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Frugal Summer Tip: #2

 

Summer Salad


Grocery Prices are going through the roof with no end in sight!    I am always looking for healthy, nutritious, delicious, and cheap dining options.  With it being the gardening season, adding vegetables to your meals and using them as the primary part helps to decrease your grocery bill.    Therefore, we eat a lot of different salads over the summer.    


Having salads multiple times per week for dinner gives you a lot of savings and advantages.   Here are a few benefits I thought of:

  • If you precook the protein the night before, the oven is not turning on on a hot day. 

  • The salads can be prepared ahead of time, so if you have a busy evening, no need to eat out—> dinner is done. 

  • Adding vegetables to your diet helps to keep you healthy. 

  • By replacing meat with vegetables from your garden or when they are the cheapest price, you are saving money on your grocery bill. 

My first salad is just swapping vegetables for meat as being the start of the meal.   For example, I will make a huge green salad with any vegetable that is available from the garden, or refrigerator and top it with protein.   The protein portion of this meal is much smaller than if we were to cook 4 oz per person.      Normally, we can get away with 6-8 oz for the entire family.      

Another money-saving salad focuses on beans as a replacement for your protein.  I make a black bean and corn salad when we are feeling a little Tex-Mex.    I pair this yummy salad with a vegetarian quesadilla and fruit to complete the meal.  If you want the recipe, it is linked to the picture. 



My last salad focuses on using cheap cuts of meat and mixing in stretching ingredients such as onions and celery.   You guessed it→ chicken salad.    I will pick up a whole chicken when it goes on sale or just thighs and legs for $0.99 a pound.   Then I will cook it by either baking it or boiling it.   While it is still warm but not too hot, I will pick the chicken off the bones and shred it.    Then I add onions, celery, bell pepper, and sometimes grapes depending on what I have in the refrigerator.   The next step is to add some mayonnaise and yogurt to just get the salad wet, but not too wet.   Finally, I season it with salt and pepper.    This makes a great make-ahead salad for lunches or dinners. 


As a bonus, I save the bones to make chicken stock later. 


TIP→ When using the stove, choose the time of day that is the coolest such as the morning. 


Leave a comment below and let me know how you are doing with gardening.


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