Calling all cooks! (Lunches)

Anyone have any ideas for CHEAP lunches?  I need some new ideas outside the realm of sandwiches and mac & cheese.  And I mean CHEAP!  With 2 new children, (the kind that actually eat) I need some new inspiration.  Crockpot, make-ahead or quick-prep preferred.  (And did I mention CHEAP?)  Enough for a family of 7.

PLEASE leave a comment with your ideas!

Hilary :)

Comments

[Carrie]

We make Mexican Meat. Round steak thrown in a crock pot with a jar of salsa. Cook until able to pull apart with a fork, add a can or two of refried beans and then put on tortillas with lettuce, tomato, cheese, sour cream. We usually don't have all the stuff to put on and just turn them into burritos with the meat mixture, cheese and sour cream. We almost always end up freezing some of it or eating it for many days. It usually fills a 5 qt crockpot.

[Carrie]

I also make BBQ meatballs. I usually make 7 pounds of them (I think) and freeze half or maybe even more than that. We make a 9x13 pan full of them and then make BBQ sauce to go over them and serve with rice. It isn't that cheap per say, but when all is done, you get a couple meals out of it. We usually have leftovers from one 9x13 pan and this is something that ALL the kids like, even our most finicky one. Let me know if you want the recipe. It is from a Quick Cooking magazine.

Also pepper burritos. I only make this when I can get red, orange and yellow peppers for a dollar a piece or less. I usually slice up 6 of them and then marinate them in rice vinegar, chili powder, either crushed garlic or garlic powder, a little cumin, and black pepper (sorry, no measurements). After a couple hours soaking in the liquid, I stir fry them. To add protien, I cook up one or two boneless chicken breasts that have been seasoned with chili powder, cumin, garlic and a little black pepper. We then slice those up thin and make burritoes out of it all. You can use lettuce, jicima is always good in it, cheese, sour cream. The usual stuff.

[Renee]

"A family of seven!" I love it.

I still haven't come up with satisfactory cheap lunches over here...can't wait to see what people suggest.

[Angie - heartchild]

We love black beans and rice mixed with salsa in a bowl with a small spoon of sour cream on top. Every once in awhile when I am feeling generous we put it in tortillas or with tortilla chips.

In the summer we grow the veggies for pico de gallo so I will use that instead of of the salsa. Less $!

Anything with eggs is good too. I make a cheater egg flower soup. I boil off 2 chickens one night and use 2/3 of the meat for enchiladas or something like that and then the next day use the broth and some bits of meat, green onions, salt and pepper and then drop in beaten eggs a bit at a time into the boiling broth. I add leftover rice to the soup from the night before also to make it more filling. Cheap, fast and easy.

Yea! A family of seven. Love it!

[Hilary]

Thanks Carrie, those sound like great dinner options (I'll definitely be trying them!), but too pricey for lunch. In my mind, once it exceeds a certain amount of meat, it's no longer lunch, it's dinner!

Angie, do you literally mean just cooked black beans, rice, and salsa? Or is there more of a recipe to it than that? I'd love to come up with more ideas using beans - filling, nutritious and CHEAP! Soup is a great idea, too. I'll have to try that recipe. Gotta love something practically free!!!

[Barbara]

I don't know how cheap it could turn out to be, but when I'm at a loss for what to serve for lunch and am short on supplies to make any one thing, I just grap the 12 spot cupcake pan and start filling the spots with whatever I have. Cheese cubes, wheat crackers, any kind of veggies, chunks of left over chicken cut into cubes or strips, ketchup, ranch dressing, pickles, olives, toast and peanut butter wedges, etc... It is so colorful that my two girlies gobble it up in a matter of minutes (which is great because they usually dawdle over lunch). The great thing about it is that I already have everything cut and cleaned before hand so I don't have to prepare anything but the toast and maybe cutting up the meat. I took a picture of the first tray I made for them, it was so colorful, we happened to be talking about rainbows that day so it kind of fit into the subject at hand.

I'm so happy for your growing family. I pray that the children all settle in well and bond as if they've been together since birth.

Congratulations.

[Angie - heartchild]

I do mean just the ingredients above, it's that easy! It's cheaper if you buy the dry beans instead of using canned, though canned is still inexpensive. I also add a little taco seasoning sometimes.

I thought of one more that I got from another blogger, I make it for dinner one night and then we have the leftovers for lunch the next day and I plan to use a little leftover chicken next time to switch things up:

32 oz dry pinto beans
1 can diced green chilis (optional)
1-2 diced onion(s)
2 can diced tomatoes
2 T. cumin
sea salt

Place first two ingredients in crockpot with about 10 cups water. Cook for 6-8 hours. 30 minutes before serving add the rest of the ingredients. Serve over rice, in tortillas or with chips.

I hope you get lots of ideas!

[Carrie]

Sorry Hilary, I read it as lunch but went a little crazy with dinner stuff. I don't make that stuff for lunch, but we do eat the leftovers for lunch. We eat a lot of cheese tortillas, aka cheese quesidillas. I buy my tortillas at Costco, and often my cheese there as well. I'm lazy and buy it already shredded and then separate it and freeze it. We eat Chili for lunch, cottage cheese with fruit (Brian and the kids eat it that way, I eat it without the fruit mixed in). We eat a lot of hot dogs (or at least the kids do) and we buy whichever ones are the cheapest. What about English Muffin pizzas. We mostly do ham sandwiches or hot dogs or left overs.

[Crystal]

Check out hillbillyhousewife.com. It has lots of economical recipes and meal ideas.

[Syndi]

Here's some things we make for lunch:
Bagel pizzas or pizza pockets
bean & cheese burritos
homemade soup
pasta salad
quiche
tortilla wraps
kebobs with fruit & cheese & maybe some ham or turkey
muffins & smoothies
tuna noodle casserole
cottage cheese & fruit
yogurt & muffins
taco salad
chicken nuggets or strips & baked fries
leftover anything with rice

Sometimes I take biscuit dough and spread it in a muffin tin then add leftover chili or spaghetti sauce and some cheese and then bake.

[Hilary]

Angie, that recipe sounds great. I always have leftover chicken or turkey drying out in the freezer - that pinto bean recipe would be a great way to use it.

Barbara, great idea! We've done "Muffin Tin Lunches" in the past, and they were always a big hit and don't require much of anything, so it's a great way to use things up. I need to watch Goodwill to find some extra tins now!

Carrie, Quesadillas are a great fall-back. I sometimes throw in a bit of chopped up lunch meat and peas or other veggies with them. Chili is a really good idea, too!

Crystal, thanks for the link! There are a ton of recipes over there! I copied down a few to try. A lot of them I'm not sure I'm brave enough for, but there were several that sounded perfect!

Syndi, Wow! Great list! I'll be able to pull a ton of ideas from that. I don't know why I never think of things like Muffins for lunch - when I started searching the internet I saw a lot of references to muffins for lunch, and I think it's a great idea. Muffins and Smoothies, would be great, or there were several "meal" type muffins (corn dog muffins, chicken cheese muffins, etc.) Oh, the possibilities!

You guys are awesome! Keep the ideas coming!!

[Dawn]

Hi,
There is a muffin tin monday site that has lots of great muffin tins to look at and get ideas. It is~ http://michellesjournalcorner.blogspot.com/

We are a gluten free family. We eat a lot of salads and have little things like sunflower seeds, nuts, hard boiled eggs etc. to put on it. When the kids get to decorate it themselves they have a blast. You would think I was giving them ice cream sundays. My kids also like big romaine lettuce leaves with chopped up ham and rice in them rolled up like a burrito. We eat lots of beans over rice with a bit of salsa. They also love an Irish dish~ I can't think of the name, but here is how you make it.
Boil 1 cabbage and about 15 potatoes. Mix them with hand mixer and add lots of butter and about a cup or two of chopped ham, dash of salt and pepper. Yummy!
Blessings,
Dawn

[Amy/southkona]

My kids' new favorite- flour tortillas spread with refried beans, topped with a little cheese, and baked. They LOVE it.

[Amy White]

This might sound sick. I just made it up this week.

I just started grabbing things that I always have on hand. I used Costco Tortillas and filled them with diced up chicken nuggets, motzarella, bbq sauce, pineapple chunks and folded it in half and then cut it in quarters after cooking them in the toaster oven. It was delish! You could even add green onions or red onions. My 2 year old is a pizza-a-holic so anything that I can make in a triangle shape I call "pizza" and he'll eat it. LOL.

Perhaps a title for this meal would be called quesidilla gone wrong.

[shawn]

I just caught up, after getting back from our own tumbleweeds. Wow! So exciting. And to feed them.... um, go to Boxx's under the guise of jam making, and tell them to eat all they can while picking, ha ha.
(I am just joking, but they always say it is fine.)
You know the Fred Meyer fresh chicken breasts are $1.28/lb. now, regularly, right? I have been finding them even marked down to 89 cents. Maybe stock up and use Lindsay's recipes as lunches too, and leftover 'stuff' to make chicken noodle soups. Search allrecipes for their collections of potato, rice, and bean recipes to get ideas. Last fall we ate a LOT of potatoes. :) I know you can do it inexpensively without resorting to hot dogs or processed stuff! Good luck!

[Carolynn Slocum]

I love the ideas! I can't wait to check out the web sites. I detest making lunch and can relate to your new family size =) We eat the small tortillas from cash n carry. we eat them with peanut butter and jelly or honey, with beans and rice. I can make a can of refried beans spread thin on the tortilla and topped with cheese then warm it on a griddle. We also do cheese, breakfast cookies gone wild, and smoothies. I use soy milk in the smoothies to make it a bit cheaper and I add smooth tofu for more protien. I usually serve most lunches with pretzles or popcorn as a filler. I use meat at dinner not at lunch -- too expensive.

[Stacy]

leftovers!

Quesadillas- grated cheese on flour tortillas, microwaved or toaster-ovened just enough for the cheese to melt (I've spread refried beans or black beans on there, too- and if we have leftover chicken, chopped up that, too. But often we have *just* cheese quesadillas.

burritos.

sandwiches (pb&j, tuna)

cheese and crackers

Coming up with something for lunch is one of my least favorite jobs.

To keep it simple/standardized, I suggest having the same thing on a weekly rotation (ie: Mondays- sandwiches, Tuesdays- quesadillas, etc). We do this for breakfasts, too- (but different food!)

My grandma kept it even simpler: every day of their lives, she would have soup (either homemade-ahead or canned) and sandwiches. EVERY day. Sometimes different sandwich-fixings, but *always* soup and sandwiches. Often she would just put the loaf of bread on the table and set everything else out. That way everyone sort of did their own thing and she only had to worry about the soup. If I didn't like variety so much, I would *SO* do that. :)

:)

[Stacy]

Oh! I remembered two more ideas while I was making dinner:

*grilled cheese

*tuna melts

[rebecca m]

Plain yogurt piled high with one type of whatever kind of fruit we have on hand (frozen berries, canned peaches/pears, bananas, dried cranberries), nuts, maple syrup and sometimes other healthy sounding things added in.

We eat this for breakfast or for lunch... And we totally copied this idea from our friends at www.righttomyopinion.blogspot.com so I thought I should give them the credit. :)