Cheap dinners under $20: 14 meals that feed 4

What are the cheapest dinners for 4 people?

A sausage and potato traybake at about $9, a lentil and beef ragu at about $11, and a chickpea curry at about $8 are the 3 cheapest that still feel like a proper dinner. Each feeds 4 with leftovers, and none takes more than 40 minutes.

The pattern is that the meat is present but not central. Six sausages between 4 people is enough when there are potatoes and onions roasted in the fat. Four hundred grams of mince stretched with lentils feeds 4 twice.

The 3 swaps that halve a recipe

Almost any recipe can be brought under $20 with these, and none of them makes the dinner noticeably worse. Two of them arguably improve it.

1. 1Thigh instead of breast. Roughly half the price per kilo, more forgiving to cook, and better flavour. There is no argument for breast in a braise, curry or traybake.
2. 2Lentils for half the mince. Two hundred grams of mince plus 200 g of cooked lentils behaves like 400 g of mince in a ragu or chilli, at about 60 percent of the cost, and it adds fibre.
3. 3Frozen instead of fresh. Peas, spinach, green beans and sweetcorn are cheaper frozen, do not spoil, and are picked at their best. For anything going into a cooked dish, frozen is the correct choice rather than the cheap one.
4. 4Whole chicken instead of pieces. A bird costs less than the equivalent weight in thighs, and the carcass makes stock, which is 2 more meals.
5. 5Dried instead of tinned pulses. A third of the price, and the only cost is remembering to start them.

What to buy once a month

A cheap week depends on a stocked cupboard, and stocking it is a monthly job rather than a weekly one. These are the items where buying the large size genuinely pays.

• Rice, 5 kg. Roughly half the unit price of a 1 kg bag and it keeps indefinitely.
• Dried lentils and chickpeas, 1 kg each. A third of the price of tinned, and the only cost is planning 30 minutes ahead.
• Tinned tomatoes, 6 to 12 tins. The base of at least half the dinners on this page.
• Frozen peas, spinach and sweetcorn, large bags. Cheaper than fresh, and nothing is thrown away.
• Oil, 1 L or larger. Small bottles cost roughly double per litre.
• One flavour item. Anchovies, miso, curry paste or smoked paprika. Buy 1 a month and rotate.

With that cupboard in place, a weekly shop becomes protein, dairy and 2 or 3 fresh vegetables, which is where the $20 dinners come from. Without it, every recipe starts from zero and the same tins get bought at single-unit prices.

Under $10 for 4

These 5 are the cheapest in the collection and none of them reads as a compromise on the plate.

• Dal with rice and yoghurt. Two hundred and fifty grams of red lentils, an onion, spices, a tarka of cumin in hot oil. About $6, and better on the second day.
• Egg fried rice with frozen peas. Cold rice, 6 eggs, peas, soy and spring onion. About $6 and 10 minutes.
• Chickpea and spinach curry. Two tins of chickpeas, a tin of tomatoes, frozen spinach, curry paste. About $8.
• Sausage and potato traybake. Six sausages, 1 kg potatoes, 2 onions, at 220C for 35 minutes. About $9.
• White bean and chorizo stew. One hundred grams of chorizo does the seasoning for 2 tins of beans. About $9.

Four dinners between $10 and $20

Spending a little more buys either meat as a centrepiece or a dish that produces a second meal. Both are reasonable trades.

• Whole roast chicken with potatoes and carrots. About $15, and it is 3 dinners rather than 1 once the leg meat and the stock are counted.
• Chicken thigh traybake with lemon. About $11 for 8 thighs, 1 kg of potatoes and 2 lemons at 220C for 35 minutes.
• Pork and cabbage stir-fry. About $11. Five hundred grams of pork shoulder sliced thin goes further than the same weight of loin and costs half as much.
• Lentil and beef ragu. About $11 and it makes 8 portions, so the real cost per serving is under $1.50 once the leftovers are counted.

The ragu is the best value in the collection on a per-serving basis, and it is the only recipe here that is genuinely better on the second day. Cooking a double batch costs about $4 more and produces 4 additional dinners, which is a better return than any of the cheaper single meals.

Where the money actually leaks

Recipes are rarely the problem. The gap between a $20 dinner and a $35 one is usually made up of things bought for a single use.

• Fresh herbs bought for a garnish. Use frozen, use dried in cooking, or leave them out.
• A cream or cheese the recipe wanted 50 ml of. Substitute yoghurt, or choose a recipe that does not need it.
• Duplicate staples. Buying a third jar of cumin because the first 2 are behind something else.
• Half-used vegetables. A single pepper for one recipe is 3 times the unit cost of a pack you will finish.
• Midweek takeaways. One delivery costs more than 3 of the dinners on this page combined, and it happens on the night nothing was planned.

The shopping mechanics matter more than the recipes at this price point. Organize a list by aisle covers the route, grocery lists from recipes covers the merge, and how much meal planning saves puts numbers on the whole exercise.

For the single-person version of this, cheap college student meals uses the same staples at a smaller scale, and cheap recipes covers the ingredient logic in more depth. Turning the leftovers into the next day's lunch is covered in cheap work lunch ideas. On tools, ReciBites vs AnyList and ReciBites vs Mealime are the 2 nearest comparisons.