If you want to save money while on a keto diet, try some of these 52 cheap keto meals which are in our weekly meal plan. Plus I have some money saving tips for meal planning to help you too!
Please check out all of our keto meal plans!
Sometimes starting a keto diet can be expensive. You end up buying everything labeled keto in the grocery story or buy large quantities of foods you think are “keto”.
Today I’m going to give you some cheap keto meals to make as well as offer some tips when thinking about your meal plans.
When I’m trying to throw together a low carb dinner for my family or just trying to meal plan for the week I often use this formula.
Protein + Vegetable + Fat
So if I have ground beef for example, I might make my ground beef cheesesteak skillet. Protein (ground beef) + vegetables (peppers, mushrooms, onions) + fat (cheese and olive oil).
Of course you need to know that some vegetables like potatoes are too starchy for a low carb diet. But most vegetables are pretty low carb.
Tips for Cheap Keto Meals
& Meal Planning
- Meatless meals – Meat is usually the most expensive ingredient in recipes and seafood is often more so. Therefore whenever you can have a meatless meal, most likely it will be inexpensive. That’s when I like to make keto pasta or rice dishes. For the pasta we use spaghetti squash or zucchini noodles and for rice dishes substitute cauliflower rice. You can still add tasty butter, cream and cheese to up the taste.
- Buy meat bulk when on sale and freeze. If ground beef is on sale buy a big quantity, portion off 1 lb servings and freeze them in freezer bags. Then just thaw it in the refrigerator over night and you are ready to go. You can do this with just about any cut of meat.
- Buy cheaper cuts of meat like chicken thighs, legs and wings or for beef there is a lot you can do with ground beef. And pork as a whole if often cheaper than beef. I have many thin pork chop recipes on the blog.
- Whole chickens are often cheaper than the separate parts. So try to buy a whole chicken and cook it in the slow cooker. Clean off all the meat, chop it up and freeze it in 1 cup portions. Then take all of the bones and through them in the slow cooker to make bone broth. Now you have both lots of broth and chicken for soups, stews and casseroles.
- When looking for keto recipes, find recipes that use simple ingredients or just a few ingredients. If you can get used to cooking simply with tasty ingredients you can definitely save money.
- If you have leftovers either eat it for lunch the next day or freeze it for another meal. Learning how to properly freeze leftovers will be a money and time saver.
- Plan meals around what’s on sale. When your grocery store flyer comes out do your meal planning. Remember my formula (Protein + Veggies + Fat). Find what protein is on sale and plan your meals around that. Remember most flyers are online too. Take advantage of produce or pantry staples that are on sale as well.
- Make more meals with eggs. Eggs are inexpensive and there are so many things you can do with them. You can make wraps, noodles, pizzas, omelets and more.
- Try eating breakfast for dinner. You can try one of the above egg recipes for dinner or just eat what you normally eat for breakfast at dinner time. It’s often less expensive to make breakfast than it is dinner.
- Skip pizza delivery and make your own. You can try fathead dough, cauliflower, egg, spaghetti squash or meat crusts. I have recipes for all of these below.
- Soups, stews and one pot meals use less meat. So buy a smaller piece of beef and load up on the vegetables for your soups and stews. If you usually use 1lb of meat, try using ¾ lb and add a few more vegetables. You probably won’t notice a difference.
- Canned tuna and salmon are cheap sourcse of protein. Salmon cakes are delicious and tuna on a salad or mixed in a cheesy cauliflower rice is tasty and inexpensive.
- Skip bagged prepared produce like lettuce and coleslaw and make your own. It’s not hard. If you buy bagged lettuce it’s often more expensive and you get less than if you just bought 1 head or package of 1 kind of lettuce. Same with coleslaw. Just buy cabbage and shred it yourself. There are so many tasty ways you can use cabbage (see list below).
Well I hope those money saving ideas will be a little help to you. Maybe just try one of them at first and see if it makes a difference to your bottom line.
Then slowly try a few more tips and I’m sure you will be staying within your budget. Now let’s check out the 52 cheap keto meals I have for you today.
52 Cheap Keto Meals
If you are looking to do the keto diet on a budget, check out these 52 cheap keto meals. There are recipes that use cheaper cuts of meat, lots of vegetables and they are all pretty easy and have few ingredients.
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