14 MEALS FOR $100 or LESS: FREEZER MEALS: ALDI MEALS: SAVING ON MEALS

Hey everybody, welcome back to my channel. Today I am going to be sharing with you how you can cook 14 meals for $100 or less. So not only am I going to share with you some of my favorite meals, but I'm also going to share with you how you can build your own freezer stash of meals. I already know what you're thinking. I don't have time on the weekend to cook for hours to meal prep freezer meals for the week. That is not what this video is about. I am not going to show you how to block off time, how to cook a bunch of meals in advance. Nobody has time for that, or at least I don't have time for that. I am going to be showing you how you can cook meals, you can double the meal, cook it at the same time, separate it, eat one meal, and then freeze the other for the future. Now the reason why this has changed eating and cooking in my life is because it is so convenient. So convenient. If you are a mom, if you are a family that is busy, always on the go, then this is the video for you. This will save you time in the kitchen. It's going to save you money because you're not going to go out to eat. You're already going to have a meal ready any day that you need one. So all of these meals are meals that are kid-friendly. My kids love them. They eat all of them. They are easy to make, easy to clean up, and they are one-dish meals. So kind of like casserole-type food. They're all pretty healthy. I mean, you're not eating ramen, right? These are meals. Yes, they have carbs in them, but they're not horrible for you. These are substantially healthy meals, and they are very filling. This makes a lot of food. And the best part is that they are all affordable. So I have made a list of seven favorite meals of my family. These are staple meals that I go to every time I can't think of what to eat. We actually pretty much rotate these meals on a monthly basis. I am going to show you how you can use freezer meals without having to set aside time to make them. All right, everyone. I'm going to show you the first meal. Today, it is shepherd's pie. And if you haven't had shepherd's pie, where have you been, right? I mean, it's the easiest comfort food. And peeled three potatoes, and I cut them into large cubes. Now, I'm going to put them in the Instant Pot with one cup of water, and I'm going to put it on manual high for four minutes. Some people prefer tomato sauce in there, so I just bought the small cans. These were 25 cents a piece. The potatoes were $1.89 for five pounds. I got two pounds of ground beef from Aldi, and I spent $7.14. And these are leftover mashed potatoes from two days ago that I'm going to use so that I don't waste them. And the last thing is mixed vegetables. So you can do frozen. I usually do frozen, but they were out. So I got the cans, and these were 49 cents a piece. I'm going to put them in the oven at 400, and I'm going to bake them for about 15 to 20 minutes. Everything is already cooked except the vegetables, so I'm really just reheating it to cook it all together. All right, both of them are done. Now, this one we're going to eat. The other one, you need to make sure it is cooled all the way down. Cover it with foil, and then put it in the freezer. All right, so the ingredients you need for this meal is obviously rice. I have jasmine rice. You can use white rice, brown rice, doesn't matter. I actually bought this another time, so I can't remember the price. Okay, you need Lifted Onion Soup Mix. This is not Lifted brand. This is Aldi. This is 55 cents. Four cans of cream of mushroom, or two large cans of cream of mushroom. These are 49 cents a piece, and you need chicken. So, it doesn't matter the kind of chicken. Just get the chicken that's on sale. It doesn't matter if it's frozen or fresh. I bought the chicken tenders this week. It was 5.27 for two pounds. Okay, so whenever I'm cooking rice, I like to do one cup of water per one cup of rice. So, I'm going to do two cups of rice in each casserole dish since this is making two meals. So, I'm going to do four cups of rice, which is four cups of water, and a little bit of olive oil. All right, everyone. Today, I'm going to show you the third meal in this video, and it is tater tot casserole. One of my all-time favorites. I love the potatoes on the top. It's one of the meals that I have to make myself not get a second or third helping. So, all you need for this recipe are mixed vegetables, cream of mushroom, meat, tater tots, and cheese. So, I actually forgot to take out my meat this morning to thaw all day, so I'm going to have to defrost it in the microwave. Now, a lot of people don't even know that their microwave can defrost meat. It totally can, and it works. So, all you do is push defrost, and you put in how many pounds of meat you have. Halfway through, I like to flip my meat, and any meat that has already defrosted, I'll spoon off so that it doesn't keep cooking and get rubbery. It's disgusting. So, anyways, this is my meat. I bought it at Aldi, two pounds for 6.86, and it's got a dollar off. I actually got two pounds for 5.86. So, if you get the half-off sticker, that's a big deal. I got some meat there the other day. It was two pounds for $3.56 because it was half-off. So, I'm gonna defrost my meat in the microwave, and then I'm gonna cook it on the stove. All right, so like I said, my meat was 5.86 for two pounds. You need cream of mushroom. These are 49 cents a piece at Aldi. I need four of them for this recipe. Two cans of mixed vegetables. These are 49 cents a piece at Aldi, and then you need two frozen bags of potato puffs, or tater tots, and these are $1.65 a bag at Aldi. All right, meal number four that I'm going to be showing you is chicken pot pie casserole. Now, it's not the same thing as chicken pot pie, but it's pretty similar. So, what you're gonna need is four things of crescent rolls. These are 49 cents each. Four cans of cream of chicken, 49 cents each. Two cans of mixed vegetables. These are 49 cents each, too, or you can use frozen. And that is it. So, you need to preheat your oven to what the crescent rolls say, 375. This was $5.08. I like to buy the tenders because they cook a lot faster than chicken breast. And the next meal I'm gonna be sharing with you is baked ziti. So, baked ziti is really simple. Not a lot of ingredients. So, all you need is mozzarella. I'm gonna use one bag. Two cans of spaghetti sauce. Two pounds of pasta. This is the one I'm using. And meat. My meat was two pounds for $6.86. ♪ Stir much, stir much, stir much, stir much, stir much ♪ Okay, guys, meal number six, I believe, is called chicken tetrazzini. So, I would say this is kind of a combination between chicken spaghetti and chicken alfredo. Well, maybe not a combination, but it's in between the two. So, you could do either meal for one of these freezer meals. You could do chicken spaghetti, or you could do chicken alfredo. But I'm doing this meal. I've only ever done it one other time, but it turned out really good. So, mozzarella. This is a huge bag, but a normal bag is usually about $2. Sour cream, two of them. I think these were $1.19 a piece. Parmesan, I already had on hand. Butter, I already had on hand. Linguine pasta. You could use any, you could use regular spaghetti pasta if you wanted. These were $0.99 a piece. Two cans of cream of chicken, $0.49 a piece. Two cans of cream of mushroom, $0.49 a piece. And I already had a chicken broth, but you can usually get a can for like $0.99. And chicken, so my two pounds of chicken tenders, 5.14, I already said in the video, but I'll say it again, I buy chicken tenders because they cook a lot faster. All right, everyone, this is the last meal and I have saved the best for last, lasagna. A lot of people are probably scared to cook lasagna, but it's actually really easy and it's a family favorite. All right, so you need two pounds of ground beef. This was $6.89, but I got it a dollar off because it was about to expire. Two cans of ricotta, these are $1.69 a piece. Two packages of oven-ready lasagna, $1.15 a piece. One egg, Parmesan, four cans of spaghetti sauce, these are 85 cents a piece, and mozzarella. Now, my suggestion is to buy just a big bag of mozzarella to use for the baked ziti and lasagna and the price for the meal will actually be around $14.96, I believe. $15 for two meals, still not that bad because restaurant, you're gonna be paying $15 for probably one person. Almost a box full of lasagna pieces. I could've done another layer, but it was getting pretty full of cheese, so you might've been able to do this recipe with one box. But anyways, the box on here says 3.75 for about 45 minutes, so that's what I'm gonna do. Just follow the directions on your box.