Dirt Cheap Meals for Daycare

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If you are looking for super quick, easy, dirt cheap meals for daycare, then this is the article for you! I’m going to share ideas that will save you tons of money and help you get meals on the table for your kids quickly too. And they are food program friendly!

How Can I Feed the Kids Dirt Cheap Meals?

No one wants to spend every dime of their profits on meals for the kids. We all know it costs thousands every year to feed them. And we want to feed them well. But we don’t want to try to stand in the kitchen for hours a day or spend $20 per person per meal on the dish. Knowing what to eat to save money is not as complicated as you might think.

Can you make cheap meal ideas with peanut butter, white rice, red lentils, and ramen noodles? Of course you can. But daycare menus require a little bit of finesse to meet all the requirements and still make a delicious meal that’s an easy meal.

A great option for saving money on your grocery budget is to avoid food waste. You can also make a grocery list of low cost ingredients to take with you when you go grocery shopping. Whether you are feeding a large family, or a house full of daycare kids, you can make a budget-friendly meal with items from your local grocery store that your whole family will love.

A tight budget doesn’t have to be a recipe for junk, you can make frugal meals with these cheap easy meals that everyone will enjoy! 

These meals are kid-friendly and picky-eater-friendly for most kids too. So let’s think of some really cheap proteins. Protein is the most expensive part of the meal. For a child age 3-5 (the medium age) we are required to serve 1 1/2 ounces of protein by the food program. Fruits and vegetables are the second most expensive, breads are cheaper, so we won’t compare those and milk is a must so no point in that.

I’m going to look at my local Aldi’s for prices for that much protein. For beans that is 3/8 of a cup, but for our purposes, we are going to say 1/2 cup because it’s easier to divide.

What is the Cheapest Food to Buy?

Prices vary week by week and store by store, this is just an average comparison of what was there at the time to show you what comes out the cheapest. Of course there are more expensive cuts of meat and fruits and vegetables. I’m just comparing what we think of as common or less expensive and what’s easily available. I also used all boneless meats. Don’t forget about really inexpensive meats like drumsticks. We are dealing with lunch size portions so you can adjust it accordingly for other meals.

Extremely Cheap Meals

Now, we need to know what in the heck can we do with the cheap meals for daycare stuff so kids will eat it. I have been cooking homemade meals for kids for 27 years and I have seen all levels of picky eating. These are my tried and true ways to use the cheap stuff to make meals that most kids love!

The least expensive proteins are:

• Dried beans
• Cottage Cheese
• Eggs
• Canned beans
• Canned tuna
• Pork roast
• Cheese
• Canned chicken
• Chicken thighs

How can we take these items and make something that even the pickiest kids will eat? Let’s talk about my kids’ all-time favorite meals with beans.

Keep Your Meals Simple

The number one favorite cheap meals for daycare of kids of all time in my daycare is kid friendly taco soup. Teenagers and grown people stop me around town to talk about my taco soup or my cheese quesadillas. My daughter still asks me to make her taco soup too. It’s super easy, comes together in about 5 minutes. If you use all canned ingredients, it takes 5 minutes to make. And it’s so good.

These cheap bean burritos are a close second for bean-based meals.

The key to making beans yummy for kids is taco seasoning. I soak a bag of beans all day in water. Then rinse and drain them. Add a packet of taco mix and 8 or so cups of water and cook all night. Then in the morning, the whole house smells like tacos and everyone’s ready for a bowl of beans with some crackers.

If you want to change them up, try some of these ideas:

• Serve pork and beans as your main dish. Kids like the sauce that’s on them.
• Serve baked beans. BBQ flavorings make everything better. And baked beans have bbq sauce!
• Bean nachos. Think of a pile of tortilla chips, some beans, shredded cheese, and veggies they like on top. Set them under a broiler for a minute or two to melt the cheese and yummo!
• Baked black bean tacos. Canned black beans and shredded cheese are rolled up in flour tortillas and baked in the oven.
• Pasta e Fagioli. Children always ask for seconds when you serve them pasta and beans!
• An easy and healthy meatless nugget that the kids will love! Chickpea Nuggets that are top 8 allergy-free, grain-free, and have a secret dose of veggies too!

Super Cheap Meals

The second cheapest protein on the list is cottage cheese, so what can you do with it? My kids LOVE just a scoop of cottage cheese on their plate with some fresh fruits and veggies and crackers on the side. This is another favorite meal around Little Sprouts.

I also make different pasta dishes with cottage cheese in them. This delicious Spaghetti pie recipe calls for cottage cheese and if you wanted to be super budget-friendly, you could make the spaghetti sauce recipe without ground beef. Kids don’t care, they love spaghetti sauce no matter what you do with it. But this pie is less messy than the loose spaghetti they love so much.

And pasta is dirt cheap. Kids love it so I serve it a lot and you can do so many things with it. But it’s less expensive than crackers or many other “bread” items. So think about whipping up some elbow noodles or rotini and tossing in some sauce and some cottage cheese. You could do marinara sauce, garlic butter sauce, creamy white sauce, or whatever you like. It doesn’t sound good, but even my “cottage cheese hating” husband fell in love with it when I made it. He begs for it all the time now. There are some basic pasta recipes here that you could sub in cottage cheese for the proteins.

What about eggs? They are so versatile! I mean, everything tastes good in eggs. I love making cheesy egg scramble or egg and vegetable casseroles. My kids eat them up. So what else can we do with eggs?

• Boiled eggs. You could even make a picnic charcuterie board or snackle box. It’s perfect for picky eaters because the kids can pick and mix!
• Egg salad
• Fried eggs with pancakes
• Scrambled eggs
• Eggs and fried potatoes (potatoes are dirt cheap so use them whenever you can)
• Bagel Toad in a Hole is an easy recipe for kids.

Canned tuna is the next cheapest protein. My kids love it when I make it into something. Here are some of the most popular:

• Tuna salad with eggs
• Creamy Broccoli Tuna Casserole with Egg Noodles
• Tuna bake for kids
• Easy tuna casserole recipe
• Quick Tuna Recipes for Kids

And don’t forget that canned chicken can be used interchangeably with any of these recipes.

Cheap Meals for Kids

Pork roast is the next cheapest meat and I love making it because I can make one pork roast and cook it into at least 5 different things. They are so big!

• Of course, kids LOVE bbq pulled pork sandwiches. I make them on Hawaiian rolls slider size.
• Pork tacos can be made with leftover pork roast
• Pork nachos
• Pork pot pie
• Pork fried rice (rice is dirt cheap)
• Pork pasta dishes. Any pasta dish you normally make can have shredded pork roast substituted for more expensive meat.
• Leftover pork soup (my kids LOVE soup)

The possibilities are endless with this versatile meat. Check out these other ideas for leftover pulled pork.

The next least expensive meat on the list is chicken thighs. Obviously, you could substitute any checking in a recipe with chicken thighs, but here are some really yummy ideas. I love to make a big sheet pan of thighs in the oven and then shred them up and freeze the shreds for leftover chicken dishes like these.

Here are some more chicken thigh ideas:

• Toss chicken thighs in the yum in this recipe and throw it in the air fryer to make Garlic Honey Chicken Thighs. The oven works too!
• Throw these boneless chicken thighs in the crockpot for 2 and a half hours and then serve BBQ Slow Cooker Chicken Thighs over rice.
• This 5 ingredient quick and easy Chicken in a Hurry baked chicken thigh recipe is simple to make and takes about 5 minutes to prep.
• Baked Barbecue chicken thighs is my go-to.
• Rice, corn and shredded chicken make this Easy Slower Cooker Mexican Shredded Chicken dish simple and toddler approved.
• Kids love Lo mein chicken and vegetables. This is a great introduction to Asian foods.
• This Broccoli rice casserole is a great way to use chicken. It’s creamy, comforting, and kids love it.

What about cheese? Oh, the possibilities are endless. And cheese is a favorite of kids for sure.

• Cheese nachos
• Cheese quesadillas
• Grilled cheese sandwiches
• Cheese and crackers
• Cheese cubes
• Cheesy rice
• Cheesy pasta
• Cheesy potatoes

I was actually surprised that ground beef wasn’t in the top cheapest proteins. Groceries are crazy right now (as I know you know) so you might find a good sale or the prices could go back down. So here are some great ground beef ideas too. Most of them are versatile enough that you can put in any cheap meat and they are great.

• Tacos
• Nachos
• Vegetable beef soup
• Meatballs
• Chili
• American Goulash is an easy, one-pot, classic comfort food made with ground beef, tomatoes, and macaroni noodles. Enjoy year-round, and delicious leftover, this irresistible Goulash Recipe is guaranteed to win over even the pickiest kids!
• Mini Bacon Cheeseburger Cups are fun and delicious.
• Cheeseburger pinwheel rolls are so ridiculously good–I know why my kids keep asking for them.
• Quick and easy one pot cheeseburger macaroni pasta recipe is a simple recipe in that everything goes into one pot for easy cleanup!
• Cheeseburger Sliders are made by stuffing Hawaiian rolls with burger meat and cheese and then baking until the cheese is melted.
• My kids ask for this Salisbury steak recipe all the time & used to call it fancy hamburgers & gravy.
• Taco Roll-Ups are simple to make and taste delicious.
• Two of our favorite meals in one. Pizza burgers.
• Meatloaf sweet potato muffins. Perfect little portions of meatloaf.
• Kids love these easy cheeseburger taquitos. These cheeseburger rolls are perfect for little hands, with all the yumminess of a cheeseburger in a rolled-up tortilla ready for dipping.

For more money saving ideas, check out how to save money on healthy food, how to save money every day in daycare, and cheap nutritious foods to keep in your diet.

These healthier blueberry muffins for toddlers are a great kid pleaser and flour is a less expensive ingredient.

If you still need to produce more income, check out some of these side hustles for daycare providers to get you through the lean times.

For more daycare menu inspiration, check these ideas out:

• CACFP Breakfast Ideas
• CACFP Lunch Ideas
• CACPF Snack Ideas
• Ultimate List of Daycare Snack Ideas
• Daycare Snack Ideas
• Fun Toddler Snacks
• Daycare Freezer Meals
• Foods with CN Labels for CACFP Meals in Oklahoma
• 5 Minute Daycare Lunches
• Cold Daycare Lunch Ideas for Summer
• Cheap Breakfast Ideas for Daycare
• Cheap Lunch Ideas for Daycare