Budget meal planning
Cheap meal prep ideas
Twelve batch-friendly meals built on the cheapest ingredients in the shop, with the per-serving cost worked out — plus the four bases that make all of them.
By Joao Dunlap · · 4 min read
The short version
- Rice is about $0.22 a serving. Lentils about $0.24. That is the floor.
- Four bases — rice, lentils, eggs, oats — carry a whole week of cheap prep.
- Prep the base in bulk and change the topping. Same cost, six different meals.
- Cheap prep fails on boredom, not money. Make a sauce.
Meal prep gets expensive when it starts from recipes. It gets cheap when it starts from bases — a big pot of one thing that becomes several different meals depending on what goes on top.
Here are the four bases worth building on, what each one actually costs per serving, and the meals they turn into.
$0.22
A serving of rice
$0.24
A serving of lentils
$0.55
A two-egg serving
The four bases
Twelve cheap prep meals
From a pot of rice
- Rice bowls with beans, whatever vegetable is cheap, and a spoon of yogurt.
- Egg fried rice — the classic use for day-old rice, five minutes in a hot pan.
- Stuffed peppers, rice and beans as the filling, baked in a tray.
From a pot of lentils
- Lentil soup with carrot and onion. Freezes better than almost anything.
- Lentil bolognese over pasta — lentils instead of mince, and nobody notices.
- Curried lentils with rice, made from the same pot with different spices.
From a tray of roast vegetables
- Grain bowls, roast vegetables over the rice you already cooked.
- Frittata — roast vegetables plus eggs, cooked once and eaten cold all week.
- Blended into a soup with stock, which uses up the ends of the tray.
From a dozen boiled eggs
- Egg and bean salad boxes for work lunches.
- Sliced over rice bowls to raise the protein for pennies.
- Egg sandwiches, the cheapest packed lunch there is.
Prep-friendly recipes from the library
These hold up in the fridge and break into components easily — the two things a prep recipe has to do. All in the NeatEat library, which can build the whole prep week and cost the list for you.
20 minSpicy Black Bean and Sweet Potato Skillet
31g protein, one pan, no meat.
20 minChickpea and Spinach Frittata
Cooks once, eats cold. 32g protein a serving.
20 minCurried Split Pea Grain Bowl
Split peas are the cheapest protein in the shop.
20 minHearty Potato and Lentil Stew
Makes dinner and the next day's lunch in one pot.
20 minVegetarian Lentil Fried Rice
Uses yesterday's rice and a handful of lentils.
20 minLentil Pasta with Spinach and Cherry Tomatoes
32g protein from a pasta dish.
Why cheap prep usually fails
- 1It is boring by Wednesday. The cheapest ingredients are the plainest ones, so a sauce is not optional — it is the entire difference between eating it and binning it.
- 2Everything is prepped as finished meals. Six identical boxes is one meal repeated. Prep components and it is six meals.
- 3It is prepped for seven days. Cooked food is good for about four. Prep the front of the week, cook or freeze for the back.
- 4There was no plan behind it. Prep without planning produces a lot of food that does not combine into anything. The planning comes first.
Frequently asked questions
What are the cheapest meals to meal prep?
Anything built on rice, dried lentils, eggs or oats. In this basket rice works out around $0.22 a cooked serving and dried lentils around $0.24, so a bowl combining them costs well under a dollar before toppings. Add a cheap vegetable and a sauce and it is still under a dollar and a half.
How do I meal prep on a tight budget?
Start from bases rather than recipes. Cook one big pot of a grain and one of a pulse, roast a tray of whatever vegetable is cheapest, and make one sauce. Those components recombine into most of a week. Prepping from four different recipes means four different shopping lists and no shared ingredients.
How do I stop cheap meal prep being boring?
Make a sauce, and store components separately rather than as assembled meals. Cheap ingredients are plain by nature, so the sauce is doing the work that expensive ingredients would otherwise do. The same lentils and rice under a yogurt sauce, a tomato sauce and a peanut sauce are three different dinners.
How many days should I meal prep for?
Three or four. Cooked food keeps about four days in the fridge, so a session that tries to cover a full week produces food nobody wants by the end of it. Prep the front half of the week and cook fresh or from the freezer for the back half.