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Quick And Simple Recipe Ideas With Few Ingredients: Delicious Meals In A Flash

03.22.2020 by admin // 1 Comment

Looking for quick and simple recipe ideas to make at home? Or, trying to save money at the grocery store? I love trying new recipes, but hate when the recipe calls for a bunch of ingredients that I’ll only use a little of. These easy breakfast recipes have two or three ingredients. Most of the lunch and dinner recipes include either pasta or chicken so you can buy in bulk and have multiple recipes to choose from. Here are 20+ quick and simple recipe ideas with few ingredients.

Breakfast Quick and Simple Recipe Ideas with Few Ingredients

2 Ingredient Bagels

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These 2 ingredient bagels are so easy to make, healthy and only require flour and greek yogurt! You can also add sesame seeds or everything but the bagel seasoning on top. We had lox and cream cheese as well and it felt like we went out to a deli. If you don’t have a mixer, it only takes a few minutes to knead by hand.

2 Ingredient Pancakes: Egg & Banana Pancakes

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If you’re craving pancakes but don’t have milk or pancake mix you’re in luck. You can make pancakes with overripe bananas and eggs. Mix one mashed banana with 2 eggs. To make the mix smooth it’s easiest to mix in a blender but you can hand mix as well. Pour the banana mixture on a hot skillet with a little oil for a minute, flip and cook another minute.

Overnight Oats

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An excellent pantry staple is oats, and luckily there are many ways to use oats besides adding water and heating it up on the stove. If you also have almond milk or another nut milk you can make overnight oats! My personal favorite is banana bread overnight oats which includes adding bananas and cinnamon to this. Fresh bananas only last so long, so I froze a few bananas and we’ll see how that works out. Otherwise, I will continue to just add cinnamon and try a few of these other recipes based on the ingredients I have in my pantry. Here are the recipes I use for overnight oats.

Granola

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Making you own granola is another great way to use oats. Homemade granola is also much cheaper than buying granola at the store. Additionally, you get to control how much sugar is in the granola. This healthy granola recipe is very flexible. You can add whatever dried fruit you want or skip it, same with nuts. Personally, I use coconut oil, maple syrup, oats, apricots, pecans, flax seed and cinnamon in my granola.

Sweet Potato Toast

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Did you buy sweet potatoes or regular potatoes? Slice them to make “toast” and add your favorite toppings! Oven baked sweet potato toast is a healthy way to start your day and is Whole30 Approved. To make sweet potato “toast” slice the sweet potato and bake for 25 minutes ahead of time. Put it in the fridge and when you’re ready to eat it toast it like you normally would a piece of toast in the toaster oven. You can have them plain, add salt / pepper, butter, almond butter, avocados or your favorite topping.

Sweet Potato and Caramelized Onion Hash

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Sweet Potato and Caramelized Onion Hash is another great way to use the sweet potatoes you bought. This is also very healthy and was my favorite Whole30 recipe! I would meal prep on Sundays and make one batch of this. Throughout the week I would then add two fried eggs if I had it for dinner or warm up the hash for lunch. I also have made this with the crockpot salsa chicken mentioned below which was really good and added protein.

Eggs

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There are plenty of ways to make eggs: scrambled, omelettes, over easy, hard boiled, frittata, quiche and more. Cheese and veggies (frozen work fine) are great mix-ins but if you don’t have any mix-ins look at what condiments and spices you have. A little salt and pepper will always add flavor and hot sauce can make almost anything taste better.

Chilaquiles

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Chilaquiles is a dish made up of tortilla chips, eggs, salsa and your choice of toppings. Here is a recipe for chilaquiles, but when we tried to make them over the weekend we didn’t have many ingredients. Instead, we layered tortilla chips, salsa verde, cheese and scrambled eggs (eggs made prior to adding them to the dish) and put them in the 350 degree oven for about 10 minutes. We loved how they came out!

Smoothies and Smoothie Bowls

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Smoothie and smoothie bowls are a great way to use the frozen fruit you bought. Here are simple healthy smoothie recipes from Minimalist Baker using ingredients you likely already have!

Banana Bread

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Banana bread is a great comfort food that takes relatively little effort and few ingredients to make. It’s also a great way to use bananas that are over ripe. Many banana bread recipes include sour cream, but since that item isn’t as frequently found in your fridge I found this banana bread recipe with fewer ingredients.

Lunch and Dinner Quick and Simple Recipe Ideas With Few Ingredients

Chicken and Salsa

Crockpot Chicken and Salsa is two ingredients, that’s it. It takes less than a minute to prep. Place a little salsa to line the bottom of the crockpot, add the chicken and pour the rest of the salsa on top. Set the crockpot for 4 hours on high. If you want to make this more like a meal add rice!

PS I haven’t tried this myself yet, but someone added Trader Joe’s Chili Lime Spice to this and highly recommended it.

Chicken Taco Bowls

If you want to get fancy with your chicken and salsa make it into a taco bowl. Chicken taco bowls also have canned or frozen veggies like black beans and frozen corn over a bed of rice with shredded cheddar on top. You can find a recipe for chicken taco bowls here.

Cacio e Pepe

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I realize not everyone will have parmesan and pecorino to grate but both cheeses last a while in the fridge and for me have made 4 dinners for 2 people. Plus, there are only so many nights you can eat pasta with sauce. This cacio e pepe recipe helps provide some variety. All you need is pasta (I usually use bucatini), parmesan, pecorino, pepper and butter.

Simple Carbonara

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I’ve always loved eating carbonara at restaurants but had never made it at home before. After realizing how few ingredients were required and that I had all of them I made this simple carbonara recipe. This recipe calls for spaghetti, eggs, parmesan cheese and bacon. I also used the parmesan cheese for the cacio e pepe so we didn’t have to eat the same dish every night.

Easy Chicken Enchiladas With Salsa Verde

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Easy chicken enchiladas are a great way to use up chicken, cheese and tortillas. I modified this chicken enchiladas with salsa verde recipe. I didn’t have any sour cream, so I mixed the cooked chicken with salsa verde and cheese instead. Then, I topped it off with only salsa verde and cheese as I didn’t have cilantro. I was able to make a few extra so instead of baking it all at once I wrapped them up and saved a few chicken enchiladas in the freezer for easy lunches later.

Simple Turkey Chili

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Chili is a great recipe for when you’re hunkered down, even as it starts to warm up. It requires very few ingredients and if you’re missing something like onions you can still make the recipe. This dish is pretty easy to make, requiring only about 10 minutes of prep. I always use frozen chopped onions and peppers so you don’t have to worry about getting fresh veggies to make the meal. Plus, this recipe is one way you can use all of those beans you bought.

Dessert Fast Easy Recipes With Few Ingredients

Mango Sticky Rice

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Mango sticky rice is a thai dessert. I used frozen mango, jasmine rice, coconut milk and sugar to make this. Even though this is meant to be a dessert, I modified this mango sticky rice recipe by adding way less sugar and not making the coconut milk and sugar topping. I found that the rice came out best when I used 1 cup of rice with a little over 1 cup of water, 1/2 cup of coconut milk, and 2 spoonfuls of sugar.

Healthy Banana Oatmeal Cookies

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Do you have overripe bananas? Don’t let them go to waste! An easy cookie recipe with few ingredients is healthy banana oatmeal cookies. Take 2 overripe mashed bananas and add 1 cup of oatmeal. Optional to add 1/2 cup of chocolate chips or raisins. Bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes.

Buckeyes

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Want candy but don’t have any in the house? Make your own. An easy dessert recipe with few ingredients is buckeyes. Buckeyes are like Reeses in a different shape – peanut butter covered in chocolate. Don’t have melting wafers? No problem. Use chocolate chips and add a little coconut oil. You can also substitute the peanut butter with almond butter. Here is a recipe for homemade buckeyes.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

And, of course, when you’re stuck at home for an indefinite amount of time there is nothing better than a batch of chocolate chip cookies. My favorite recipe has always been the chocolate chip cookie recipe on the back of the Nestle chocolate chip bag.

Want more recipe ideas? Check out weekly meal plan: what to cook for dinner, best Trader Joe’s dinner ideas and quick and easy breakfast recipes for more ideas!

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Categories // Smart Spending Tags // Food, Recipes

10 Quick And Easy Breakfast Ideas

10.15.2019 by admin // 9 Comments

Healthy breakfasts are a great way to start the day. A key way to spend less money is to plan your meals ahead of time. How can you plan your meals though when you have no idea what to make? Here are quick and easy breakfast ideas to help you get started. If you figure eating out for brunch for two is ~$50 in the city and brunch at home is ~$5 you can save a lot of money quickly by planning your breakfasts before you go to the grocery store. It also enables you to eat healthier! These quick and easy breakfast ideas are perfect for busy mornings.

Prep The Night Before Breakfast: Overnight Oats

Overnight Oats need to be made the night before, but this quick breakfast idea takes seconds to make and at minimum all you need is overnight oats and almond milk. I usually make one serving at a time. The link above includes recipes for 7 different overnight oats flavors! My personal favorite of all of the overnight oat recipes is the banana bread overnight oats. Not only are overnight oats low effort, they are cheap and healthy! This breakfast is less than a $1, even when you add the extra ingredients.

Healthy breakfast ideas: Banana Bread Overnight Oats

Meal Prep Breakfast: Chia Seed Pudding

Chia Seed Pudding is one of my favorite breakfasts to meal prep. One batch usually makes 4-5 breakfasts, depending how much I put in each mason jar. I’ll add the toppings in the morning. My recent favorite toppings for chia pudding are almonds, maple syrup and blueberries. When I don’t have time to grab fresh fruit I like adding frozen raspberries to chia seed pudding.

Healthy breakfast ideas: Chia Seed Pudding

Quick Breakfast: Bananas and Almond Butter

A banana with almond butter is an excellent way to start your day! It’s sweet without any added sugar and the almond butter provides an excellent source of protein to help fill you up. A banana with almond butter takes seconds to put together and minutes to eat.

Healthy Breakfast Ideas: Banana and Trader Joe's Almond Butter

On The Go Breakfast: Yogurt

One of the easiest on the go breakfasts is yogurt. Greek yogurt is full of protein but you should check the label to make sure there isn’t too much added sugar.

Healthy Breakfast Ideas: Trader Joe's Greek Yogurt

Protein Packed Breakfast: Eggs

There are many ways quick and easy ways to eat eggs for breakfast. Eggs are full of protein and help fill you up. Eggs are also very cheap, usually between $1-3 for a dozen. You can make hard boiled eggs, scrambled eggs, omelettes and more! A recent favorite of mine is salami scrambled eggs with salami, cheddar cheese and scrambled eggs.

Easy Breakfast Idea: Salami Scrambled Eggs

Meal Prep Breakfast: Havarti Quiche

Havarti Quiche is a great meal prep breakfast that you can make ahead of time and warm up the morning of. This can be made for breakfast, lunch or dinner. I like to buy the ingredients for Havarti Quiche at Trader Joe’s because they have the best cheese prices! You’ll need a few ingredients: havarti cheese, premade pie crust (usually in the freezer isle at Trader Joe’s and comes in packs of 2), 3-4 eggs, 1 1/2 cups of half and half, bag of frozen spinach and spices.

To start, line most of the bottom of the crust which takes about 1/2 of the harvarti cheese. Combine 3 or 4 eggs, 1.5 cups half and half and dash of pepper, nutmeg, teaspoon of both basil and minced parsley and half a teaspoon of dry mustard. Thaw a bag of frozen spinach and mix that with the egg and half and half mixture, pour on top of the cheese. Bake at 350 for 45 -50 minutes. The prep takes about the same amount of time as it does for the oven to preheat.

Meal Prep Breakfast: Sausage, Leek and Spinach Quiche

Sausage, Leek and Spinach Quiche is a Whole30 Approved recipe. This recipe is also the most prep time intensive of the list as it involves slicing sweet potatoes for the “crust.” If one of the reasons you meal plan is to save time, this recipe might not be for you. That said, this is the healthiest quiche I’ve ever had and it was delicious.

Whole 30 Breakfast Idea: Sausage, Leek and Spinach Quiche

Whole 30 Breakfast: Sweet Potato “Toast” With Avocado And Sausage

Oven baked sweet potato toast is a healthy way to start your day and is Whole30 Approved. To make sweet potato “toast” slice the sweet potato and bake for 25 minutes ahead of time. Put it in the fridge and when you’re ready to eat it toast it like you normally would a piece of toast in the toaster oven and add sliced avocados. If you’d like to add a side of sausage, the sausage below is Trader Joe’s Chicken Sausage.

Whole 30 Breakfast Idea: Sweet Potato "Toast"

Spring / Summer Breakfast: Raspberry Acai Bowl

Homemade Acai Bowls are a great breakfast for spring / summer. Alternatively, you can make only the smoothie and drink it on the go. When you get an Acai bowl eating out, it sometimes can be up to $15! When you make it at home you can freeze everything you need besides the almond milk: frozen raspberries, the Acai Frozen Packets and freeze a few bananas. The Acai Frozen Packets (5 per package) can be anywhere from $5-10 but it’s much cheaper than buying 5 bowls eating out. I usually just use 1 frozen packet per bowl, raspberries, almond milk, bananas and then put some almond butter and granola on top. This takes less than 10 minutes to prep and make.

Healthy Breakfast Idea: Raspberry Acai Bowl with Strawberries, Granola and Almond Butter

Whole 30 Meal Prep Breakfast: Sweet Potato and Caramelized Onion Hash

Sweet Potato and Caramelized Onion Hash was my favorite Whole 30 breakfast recipe! I would meal prep on Sundays and make one batch. This dish is great for breakfast, lunch and dinner. In the morning, I would warm this up and add two eggs on top. I also have made this with the crockpot salsa chicken which was really good and added protein.

Whole 30 Breakfast Idea: Sweet Potato and Caramelized Onion Hash with Eggs

I’d love to hear if you have any quick breakfast ideas and what your experience is if you make any of these recipes in the comments!

Healthy Breakfast ideas pinterest pin

Categories // Smart Spending Tags // Cheap Meals, Food, Recipes

What To Cook For Dinner: 8 Easy Recipes

10.10.2019 by admin // Leave a Comment

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Trying to think of things to cook for dinner? Planning your dinners ahead of time is an excellent way to save both time and money. Creating a meal plan involves deciding your meals for the week prior to going to the grocery store and then buying only the ingredients you need for your meal plan. Many meal prep articles focus on making a big batch of the same thing. You don’t need to cook all of your dinners on Sunday and eat the same thing every night to spend less time cooking and less money on the ingredients. You can have variety! Meal planning your dinners ahead of time will also help you eat healthier.

It’s hardest to start meal planning when you don’t know what you’re going to cook. Many recipes call for a lot of ingredients and prep time. If you’re busy, that’s a recipe for failure. That is why all of the recipes below have limited ingredients and are perfect for the beginner chef. If you’ve never planned your meals before, check out 8 tips for meal planning.

Here are a things to cook for dinner to help you start your meal plan that I’ve found have minimum ingredients, don’t take much prep time, don’t require any “fancy” kitchen tools and are generally pretty healthy. If these recipes take too long to make, check out Trader Joe’s Quick and Easy Dinner Ideas. And, if you don’t want to buy a lot of ingredients check out Fast Easy Recipes with Few Ingredients.

Trader Joe’s Carne Asada Tacos

Trader Joe’s Carne Asada Tacos with a twist. This Trader Joe’s meal will be ready in minutes! It involves only 3 ingredients: Trader Joe’s Carne Asada, Trader Joe’s Naan for the “taco shells” (freezer isle), and Trader Joe’s Tzatziki sauce. It comes out to about $23 but it can feed 3-4 people and is delicious. I once skipped the Tzatziki sauce to save the $5 and it was good but wasn’t the same. If you have it 2x close together though you only need to buy the sauce once.

Simple Turkey Chili

Simple Turkey Chili is a great autumn and winter dinner to make. This dish is pretty easy to make, requiring only about 10 minutes of prep. I modified this recipe using beef, and homemade tomato sauce (store bought is fine too) instead of the crushed tomatoes. I also buy frozen chopped onions and peppers and add shredded cheese on top. Buying frozen veggies is one of my top meal planning tips to save money. This turkey chili ends up being $10-15 for 4 servings, assuming you already have the spices.

Crockpot Chicken and Salsa

Crockpot Chicken and Salsa is two ingredients, that’s it. It takes less than a minute to prep. Place a little salsa to line the bottom of the crockpot, add the chicken and pour the rest of the salsa on top. Set the crockpot for 4 hours on high. I also buy the Trader Joe’s white rice from the freezer which takes about 5 minutes to cook in the microwave. The cost for this dinner is about ~$20 total but you can use only 2 chicken breasts and use the rest for other meals and the rice has 3 packets so this can cover multiple meals. Does need a crock pot but I’m sure this could be made in the oven as well.

Havarti Quiche

Havarti Quiche is one of the recipes my mom taught me. I like to buy the ingredients for Havarti Quiche at Trader Joe’s because they have the best cheese prices! You’ll need havarti cheese, premade pie crust (usually in the freezer isle at Trader Joe’s and comes in packs of 2), 3-4 eggs, 1 1/2 cups of half and half, bag of frozen spinach and spices. Line most of the bottom / takes about 1/2 of the harvarti cheese of the premade pie crust. Combine 3 or 4 eggs, 1.5 cups half and half and dash of pepper, nutmeg, teaspoon of both basil and minced parsley and half a teaspoon of dry mustard. Thaw a bag of frozen spinach and mix that with the egg and half and half mixture, pour on top of the cheese. Bake at 350 for 45 -50 minutes. The prep takes about the same amount of time as it does for the oven to preheat.

Meatballs and Sauce

Meatballs and Sauce is one of my go to meal prepping recipes. It requires a lot of effort compared to the other recipes, so when I make it I make multiple batches. I now make 2-4 batches at a time because it’s so good and so easy to freeze and reheat! For the meatballs, I’ve modified to make 2 batches at once- and have 1 lb of pork with the 3 lbs of beef, the last time I did this that made 67 meatballs. I also use panko breadcrumbs and frozen chopped onions.

For the sauce (per batch) it’s 1 can crushed tomatoes, 1 small can of tomato paste. Once emptied fill both of these cans with water and add water, 2-3 scoops minced garlic, a bit of olive oil and spices to taste. Cook the garlic first in olive oil, add spices. Add in the water and tomatoes and once reaching a boil simmer for 2-4 hours.

Because you’re making in bulk overall this should save money, but I primarily started this because after doing Whole30 I realized how many tomato sauces had soy and sugar added to it, and frozen meatballs had so many fillers. The homemade version is so much tastier. I’ve found I max out some of the ingredients at 4 batches of meatballs – 1 package of beef broth, 1 package of parsley, 1 fresh grated parmesan, 1 bag chopped onions all covers 4 batches but after that you’ll have to buy more beef broth and parsley.

Homemade Acai Bowls

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This recipe for Homemade Raspberry Acai Bowls is my favorite acai bowl recipe. I like to have acai bowls in the spring / summer for dinner. It’s a nice refreshing dinner that feels light yet filling. When you get an acai bowl eating out, it sometimes can be up to $15! When you make acai bowls at home you can freeze everything you need besides the almond milk: frozen raspberries, the acai Frozen Packets and freeze a few bananas.

The acai frozen packets (5 per package) can be anywhere from $5-10 but it’s much cheaper than buying 5 bowls eating out. I usually just use 1 frozen packet per bowl, raspberries, almond milk, bananas and then put some almond butter and granola on top. This takes less than 10 minutes to prep and make.

Sausage Leek and Spinach Quiche

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Sausage, Leek and Spinach Quiche is a Whole30 Approved recipe. This recipe is also the most prep time intensive of the list as it involves slicing sweet potatoes for the “crust.” If one of the reasons you meal plan is to save time, this recipe might not be for you. That said, this is the healthiest quiche I’ve ever had and it was delicious.

Sweet Potato and Caramelized Onion Hash

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Sweet Potato and Caramelized Onion Hash was my favorite Whole30 recipe! I would meal prep on Sundays and make one batch of this. Throughout the week I would then add two fried eggs if I had it for dinner or warm up the hash for lunch. I also have made this with the crockpot salsa chicken mentioned above which was really good and added protein.

After you’re done planning your dinners for the week, start planning your breakfasts! If you don’t have time to cook dinner this week Trader Joe’s has a ton of quick and easy dinners that take minutes to make. And if you’re looking for things to cook for dinner but don’t have many ingredients check out simple recipes with few ingredients. What other recipes are part of your weekly meal plan for dinner?

Categories // Smart Spending Tags // Cheap Meals, Food, Recipes

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