20+ Cheap Dinners for Two and Cooking on a Budget

Dinners for two isn’t always easy, so I’ve rounded up over 25 posts from blogs all over the web with dinners made with two servings.

Cooking for an entire family has challenges when no one can agree on what they want. But cooking for two has its own set of challenges, and many recipes aren’t written for only two servings. Unless you plan to eat a lot of leftovers, it leaves you with way too much food.

Why would you need to cook for two? There are so many scenarios when you would want a meal for two: date night with your significant other, having a best friend over for dinner, you’re a couple with no children to cook for, you need easy weeknight dinners because some won’t be home, etc.

Yes, you can try to cut a recipe in half, but that doesn’t always work very well, either. You either end up with recipes that don’t come out as you expect or, even worse, you have odd amounts of ingredients or leftover ingredients that you don’t know what to use on.

For this reason, I collaborated with other bloggers to put together a list of recipes that are perfect meals to cook for two. Find an easy recipe on this list of cheap meals that will help you quickly get food to the dinner table.

Originally Published On: September 18, 2018

Last Updated On: February 10, 2023

Simple Ingredients

Start by purchasing some easy and simple ingredients for basic meals. Here’s my list of cheap ingredients or bulk ingredients that you can separate to make cheap dinners:

Chicken Breasts – buy in bulk and separate before freezing
Ground Beef
Black Beans
Sweet Potatoes
Tilapia/Swai/Salmon or other frozen fish
Rice
Fresh Vegetables
Refried Beans
Bread
Peanut Butter
Butter
Tomato Sauce
Pasta Noodles
Sour Cream
Ketchup
Olive Oil

Grocery Store Tips

I always recommend making a grocery list before you go shopping. Having a list is a great way to make sure you aren’t purchasing foods you don’t need but also getting everything you do need. When you have to run back to the store for a forgotten ingredient, there’s a good chance you will “find” other things you need thus spending a lot of money again.

Look for things that are on sale. Sometimes you can find cheaper cuts of meat to work with or meat that needs to get in the freezer right away. Check sales ads for your local grocery store to see if they have any good deals, especially when you’re on a tight budget. For example, Publix often has a lot of buy-one-get-one sales.

Buy in bulk if you can. Yes, it sometimes costs more upfront, but if you compare costs it usually is an easy way to save money in the long run. Of course, only do this for things that you know you’ll use before they go bad. For example, we eat a lot of chicken in our house. We buy the large 10-lb package of chicken breast and separate it when we get home into individual mason jars. Those go in the freezer and we pull out what we need two days ahead and put it in the refrigerator to thaw.

Cooking Tips

The best part of cooking for yourself is making a favorite meal just how you want it. You have the option to add or subtract anything. Tyler won’t eat anything that has any bit of green bell pepper so I don’t add those. I won’t touch a cucumber or mushrooms, even though I will eat meals with cream of mushroom soup in them.

Make sure you also have some appliances that make cooking for two easier. We use our air fryer almost daily. It’s perfect for making small amounts of food. And there are so many things you can cook in the air fryer. The great thing about the air fryer is that it cooks quicker and doesn’t use as much energy.

We also use the slow cooker often for easy meals that are ready to eat when we are. I get something started early in the morning and we can eat when we get home from school and work.

Chicken covered with salsa, corn, and black beans in a slow cooker on a wooden surface

Food Storage

Even if you are cooking easy dinners made for only two people, there’s a chance you’ll have leftovers. Get some good containers to save the food. So many leftovers make a great lunch the following day.

Personally, we use a lot of glass storage containers. I don’t like putting hot food in plastic and don’t like reheating it in plastic, either. Having glass dishes means I can reheat the food right in the container if I bring it to work the next day.

Recipes for Simple Meals

Poultry Dinners

Lemon-Garlic chicken from the instant pot pressure cooker topped with a slice of lemon next to mashed potatoes on a white and grey marbled plate with a stainless steel fork on top of a white and grey napkin on a wooden surface

Instant Pot Lemon-Garlic Chicken

The Instant Pot pressure cooker makes meals easy. Try combining the bold flavors of lemon and garlic with chicken for a delicious dinner.

Simple Ingredients

Grocery Store Tips

Cooking Tips

Food Storage

Recipes for Simple Meals

Poultry Dinners

Pork and Beef Dinners

Seafood Dinners for Two

Meatless Recipes

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