Cheap, Healthy Dinner Ideas - NYT Cooking Cross Fitnesss

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Armando Rafael for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Mariana Velásquez.

Published Feb. 24, 2025Updated Feb. 24, 2025

Eating with budget in mind might feel more difficult than ever these days, when talk of egg prices and tariffs permeate the general conversation. Add in the need to make meals nutritionally balanced, and the whole thing quickly becomes overwhelming. Don’t stress. Let the 16 recipes below remind you that it’s totally possible to cook a budget-friendly, nutritious meal that’s, above all, delicious.

Bright orange chana masala is served in a rimmed ceramic bowl and garnished with cilantro, ginger and a wedge of lemon. A bowl of rice is nearby.

It’d be easy to compile dozens of inexpensive dinners around the chickpea alone, but Zainab Shah’s take on the spiced dish found across South Asia is a real standout. Here, a star cast of aromatics (ginger, garlic, cumin, chile and caramelized onion) amplify your choice of canned or dry chickpeas. A shower of fresh cilantro gives it brightness, but if you want to bolster the green even further, throw in some spinach or kale.

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An overhead image of a cabbage and rice soup in a wide-rimmed bowl.

This elegant soup from Melissa Clark relies heavily on the savory (and cheap!) power of Parmesan rinds, which thicken the soup base, while imparting the cheese’s signature umami into the broth. Make the dish as gentle or spicy as you’d like, and throw in a can of cannellini beans as some of our commenters have. Just don’t forget the squeeze of fresh lemon at the end — it brightens the whole thing.

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Mayo-dressed tuna topped with sliced cucumber sits over crispy rice in a black bowl.

Here, Ali Slagle plays with a sushi restaurant favorite — tuna with crispy rice — and instead swaps in canned tuna. Mixed with mayo, Sriracha and soy, it contrasts beautifully with the part-crispy, part-chewy texture of the rice. Feel free to use leftover rice here, and any vegetable you have hanging out in place of the cucumbers. (And to that end, feel free to increase the vegetables, too!)

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An overhead image of two bowls of soup with kale and beans in a red broth.

A quickly prepared tomato and white bean soup is always cheap and comforting. This recipe from Martha Rose Shulman mostly involves stirring together canned staples (crushed tomatoes, white beans). But carrots, potatoes and kale add a welcome heft in this deeply flavorful vegetarian soup.

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A large white bowl holds chicken meatballs with rainbow chard and lemon slices.

Eating vegetarian is a great way to save money, but if you’re a meat eater on a budget, may we recommend these one-pot meatballs, which can really stretch a pound of ground chicken? Yasmin Fahr covers them in leafy greens, which steam and collapse, then tops the whole thing in a zippy pan sauce. Again, adding a can of beans would stretch this even further.

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Craggy chunks of tofu are scattered with herbs and sit nestled in a shallow off-white bowl.

If you’ve never torn tofu so its jagged edges better absorb sauce — and so the craggy bits get extra crispy when roasted — try this recipe from Ali Slagle (and commit the method to memory). Once cooked, the torn tofu gets tossed into an adaptable sauce made from whatever herb you have on hand: cilantro, mint, dill, chives, chervil, celery leaves, fennel or carrot tops. Use the craggy tofu bits to top whole grains, amp up roasted vegetables and leafy greens, or to fill a killer vegetarian sandwich.

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Beans and vegetables float in a bright red broth topped with tortilla chips, onions, cream and avocado.

Red cabbage stars in this soup from Ham El-Waylly, who caramelizes it to bring out its sweetness and earthiness. He also maximizes another ingredient: tortilla chips, which he uses two ways — to thicken the soup, and then as a crunchy garnish.

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Two beige dishes containing a vibrant, herb-flecked chicken salad sit on a cream-color countertop.

Putting all your leftovers to work is a big part of budget-based eating. If you roast a whole chicken at the beginning of the week and use it in salads and grain bowls the rest of the week, you’ll get a lot of bang for your buck. One idea for that chicken? Do as Yewande Komolafe does and stir it together with crisp cabbage and red bell pepper, then toss it in the bright and spicy Vietnamese sauce, nuoc cham.

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Ground turkey topped with herbs sits on a bed of rice.

This simple, flavorful weeknight dinner puts ground turkey, a relatively inexpensive lean protein, front and center. Soy sauce and fish sauce add umami, plenty of garlic and ginger lend aromatic flavor, and a showering of herbs — cilantro and basil — at the end makes this dish taste ultrafresh. Melissa Clark recommends serving this over rice for a more substantial meal, or lettuce for something lighter — but there’s no reason you can’t do both. Some commenters have gone even one step further, adding sugar snap peas and cucumber.

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Four halved sweet potatoes topped with black beans and Cheddar sit on a parchment-lined sheet pan.

For an easy way to turn sweet potatoes into a substantial meal, top them with black beans and cheese as Sarah Jampel does in this recipe. Then, use that as a protein and fiber-packed base for whatever toppings you’d like: marinated greens, a fried egg, roasted vegetables with herbs or even ground turkey or chicken.

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Tofu sits on a bed of rice next to sliced peppers and some arugula.

This recipe from Yewande Komolafe is further evidence of tofu’s ability to take on the flavors of whatever sauce you use. Here, baked tofu is drenched in a peanut sauce that takes inspiration from ground stews found across West Africa. The accompanying coconut-lime rice sops up the sauce, but it’s not just a supporting player. It’s delicious and fragrant in its own right.

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Sweet and sour cauliflower is on a bed of white rice in a white bowl.

Sometimes when you’re hyper-focused on eating within budget or certain health parameters, it becomes seemingly impossible not to think about ordering delivery. When those intrusive thoughts hit, enter this Hetty Lui McKinnon dish. It scratches that delivery food itch but uses inexpensive, fiber-packed cauliflower as a vehicle for sweet-and-sour sauce.

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A white platter holds charred bok choy and cannellini bean salad with gold serving utensils.

The beauty of bok choy is that its stalks are substantial enough to remain crisp through high-heat cooking, so you can cook it aggressively without its getting soft and mushy. Here, Hetty Lui McKinnon adds two cans of cannellini beans to make the dish feel substantial enough to be a main, especially with rice or another grain alongside. You’ll want to use this punchy, aromatic dressing featuring ginger and rice vinegar on all of your salads, not just this one.

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A cast-iron skillet holds crispy chicken thighs, chickpeas, and baby spinach. Lemon wedges and a bowl of yogurt sit on the side.

A minimal ingredient list keeps this Yossy Arefi dish economical, but roasting the spinach and chickpeas beneath the chicken thighs means there’s no shortage of flavor because they soak up the salty chicken fat.

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An overhead image of pasta with brussels sprouts and chickpeas in bowls.

When you’re craving pasta but want to make sure you’re eating nutritiously, turn to recipes that feature tons of vegetables like this one from Kay Chun, which calls for an entire pound of brussels sprouts. They caramelize beautifully, adding a subtle sweetness. Crisp chickpeas in oil, so they give this dish texture and protein.

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An overhead image of eight herb-strewn patties on a platter next to a small bowl of cream and some spent lemon wedges.

Whether you think of these as a kind of vegetarian meatballs or as a fritter meant for dipping, this recipe from Yewande Komolafe is a clever way to use whatever beans you have in your pantry. Serve them over a bed of rice with a creamy yogurt sauce, or even sandwich them in a bun along with some slaw.

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