Frugal Cooking: A Simple Beef Stew

Two weeks ago I filled my freezer with chicken, as ALDI had a great deal on ALDI chicken. After cutting up the chicken, and dividing it into seperate bags, I had 15 dinners worth of chicken at a price of $1.36 each. Of course, I cannot feed my family chicken every day, and today I decided to splurge on beef, which will be a nice beef stew for the men in my family. I spent $5.20 on $1.24 lbs of stew beef, which at $4.19 a pound really isn’t the best deal.

To make up for the expensive meat, I got some great deal on produce to go with the my boys’ favorite stew. I only spent $1.48 on rice and veggies despite using a lot of fresh produce, and this made the meal quite frugal in the end. If I had bought all of the produce at full price, I could easily have spent more than $10 for the meal.

This is the meal breakdown

1.24 stew beef at ALDI $5.20

1 green pepper $0.33 (After price matching w/ Save A LOT at Walmart.)

1/2 red pepper at $0.25 ($0.99 for 2 at ALDI)

4 mushrooms at $0.10 ($0.79 at ALDI)

5 Chives $0.17 ($0.33 after Price Matching with Presidente at Walmart)

2 Plum Tomatoes $0.18 ($0.09 each after Price Matching with Sedanos at Walmart)

Rice 20 oz $0.19  ($20 lb rice bought on sale at $6 at Sedanos)

1 can stew tomatos $0.10 (From the pantry, after sales, coupons and mail-in-rebate at Publix)

Total cost for the meal $6.68 ($1.34 per person)

Beef Stew Recipe:

1. Season the meat with your favorite seasonings, and let it marinate in the fridge for 10+ minutes. (I use Adobo, garlic powder and a cajun paprika powder)
2. Brown the stew beef in a large pot
3. Cut up veggies into small pieces, and add once the meat is brown.
4. Stir meat and veggies a few times and cook for about 5 minutes.
5. Add 1 can of tomatoes and simmer over low heat for 10 – 15 minutes, add 1/2 – 1 cup of water if needed.
6. Cook rice according to package instructions and serve together.