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20 Frugal Real-Food Chicken Dinner Recipes

Do you like chicken but don’t want to break the bank? Read on for some yummy AND FRUGAL real-food chicken dinner recipes!

Y’all, there are some things I don’t mind spending money on. Every five years, I have an absolute breakdown and go spend some major birthday money on clothes that fit the body I actually have at that point. Also, date nights…Even if our budget gets very tight, we will scrimp and save to spend time together – eating, most likely. Because date nights together are that important.

But I will tell you something I do NOT like to splurge on.

It’s chicken, y’all. Whenever I see meals calling for prosciutto, and two and a half large chicken breasts PER PERSON, stuffed with some rare French cheese and umpteen fresh herbs…I click that ol’ browser shut as fast as I can. I’m sure it’s delicious, but I cannot afford to serve every member of my family three pounds of chicken in one sitting! No way.

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The Snack Basket

(Saving Mommy’s sanity since 2018)

I’m not sure about you, but the NUMBER ONE question my kids seem to ask is: Can I have a snack? I’ll be honest – this question drives me bonkers. “You just ate like 5 minutes ago. How can you be hungry again? You haven’t even finished chewing that last bite.” The snack basket idea has officially saved my sanity.

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Peanut Butter Brownie Pizza

You know those moments of pure genius you have in the kitchen? You’re just standing around and suddenly think “Oh. My. GOSH! I could totally make yadda yadda!!!” Well, I have those a lot. The problem is, about half the time, they turn into utter disasters. Now, I do usually eat the utter disasters, including the pancakes that wouldn’t ever get firm, the cookies that were so bitter it would give you chest hair, and the “muffins” I had to eat like cereal out of a bowl. I just hate to waste food…but sometimes, I just can’t help it. Sometimes, even the dog won’t eat it. Just picture it with me: peanut butter brownie pizza. What could go wrong?!

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The Basics and Flow of Meal Prep (Kitchen Day)

One day per week, my morning/afternoon is dedicated to Kitchen Day…the time I dedicate to meal prep. I focus on things like: bread, buns, rolls, mixes and seasonings, chopping veggies, washing and cutting fruit, breakfast prep for the week, pantry staples, etc.

I have found that if I take one day per week and dedicate it to cooking and meal prep, it saves me SO MUCH TIME both at breakfast and dinner time. And for me, that’s a game changer. If you want to know more about how I “schedule” my days, you can check out that in the Homemaking How-To ecourse I offer.

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Muffin Tin Lunch

Way back in the era of magazines (dude, did I just actually say that?) I found this amazing article in Parenting magazine (I’m lol-ing at this entire first paragraph) all about how to get your kids to eat a variety of things by using muffin tins – hence the name muffin tin lunch (super creative, right?)

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Baked Potato Nachos

My hobby, during the hotter months of the year, is to avoid turning on the oven whenever possible. However, the people like to eat in our home – and they LOVE nachos. Baked potato nachos are super easy, and a nice alternative to the standard pub fare. That said, you have permission to save this recipe until it’s not the temperature of Hades each day if you feel like I do about using the oven during summertime.

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What is Intuitive Eating?

Y’all may or may not know this… but when Barry and I first got together, we were both significantly larger than we are now. We both lost a fairly decent amount of weight before we were married and in the early years of our marriage. I used to weight nearly 170 pounds and Barry weighed over 300 pounds at one point in his life. I have lost a good bit and Barry is down around 200 pounds. How did we do it…?

By learning the art of intuitive eating!

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Let’s Make Homemade Waffles!

Barry, my kids, and I all love homemade waffles! It’s one of their favorite meals – and they’ll enjoy them any time of day. I have a really large double-side waffle maker. It’s a Waring Pro. But then I found this cute, smaller one for four waffles. I only paid $15 for it and I know it’s not the best quality, but I’ve had so much fun with it! So…let’s make waffles!

Whenever I make waffles, I either make the Lemon Honey Flax Waffles from Jessica Fisher’s cookbook or I modify the waffle recipe from the red Breadbeckers cookbook. I have practically all their cookbooks, but I love the recipes from the little red book. I modify one called Basic Pancake recipe and convert it to waffles. The only real change between pancake and waffle batter is that you add more oil to the waffles.

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Waffle French Toast

There is a war in my head – the War for French Toast and also the War for Waffles.  The battle is real, friends. Could the solution be so simple as just combining the two…waffle french toast?

One of my life goals is to actually see how many things I can cook in the waffle iron. When someone told me I could make my French Toast in there, I was ALL ABOUT THAT! This marriage of French Toast and Waffles is a beautiful thing – the yumminess of French Toast + the waffle holes for syrup. Waffle French Toast = YES!

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Best Ever Blueberry Muffins: An Ode to Tammy’s Recipes

Years ago, there was an awesome blog called Tammy’s Recipes. She had the absolute best ever blueberry muffins recipe on there. Seriously, best EVER. Sadly, Tammy is no longer blogging and her blog has gone away (sadness). 
Honestly, her blog’s disappearance has given me some kind of Recipe PTSD.  Friends, this is EXACTLY why you should print ALL recipes that you find online…the ones that you enjoy, anyway. 

You never know when recipe Armageddon will occur and they’re all be gone in a flash. I once had an AMAZING recipe for ciabatta bread. It was my fave…and then POOF! See – Recipe PTSD. It will NOT happen with these blueberry muffins!

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