These budget family meal plans have been happening for close to two years now and with every passing week, they are gaining in popularity. The recipes are simple and made from scratch giving you healthy meal ideas for family dinners.
Aldi Budget Meal Plan Like this recipe? Pin it to your Meal Planning pinboard! Follow SavvyBites on Pinterest
Whether you use every recipe listed or use the dinner ideas as a starting point for designing your own meal plans, let these ideas guide you to having more inspiration and confidence in the kitchen.
Healthy family meal plan
Click to print the shopping list and meal plan
- Skillet chicken in tomato sauce
- Sticky Asian pork meatballs
- Quick and easy steak fajitas
- Easy 30-minute halloumi pasta
- Honey garlic salmon tray bake
- Creamy baked mushroom pasta
Meal prep ideas
Meal prep can be a tremendous help to get dinner on the table on busy mid-week nights. The recipes this week are quick and easy but there are still a couple of things that you can do to get ahead of your week. Listed below are a few things that can help jump-start dinner.
- Pork meatballs- you can mix the ingredients and form the pork into meatballs. From there you can either keep them in the fridge for up to 3 days or freeze them for up to 3 months.
- Fajitas- a great way to get ahead with this easy dinner recipe is to slice all your vegetables on the weekend. Place the sliced peppers in an airtight container with a damp paper towel to ensure they don't dry out. Store the sliced onion separately.
- Salmon tray bake- you can make the honey garlic sauce and store it in the fridge for the week. This just means dinner is even easier!
What to do with leftover ingredients
I really try and keep the ingredient list small and make sure to use all the items on it, however, as with most meal plans, there are often a few bits and pieces that are extra or leftover.
- Flour tortillas- The only thing on this week's list that may be leftover is a few flour tortillas. You can cut them into wedges, drizzle with some olive oil and bake them in a 180ºc preheated oven for about 15 minutes to have oven baked tortilla chips.
- Sun-dried tomatoes- if you are buying a jar of tomatoes or roasted peppers for these recipes, have no fear about leftovers. They last for months in the fridge. They make a great addition to sun-dried tomato pasta and chorizo gnocchi.
Pantry Staples
If you're new to Aldi or new to the website I'll give you a quick rundown of the pantry staples and favourite fresh food that I always like to have on hand.
- olive oil
- brown rice
- white rice or basmati
- tinned beans- black beans, kidney beans and chickpeas (garbanzo beans)
- soy sauce- light and dark
- small flour tortilla- great for making tortilla chips or wraps
- coconut oil- please don't even ask me why coconut oil is so expensive everywhere else, but for some reason, in Aldi, it's a fraction of the price. It's also great for skincare, so it's a great pantry item.
- tinned tomatoes- or you can use passata which is a smooth tomato sauce Perfect for making these meatballs in tomato sauce.
- peanut butter- honestly, the smooth pb from Aldi is on par with any high-end brand name. And it's the key ingredient in this peanut butter chicken.
- Fresh vegetables, fruits and whole foods
ground beef (mince) - chicken breasts
- grape tomatoes
- green onions
- feta cheese
- cottage cheese or Greek yoghurt- I change it up weekly
- sour cream or creme fraiche
- Cheese- this usually depends on what types of cheese feature in that week's Aldi meal plan that I'm creating
About the budget meal plan
These simple budget dinner ideas are ever-changing and they feature a mix of both the Savvy Bites classics as well as new recipes every week. Each recipe has the number of servings it makes as well as the nutritional information for each recipe.
Most of the recipes in each plan are designed to serve a family of 4 and most will have leftovers. The exceptions will be the slow cooker recipes, like this special slow cooker meal plan, which will usually serve up to 6 people. Each recipe also gives tips on how to store and reheat leftovers.
With food waste such an important issue both economically and environmentally never has it been so important to be mindful of what we consume. But of course, it's still important to make delicious, creative, inspiring and healthy meals.
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Need help with meal planning? You can find our (Aldi ingredients only) weekly meal plans here! Sign up to receive them free every week or take our quick meal planning course and grab the blank meal planner and use all these recipes to create your own meal plans.
THANKS SO MUCH FOR READING AND COOKING ALONG WITH ME! IF YOU MAKE THIS RECIPE OR HAVE A QUESTION, I’D LOVE IT IF YOU LEFT A COMMENT AND A RATING. YOU CAN ALSO FOLLOW ALONG ON PINTEREST, FACEBOOK, AND INSTAGRAM TO SEE WHAT WE’RE EATING, PINNING AND A LITTLE BEHIND THE SCENES TOO!
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