Frugal Dinners and Cheap Dinner Recipes

Some folks are born into frugality and others were made to be frugalists by the current economy. Whether you have been a careful shopper your entire life or brand new to stretching a dollar, we have scoured the world over to find recipes for frugal dinners. These meals are sure to please your taste buds without causing a deficit to the family's food budget.

Being thrifty is not a modern idea. The French word frugal has been around since the early 16th century and means to be economical and avoid waste. Thriftiness does not mean you have to give up good taste to serve tasty but cheap dinners. Our aim to share cheap dinner recipes, which will have your guests and family considering you the frugal gourmet.

Cheap Dinner Recipes

Cheap dinner recipes do not have to be tasteless. In fact, you can prepare such delightful dishes that your children will have only fond memories of the frugal dinners served as comparable to any five star dining establishment.

In a salute to France which invented the word frugal, we will start off your cheap dinner recipes with a recipe for French Onion Soup.

French Onion Soup

Sauté sliced yellow onions in butter. Place 2 tablespoons of sautéed onions in soup bowl. Add a dash of dry sherry, grated parmesan, boiling brown soup stock, and salt. Serve with toasted French bread. Bon Appetit!

Brown Soup Stock

Place soup bones in a large roasting pan. Roast in 425 degrees oven without lid for 2 hours. At the beginning of the second hour, add sliced carrots, chopped celery, and unpeeled yellow onions. Yellow onions skins provide color to the stock.

Put roasted bones in a soup pot. Add one quart water for each pound of bones. Simmer for 8 hours. Do not salt. Strain soup stock and store.

Salad Course

The next spot on our frugal recipes tour is Greece. Today's feature in the spotlight is a crowd pleaser, Greek Salad.

Greek Salad

Mix cut cherry tomatoes, thinly sliced white or yellow onions, and sliced green peppers. Add Greek olives and chopped feta cheese. Toss with salt, pepper, oregano, and the basic dressing recipe below. Serve over a bed or torn lettuce. Kale orexe! (Good appetite! in Greek)

　

Salad Dressing

A good way to shrimp on frugal dinners without sacrificing flavor is to make your own dressings. Prepare dressing beforehand and refrigerate until needed. Instructions are as follows: Blend a half cup each of olive oil, peanut oil, red wine vinegar, and white vinegar. Add sugar, dry mustard, and ground fennel to taste. Finish with adding lemon juice, dried parsley, salt, and pepper.

More Cheap Dinners and Frugal Recipes

For our frugal dinners main course, we shift to Italy for a fabulous cheap dinner recipe:

Italian Roast Chicken and Parsley

Wash and dry the chicken. Salt and pepper inside and out. Rub down the bird well with a dressing made of ½ cup olive oil, ¼ cup lemon juice, and a teaspoon of ground thyme. Stuff the chicken with fresh parsley. Bake uncovered in a medium high oven about an hour and a half or until done. Buon appetito!

Dessert

We wind up our travels with a dessert made in the good ole USA! The last stop spotlights a simply made, mouth-watering fruit tart:

Fruit Tart

Bake a sponge cake tart. Fill the center with fresh, cut strawberries. Melt a cup of currant jelly in a sauce pan and pour over the fruit. Cool before serving. Dig In!