Frugal Meal Series: Steamed Cabbage and Smoked Beef Sausage

Welcome to my new series aimed at helping families on a budget with some new and cost effective ideas for meals! I aim for around $5 per meal while trying to highlight dishes from scratch, meatless options, common ingredients, and whole grains. My typical weekly grocery bill for 4 was $50-60 just a couple years ago, but with the current economy it has increased to about $80/week. This series shows you my average family dinners including cost breakdown, links to recipes, and other details to help inspire you!

Step 1 of saving money on your grocery bill is to MAKE A MENU! Once a week I sit down and write out a dinner menu for the next 7 days. I take into account what I have in the freezer, what our schedule is like for that week, what the weather is (hot/cold), and any leftovers. It also stops everyone from asking "What's for dinner??" From this you can easily make your shopping list to only get the items you need while keeping an eye out for any markdowns/clearance items you can stick in the freezer for a different meal. I do 90% of my grocery shopping at Aldi as I find that they have the best prices on most items. For a few other remaining items I go to Walmart.

Some meals I make are easy, some are more complicated. I mostly stick to tried and true dishes that I know everyone likes, but occasionally I like to try out a new one and experiment! I cook many style from American to Italian, Chinese, Mexican, and lots of Tex Mex. Variety is the spice of life!

For my cost breakdowns I will show real or estimated prices of items, but I don't include typical pantry ingredients i.e. spices/oil/butter/milk etc. unless it's a significant amount.

For today's meal we had steamed cabbage with roasted beef sausage.

Total cost of meal for 4: $6

Cost per serving: $1.50

Price breakdown:

1 pack smoked beef sausage (Aldi): $3.50

1 small head cabbage: $2

1 large onion: 0.50

seasonings + oil

This was our healthy and Irish-inspired meal for St Patrick's Day. I diced the entire head of cabbage and 1 onion to saute in a pan until tender with a bit of oil and seasonings. The sausage I sliced into thirds, then those into halves for a total of 6 slices that I roasted in my toaster oven. Each child got 1 slice and the adults each got 2 slices. There was lots of cabbage leftover for another meal, so that cost could easily be cut in half to lower the actual cost per serving.