Ten Proteins Under $2 a Serving, and One Dinner for Each

The ten, cheapest first

Protein	Typical price	Per serving	Why it's cheap
Dried lentils	$1.50 / lb	$0.25	A pound makes 12 servings and needs no soaking
Eggs	$3.50 / dozen	$0.60	Two eggs is a serving; nothing is faster
Dried beans	$1.80 / lb	$0.30	Canned is $0.60 a serving and still cheap; dried is half that
Chicken thighs, bone-in	$1.60 / lb	$0.90	Half the price of breast and harder to overcook
Whole chicken	$1.50 / lb	$1.10	Two dinners and a stock from one bird
Canned tuna	$1.20 / can	$1.20	One can per serving; keeps for years
Ground turkey or pork	$4.00 / lb	$1.30	Stretches with beans or rice better than beef
Tofu, firm	$2.50 / block	$0.85	A block is three servings; takes any flavour you give it
Pork shoulder	$2.20 / lb	$1.40	Cooked once, it feeds a week
Peanut butter	$3.50 / jar	$0.45	Three tablespoons is a protein serving in a sauce

The gap between the top and bottom of that table is what makes a week's budget. Two lentil or bean dinners, two egg or tofu dinners, and the meat three nights, and the protein line for a household of four lands under $40 for the week.

The dinners

1. Red lentil soup with lemon and cumin

30 min · $0.70 a serving · vegan

Ingredients

2 tbsp olive oil, 1 onion, 2 carrots, 3 cloves garlic
1½ tsp cumin, 1 tsp smoked paprika, 1 tbsp tomato paste
1½ cups red lentils, 6 cups water or stock
juice of 1 lemon, salt, pepper

Steps

Soften the diced onion and carrot in oil over medium heat, 7 minutes. Add garlic, spices and tomato paste; stir a minute.
Add lentils and liquid. Simmer 20 minutes until the lentils collapse.
Blend half if you like it smooth. Lemon and a good pinch of salt at the end; it tastes flat without both.

2. Egg and potato tortilla

35 min · $0.90 a serving · vegetarian

Ingredients

1½ lb potatoes, 1 onion, ⅓ cup olive oil
8 eggs, 1 tsp salt, pepper

Steps

Slice potatoes and onion thin. Cook gently in the oil in a 10-inch non-stick pan, covered, 20 minutes, turning now and then, until tender but not browned.
Drain the oil into a cup and keep it. Beat the eggs with salt, fold in the potatoes.
Return a tablespoon of the oil to the pan, pour everything in, cook over low heat 8 minutes until the edges set. Slide onto a plate, flip back into the pan, 4 more minutes. Eat warm or cold.

3. Black beans and rice with pickled onion

40 min from dried beans you cooked earlier, 20 from cans · $0.85 a serving · vegan

Ingredients

3 cups cooked black beans (1 lb dried, or 2 cans)
1 onion, 3 cloves garlic, 1 tsp cumin, 1 tsp oregano, 1 bay leaf
1½ cups rice, 1 lime, ½ red onion, 2 tbsp vinegar, salt

Steps

Slice the red onion thin and leave it in the vinegar with a pinch of salt while you cook.
Cook the rice. Soften the diced onion and garlic in oil, add spices and bay, then the beans with a cup of their liquid. Simmer 15 minutes and mash a few against the pan to thicken.
Serve over rice with lime and the pickled onion. The onion is the whole dish; don't skip it.

4. Sheet-pan chicken thighs with potatoes and cabbage

50 min, 10 of it work · $1.60 a serving

Ingredients

8 bone-in chicken thighs
2 lb potatoes, ½ head cabbage, 1 onion
3 tbsp oil, 1 tbsp paprika, 1 tsp garlic powder, 1 tsp thyme, salt, pepper

Steps

Oven to 425°F. Cut potatoes into chunks and cabbage into wedges. Toss everything with the oil and seasoning on a big sheet pan, chicken skin side up on top.
Roast 40 to 45 minutes until the skin is deep brown and the potatoes are crisp at the edges. Chicken is done at 165°F at the bone.
Squeeze of lemon or a spoon of mustard over the cabbage at the table.

5. One whole chicken, two dinners, one stock

90 min the first night, then minutes · $1.10 a serving across both dinners

Ingredients

1 whole chicken, 4 to 5 lb
1 tbsp salt, 1 tsp pepper, 1 lemon, a head of garlic
For night two: 2 cups rice, frozen peas, soy sauce, 2 eggs

Steps

Salt the bird all over, lemon and garlic in the cavity, roast at 425°F for 70 to 80 minutes until the thigh reads 165°F. Night one: roast chicken with whatever vegetables are around.
Pick every scrap off the carcass once it's cool. Simmer the bones with an onion and the lemon halves for an hour; that's two quarts of stock for soup or the lentils above.
Night two: fried rice with the picked meat, peas, soy and eggs, in a hot pan, 10 minutes.

6. Tuna, white bean and lemon pasta

20 min · $1.50 a serving

Ingredients

12 oz pasta, 2 cans tuna in oil, 1 can cannellini beans
3 cloves garlic, chilli flakes, zest and juice of 1 lemon, parsley if you have it
3 tbsp olive oil, salt, pepper

Steps

Boil the pasta. Meanwhile warm the oil with sliced garlic and chilli until fragrant, not brown.
Add the drained beans and the tuna with its oil; warm through, breaking the tuna up.
Toss with the pasta, a ladle of pasta water, the lemon and lots of pepper.

7. Turkey and bean chilli

45 min · $1.70 a serving · freezes well

Ingredients

1 lb ground turkey, 1 onion, 3 cloves garlic, 1 bell pepper
2 tbsp chilli powder, 1 tbsp cumin, 1 tsp oregano
1 can diced tomatoes, 2 cans beans, 1 cup stock, salt

Steps

Brown the turkey in a little oil, breaking it up; set aside. Soften onion, pepper and garlic in the same pot, 8 minutes.
Stir in the spices, then tomatoes, beans, stock and the turkey. Simmer 25 minutes, uncovered, until thick.
Rice, cornbread or a baked potato underneath turns four servings into six.

8. Crispy tofu with peanut sauce

30 min · $1.20 a serving · vegan

Ingredients

2 blocks firm tofu, 2 tbsp cornstarch, 3 tbsp oil
Sauce: 3 tbsp peanut butter, 2 tbsp soy sauce, 1 tbsp vinegar, 1 tbsp honey or sugar, 1 clove garlic, hot water to loosen
Rice, and any vegetable: broccoli, cabbage, frozen green beans

Steps

Press the tofu between towels for 10 minutes, cube it, toss in cornstarch. Fry in hot oil without crowding until golden on two sides, 8 minutes.
Whisk the sauce, thinning with hot water until it pours.
Steam or stir-fry the vegetable, pile everything on rice, sauce over the top.

9. Slow-roast pork shoulder, three ways

5 hours in the oven, 15 minutes of work · $1.40 a serving across the week

Ingredients

4 lb boneless pork shoulder
2 tbsp salt, 1 tbsp brown sugar, 1 tbsp paprika, 1 tsp cumin, 1 tsp garlic powder

Steps

Rub the pork, leave it uncovered in the fridge overnight if you can. Roast at 300°F, covered, 4 hours, then uncovered at 400°F for 30 minutes to crisp.
Shred. Night one: with rice and the pickled onion from recipe 3. Night two: tacos with cabbage and lime. Night three: in a soup with the chicken stock and white beans.
It keeps five days in the fridge and three months frozen in portions.

10. Peanut noodles with whatever's in the crisper

15 min · $0.95 a serving · vegan

Ingredients

12 oz spaghetti or rice noodles
⅓ cup peanut butter, 3 tbsp soy sauce, 2 tbsp vinegar, 1 tbsp sugar, 1 tsp chilli flakes, 1 clove garlic
Shredded carrot, cabbage, cucumber, scallion, whatever you have

Steps

Boil the noodles. Whisk the sauce with a few spoons of the hot noodle water until smooth.
Toss the drained noodles in the sauce, pile the raw vegetables on top.
Good cold the next day, which makes it a lunch too.

What your store actually charges

Every price above is a typical figure, and typical is the problem: the same chicken thighs are $1.29 at one store and $2.49 at the one across the road. The number that matters is yours.

In the app

Your receipts become your prices.

Every recipe in Your Way Kitchen shows a cost per serving, and it starts from what you paid. Record a price with the $ on any shopping-list item, or photograph a receipt (Pro) and the app reads every food line into your price book and adds the items to your pantry. From then on, the chilli is costed with your turkey price, not an average.

The free plan includes the cost per serving, the price book and the pantry; the receipt scan is the Pro part. The dinners above are the kind the planner writes when you give it a $40 protein budget and the week's cook-time limit.

Try it on the web

Buy the protein on sale, plan the week after. The planner's "Ingredients to use" box takes whatever was cheap this week, and Use my pantry fills it from what you already have, so the plan is built around the bargain rather than the other way round.

For the whole week costed rather than the proteins alone, see a 7-day meal plan under $50, and for the nights you'd rather not shop at all, a no-shop week from what's already in the house.