Twenty Tasty Meals on a $25 Budget: The Ultimate Guide to Meal Prep

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Four years ago, my wife and I were nearly broke. It was our first year of marriage, and I had been jobless for almost five months. I was about to start grad school, which is tough to pay for when you’re broke, so I was applying for scholarships. One of the scholarships required a monthly budget to show how much we were spending. It made sense—they wanted to ensure we were managing our resources well and genuinely needed financial help.

The problem was, we had no idea what we were actually spending. We were just trying to be frugal based on our feelings. So, we created an account with Mint and synced all our accounts. I still remember sitting with my wife, watching the screen as the data sorted out to show our monthly spending breakdown.

At first, everything looked normal. Our rent was $725, car insurance $200, WiFi $30, phone bill around $100, and gym $40. But one category stood out: Food/Restaurants: $825. We couldn’t believe it, but it was our anniversary month, so we thought it was due to a fancy dinner. We checked another month and saw $760, then $730, and back to $800. The realization hit us hard. For the last six months, while I was unemployed and we were struggling, we were spending more on food than rent for just the two of us.

Like many people, we ate out too often for fun and convenience and threw away too much food that never got cooked. Our food bill was out of control. We knew we had to save money on food but didn’t know how. We already felt frugal with food and didn’t want to revert to a college diet of ramen and nearly expired chicken. We wanted to eat real food that was good for us and our wallet.

We made a few major changes: we completely stopped eating out for about two months and planned our meals to avoid waste. It worked for a while! We ate all our meals at home, and our food spending dropped from $750+ to around $350. But it was exhausting. We were cooking and cleaning multiple meals a day, feeling like we lived in the kitchen.

Then, we started meal prepping. We’d wake up early on Sundays to pick a few recipes and plan our meals for the week. After church, we’d head to the grocery store and spend our afternoons making a week’s worth of food. It took some time to get the hang of it, but meal prepping was a game-changer. We started saving money and weren’t spending 15 hours a week in the kitchen.

Three years later, I now run a blog called MealPrepify, where I help people learn how to meal prep and find great recipes to save time, money, and eat healthily. Today, I want to share my best tips and tricks to help you start saving money by meal prepping! I’ve also included our favorite meal plan that we use almost every month to save money on food.

Meal Prep 101: 9 Tips to Start Meal Prepping

When I first started meal prepping, I was overwhelmed. How do I pick recipes? How much should I make? How long will the food last? Do I need a meal plan or just cook stuff and hope it goes together? Most resources I found weren’t helpful. The recipes were elaborate or unhealthy, and the meal plans didn’t fit my tastes, often costing more time and money than they saved.

Here are some helpful meal prep tips to get you started the right way:

1. Restaurant Spending Freeze: If you want to start meal prepping, stop eating out. This is the hardest part, especially if you love trying new places. But if you want to save money on food and make meal prepping a habit, you have to commit. Try it for one month and see how much you save.

2. Start Small: Don’t try to meal prep too much at first. Pick 1-2 recipes you love and double the ingredients. The last thing you want is to make a bunch of food that goes to waste.

3. Look in the Freezer and Pantry: Start with what you already have. Make a list of the meat in your freezer and find ways to meal prep with it. You’ll save money, reduce waste, and clear out space.

4. Create a List of Super Cheap Meals: Find cheap meals you can make repeatedly. My wife and I have a rotation of 7-10 meals we love that keep our grocery budget in check and allow us to splurge elsewhere.

5. Find Ingredient Overlaps: Use ingredients that work for multiple recipes. The fewer ingredients you need to buy, prep, chop, and cook, the better. For example, grilled chicken can be used in various dishes, and bell peppers work for fajitas, stir-fries, or as a snack.

6. Create a Set Time for Meal Prepping: Pick a consistent time each week to meal prep. My wife and I cook a week’s worth of lunches every Saturday afternoon and double whatever we cook for dinner on Monday.

7. Get Good Storage Containers: After meal prepping, you need good storage. We upgraded from regular plastic containers to glassware, which is better for heating, freezing, and cleaning.

8. Map Out Your Week: Meal prepping requires planning. Every Saturday morning, we map out our meals for the week and create a grocery list. We keep track of our meal plans in a Google spreadsheet, which helps us quickly choose a plan when we’re in a hurry.

9. Use the Crockpot: A crockpot is the easiest way to meal prep. Just dump in your ingredients, press a button, and wait 6-8 hours. Turn it on before bed and wake up with lunch and dinner ready. Here are some of our favorite cheap crockpot meals for less than $3 a serving!

Sample Meal Plan: How We Made 20 Meals for $25 in One Hour

Meal planning doesn’t have to be complicated. I pick three recipes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner that are cheap, healthy, and have overlapping ingredients. This plan takes about an hour to make 20 meals for $25.

Breakfast: Overnight Oats

Meal prepping for breakfast can be tough, but overnight oats are a game-changer. They’re easy to make and incredibly cheap. Just put oats in a mason jar with milk or water the night before, and they’re ready in the morning. You can add anything you like—strawberries, blueberries, bananas, peanut butter, or chocolate chips. The oats need at least four hours to soak and will last 3-4 days. I usually prepare half my jars and add liquid to the rest mid-week. Overnight oats can be eaten cold or warmed up.

Lunch: Sheet Pan Chicken Fajitas

We love sheet pan recipes because they save time on clean-up and allow us to meal prep a week’s worth of lunch in one batch. Here’s how to make chicken fajitas:

1. Marinate 2 lbs of chicken breast/thighs in a Ziploc bag or bowl with your favorite marinade for 30 minutes to a couple of hours.
2. Slice 1 green bell pepper, 1 red bell pepper, and 1 onion.
3. Cover a sheet pan with foil and spread the bell peppers and chicken on it.
4. Cook for 20 minutes at 350°F and check for doneness.
5. Enjoy the fajitas in tortillas, with rice and beans, or as a salad with mixed greens and avocado.

Dinner: Quick Coconut Chicken Curry

This coconut chicken curry is one of our go-to weeknight meals. It’s cheap and healthy. Here’s how to make it:

1. Rub 4 tbsp curry paste on 2 lbs of chicken breast or thighs.
2. Heat 2 tbsp oil in a pan, add red onion and 2 more tbsp curry paste, and cook for 5 minutes.
3. Add the chicken to the pan and sear both sides (2 minutes per side).
4. Add coconut milk and bake in the oven for 12 minutes at 400°F.
5. Serve the chicken curry with pita bread, rice, or on its own.

Grocery List

If you want to try this meal plan, here’s a grocery list:

• Oatmeal
• Milk
• Optional oatmeal toppings: fruit, berries, nuts
• 2 lbs chicken breast
• 2 green bell peppers
• 1 onion
• 1 can of black beans
• 1 cup rice
• Fajita marinade
• 2 lbs chicken thighs
• 1.5 cups coconut milk
• 4-6 tsp red curry paste
• 1/2 cup diced red onion

Take Your Next Step in Meal Prepping

Meal prepping can help everyone, whether you’re an entrepreneur, a young professional, or a stay-at-home parent. It saves time, money, and helps you eat healthily. Take your first step today!