy yogurt sauce, or even sandwich them in a bun along with some slaw.

Recipe: Crispy Bean Cakes With Harissa, Lemon and Herbs

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