26 Delicious Struggle Meal Recipes That Won't Break The Bank

With food getting pricier by the day, demand is growing for meal ideas that blend big flavors with value for money. After all, it's not always realistic to splash out on decadent cuts of meat or seafood or whip up a recipe that demands an array of niche condiments that you don't already have on hand. Sometimes, keeping it simple is the best approach, for both your wallet and your taste buds. Affordable meals offer far more variety than expected. There is a vast selection of low-cost ingredients that can be combined to create flavor-packed, crowd-pleasing dishes that don't sacrifice on deliciousness.

Whether you're after a simple, nutritious soup, a cheesy, carb-packed casserole, or a warming curry, there's a recipe in this line up that can help. As well as being budget-friendly, these tried-and-tested meal options are all relatively fuss-free to prepare, making them perfect for weeknights. And, many yield six or more servings, so you'll likely have leftovers for lunch the next day. So, let's explore some of the best ways to spruce up your weekly meal rotation without breaking the bank.

Packed with bold, warming flavors, this classic chana masala is made in the Instant Pot for the ultimate convenience. And, it'll only take 20 minutes of your time to prepare. First, you'll saute the aromatic base ingredients. That's onion, garlic, serrano pepper, and grated fresh ginger. Then come a medley of fragrant spices, plus hearty chickpeas, fire roasted tomatoes, and broth, with everything pressure cooked to let those amazing savory flavors meld. The resulting dish is fantastic served with fluffy rice and topped with fresh cilantro.

Recipe: Instant Pot Chana Masala

Made with store cupboard ingredients like condensed cream of celery soup, egg noodles, and crispy fried onions, this tuna casserole comes together in just 30 minutes. It offers a satisfying medley of textures, with frozen peas adding extra nutrients and pops of color, and fresh dill fronds bringing a citrusy brightness that makes this easy bake feel that bit more elevated. Try serving it alongside a fresh leafy salad or some steamed greens.

Recipe: Dilly Tuna Casserole

Fajitas are a family favorite for good reason, offering plenty of room for customization with different toppings. This vegetarian-friendly version features hearty black beans and sauteed veggies, all seasoned with punchy spices like smoked paprika and cumin and brightened up with a squeeze of fresh lime. It's a simple case of spooning the mixture onto soft flour tortillas and finishing things off with some Mexican-inspired toppings, such as a creamy guacamole, sliced jalapeños, or fresh cilantro.

Recipe: Easy Black Bean Fajitas

This tangy tomato soup oozes coziness, and you'll only need three ingredients to whip it up. Roma tomatoes, onion and garlic are first coated with cooking spray and seasoned with salt and pepper, before they're roasted until beautifully tender and charred. Then, you'll blitz everything up in a blender until lovely and smooth. It's the perfect dish for enjoying with a hunk of crusty bread on a chilly evening.

Recipe: 3-Ingredient Tomato Soup

Fideo is a satisfying noodle soup with a brilliantly simple prep method, and you may well have all the ingredients you need to make it in your kitchen already. There's angel hair pasta, that's first broken up and sauteed in oil, yielding a delightful toasty flavor. Aromatic garlic and oregano enhance things further, and a combination of vegetable broth and canned tomatoes serve as the simmering liquid, allowing the noodles to soften up and bring their moreish chewy bite.

Recipe: Easy Fideo

Looking for a hassle-free but flavor-packed way to prepare noodles? This creamy, garlicky creation is the answer. Once you've boiled the spaghetti noodles to al dente perfection, just toss them with four extra ingredients, and they'll be transformed into something totally irresistible. Butter envelops the pasta in a layer of richness, minced garlic packs its aromatic punch, and lemon juice cuts through the heaviness of the buttery pasta beautifully. Finally, adding a splash of the pasta cooking water into the sauce gives it an ultra-silky finish.

Recipe: Creamy Garlic Butter Noodles

There are plenty of money-saving ways to enjoy breakfast, and this delightfully cheesy casserole is one of them. To make it, you'll combine frozen hash browns with old-fashioned cream of chicken soup. Plus, you'll add sour cream, chopped onion, cheddar cheese, and melted butter. Then, all that's left to do is spread the mixture in a baking dish, top it with more cheese, and bake everything until golden and bubbling. It'll taste amazing served with crispy bacon, eggs, and roasted tomatoes.

Recipe: Cheesy Hash Brown Casserole

With the help of some vibrant veggies and a frying pan, you can easily turn leftover rice into a satisfying meal. We opt for onion, carrot, broccoli, and peas in this Asian-inspired recipe. Beaten egg goes in too, for an extra boost of protein. Frying gives rice a lovely crisp texture that contrasts those tender vegetables beautifully, while soy sauce brings a welcome dose of umami richness.

Recipe: Easy Fried Rice

Boasting a mouth-watering combination of sweet, savory, and earthy flavors, this blended soup really packs in the goodness, featuring five different vegetables. With its vibrant orange hue, it certainly brings the fall vibes, and it's a great recipe to make in a big batch and enjoy throughout the week as a quick lunch or light dinner, perhaps with some crusty garlic bread. You can absolutely freeze any leftovers for later, too.

Recipe: Fall Vegetable Soup

Chicken and rice is a classic combo that's super easy to spruce up with your favorite seasonings. In this recipe, we boil the rice in chicken broth to inject it with heaps of savory flavor. As for the boneless chicken thighs, these get their aromatic warmth from smoked paprika, garlic powder, onion powder, salt, and pepper, which are rubbed before the meat is pan-seared and finished off in the broth. What's more, this dish is made in one pan, and it's ready in under half an hour.

Recipe: Simple One-Pot Chicken And Rice

Dried lentils are a fantastically affordable ingredient that provide plenty of sustenance, and they serve as a versatile base for jazzing up with various aromatics and spices. Here, we flavor lentils with garlic, cumin, and garam masala, among other fragrant add-ins, and simmer everything in vegetable broth and tomato sauce, for a tangy, savory finish. The lentils become lovely and tender as they simmer away, perfect for scooping up with chewy naan bread or serving over rice.

Recipe: Easy Spiced Lentils

Mac and cheese is a budget-friendly classic, and with this version, you'll save on clean up time too. There's no need for cooking the sauce and pasta separately here. You'll simply combine the ingredients directly in the slow cooker pot and leave everything to simmer for around 90 minutes. We especially love the silky texture of the mustard-infused cheese sauce that gets its richness from whole milk, evaporated milk, and two types of cheese.

Recipe: Slow Cooker Mac And Cheese

These easy sheet-pan quesadillas are equally fun to prep as they are delicious to eat. The combination of the crispy tortilla shell and the tender fillings is undeniably moreish, and you can easily customize slices with extra toppings if desired. Inside, there's taco-seasoned sauteed veggies, melty cheese, and creamy refried beans. It's the ultimate comforting, Mexican-inspired dinner that'll leave you with minimal clean up and the whole family will be reaching for seconds.

Recipe: Sheet-Pan Quesadillas

Despite boasting such an elegant appearance, stuffed peppers don't require particularly fancy ingredients to make. While the halved bell peppers roast in the oven, you'll saute onion, garlic, spices, and ground beef, before stirring in tomato paste, cooked rice, and black beans. Spoon the filling into the tender peppers, sprinkle over some cheese, and bake until lightly browned. These peppers are filling enough to serve as a standalone meal, but you can also pair them with soups or salads.

Recipe: Mexican Stuffed Peppers

Pasta bake is the perfect weeknight dinner, especially when it can be whipped up with just five ingredients. This recipe calls for ziti noodles that are boiled, drained, and then mixed with milk, a jar of pasta sauce, some pre-cooked frozen meatballs, and plenty of shredded mozzarella cheese. Pop the mixture into a baking dish, and as everything bakes, it'll become gloriously saucy and melty.

Recipe: 5-Ingredient Meatball Pasta Bake

The mild starchiness of potatoes and delicate onion-like flavor of leeks is a delicious pairing, and we love blending these ingredients into a warming soup. After the leeks have been sauteed with onions and garlic, diced potatoes and vegetable stock are added to the pot. Then, it's a simple case of leaving everything to simmer until the potatoes are fork tender. A splash of cream amps up the richness and blending a portion of the soup allows you to thicken it up while retaining some nice chunkiness.

Recipe: Chunky Potato Leek Soup

Making sloppy joes without the canned stuff doesn't have to mean splashing out on expensive ingredients, and the resulting dish will be even more flavorful. Besides ground beef, this recipe calls for a handful of popular condiments that are probably already sitting in your kitchen cupboard. There's Worcestershire sauce, ketchup, mustard, and brown sugar, plus a pinch of salt and pepper. When the filling is done simmering, all that's left to do is sandwich it between fluffy hamburger buns and tuck in.

Recipe: Old-Fashioned Sloppy Joes

A protein-packed brunch classic with a stunning presentation, shakshuka is bursting with tangy, spicy flavor, and it comes together in just 30 minutes. Sauteed onion and bell pepper form the base of the dish. Then, you'll craft that rich tomato sauce that packs plenty of garlicky, spicy flavor. With eggs cracked on top, the next step is transferring the skillet to the oven and baking the eggs until the whites have set but the yolks are still gorgeously jammy. A sprinkling of crumbled feta and fresh herbs makes the perfect finishing touch.

Recipe: Simple Shakshuka

This 15-minute recipe transforms basic rice noodles into a fragrant, brothy creation that'll beat any instant noodle packet. There's warming ginger and chili powder, aromatic garlic, and a trio of curry-inspired spices, all mixed with a lime and honey-infused coconut milk broth. This bathes those chewy noodles beautifully, yielding an ultra-comforting lunch or dinner that's super easy to customize with the addition of extra veggies or proteins.

Recipe: Aromatic Coconut Curry Noodles

Making a hearty breakfast hash is a fantastic way to use up the ingredients lurking in the back of your fridge, and this one packs an array of vibrant veggies. Sweet potato, onion, red pepper, and kale are all cooked with garlic and smoked paprika, creating a wholesome base perfect for baking jammy eggs. Feel free to finish things off with a scattering of parsley and mop up every last bit of those runny yolks with some crusty bread.

Recipe: Kale And Sweet Potato Hash

With a mild and nutty profile, canned beans go great with smoky, savory ingredients. In this nutritious soup, they add a welcomed dose of sustenance to the spicy, tomatoey broth. The recipe beings with the classic trio of sauteed onion, carrot, and celery, with garlic, smoked paprika, and chili powder building on that moreish savory depth. We opt for a mixture of butter beans and black beans here, but you could absolutely switch these for whatever you have on hand, such as chickpeas, kidney beans, or navy beans.

Recipe: Smoky Bean Soup

Canned chickpeas are both budget-friendly and an excellent source of protein, and they shine as the star ingredient of this curry. Beginning with sauteed onion and garlic, this recipe leans into the convenience of frozen mixed vegetables, which reduces prep time while boosting overall nutrient content. Curry powder, chili powder, and turmeric spice things up, while canned coconut milk creates a luscious creamy sauce for the nutty chickpeas and tender veggies.

Recipe: Easy Chickpea Curry

This gloriously melty mac and cheese features a pop of green goodness in the form of tender broccoli florets, and amazingly, you'll only need four other ingredients to make it. Grab some cooked chicken breasts, milk, shredded three-cheese blend, and macaroni pasta, and you're good to go. While the pasta boils, you'll heat the milk and stir in the cheese, and then combine the sauce with the cooked pasta and other ingredients. Assemble everything in a baking dish, and it's ready for the oven.

Recipe: 5-Ingredient Broccoli Mac And Cheese

Affordable cooking doesn't have to be carb heavy. In this pepperoni pizza-inspired casserole, we switch the typical pasta or rice base for roasted and shredded spaghetti squash. These sweet, tender strands give a noodle-like feel that makes the dish a little lighter but still keeps things wonderfully satisfying. The squash is combined with marinara sauce and beaten eggs, and, before baking, it's topped with mozzarella and pepperoni slices that will provide that irresistible pizza-like finish.

Recipe: Low-Carb Pepperoni Pizza Casserole

Bubble and squeak is our go-to for using up leftover mashed potatoes, while keeping things fuss-free and affordable. Just mash boiled sprouts and kale into the mashed potatoes and fry the mixture in an oiled skillet until crispy and browned on both sides. The greens add a delicious earthiness to the fluffy potatoes, and the golden, pan-fried exterior boasts a gorgeous caramelized flavor. This recipe yields 10 servings, so it's a great one for feeding a crowd while keeping costs down.

Recipe: Bubble And Squeak

Made in one pan, this weeknight-approved dinner sees orzo simmered with crushed tomatoes, garlic, and oregano until it reaches that perfect al dente texture. Next comes lashings of shredded mozzarella scattered on top and left to melt. As you scoop out portions of the bake, you'll get that mouth-watering cheese pull that brings all of the comforting vibes. Try serving it up with some steamed greens, such as broccoli, asparagus, or green beans.

Recipe: One-Pan Cheesy Orzo Bake

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