Turn Basic Rice Into A Filling Meal Under $5 By Adding This Hearty Canned Soup

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With lives getting busier by the day and ever-increasing grocery prices putting pressure on all of our pocketbooks, there may never have been a better time for hearty, easy, and inexpensive meals. Being able to whip up a filling dinner in just a few minutes for under $5 and without much effort may sound like magic — or at least like an idea that belongs to a different era — but it is possible. A pot of cooked rice would be the inexpensive base here. Then, all it takes to turn that into a full meal is a can of Campbell's Chunky Ham and Bean Soup.

Rice by itself isn't much of a meal, but it can be just what you need to bulk out a can of soup into a satisfying dinner. The rice doesn't just add calories, but it also changes the texture and eating experience, stretching the flavor of the soup out to a whole meal. Campbell's Chunky Ham and Bean Soup, with a flavor that will remind you of beans cooked with ham hock, provides a smoky, salty gravy that flavors the entire bowl while providing two different sources of protein, ham and beans. With a cup of cooked rice and a can of soup, you've got around 540 calories and 21 grams of protein — not bad. And when you look at the cost breakdown, it becomes even more appealing.

Rice is an incredibly inexpensive food. One serving of this staple grain often costs less than a dime. Pair that with a can of soup that can be had for just a couple of dollars, and dinner starts to look awfully inexpensive. It isn't the most glamorous meal, but it's hard to argue with spending less to fill your belly at the end of the day than it costs to buy a single gallon of gasoline.

With rice, beans, ham, and a smattering of vegetables like carrots and celery, you don't really need anything more to make a meal of this, but there are plenty of simple ingredient upgrades that improve rice and beans. These upgrades can be as small and inexpensive as stirring a pinch of dried herbs or a spoonful of chili paste into the soup while it's warming, or as large as bulking the meal out further with extra chopped ham or even poaching an egg in the broth. All of these small tweaks give you a little bit more control over your meal, keeping the price tag low but still allowing you to make something that perfectly fits your palate.

If either cost or flavor is the biggest concern, another option is to make the soup yourself. Campbell's Chunky Ham and Bean Soup cans are pretty inexpensive, but there isn't much out there as cheap as dried beans — excluding rice, of course. Follow this herby ham and bean soup recipe, and within just a few hours you'll have a whole pot of the stuff that can be divvied up and stored in the fridge or freezer for a simple, delicious dinner that likely costs even less than the cans.

Importantly, there is also no reason that this technique needs to be limited to this particular variety of Campbell's. Ham and beans do go quite well with rice, but so do plenty of other flavors. One popular Trader Joe's dinner hack for a hearty, no frills soup dinner involves combining flavored rice and the brand's tomato and roasted red pepper soup, but really any flavorful soup — homemade or store-bought — makes a great pair with a plain old bowl of rice.