There’s a reason I don’t blog recipes on the weekend. It’s my “time off” from blogging. BUT, I don’t take time off from cooking! Well, I do. Sorta.

We typically have spaghetti or tacos on the weekend, along with leftovers or sandwiches. In order to spend as little time in the kitchen on the weekend as possible, I like to “batch cook” my spaghetti sauce and taco meat. Ideally, I do this on the same day as my shopping trip, while I’m doing other meal prep that afternoon.

Then when Saturday afternoon rolls around and I’m not “feeling” up to cooking, I’ve already got taco meat ready and taco shells in the stockpile ^[5].

Dinner’s ready in a matter of minutes!

Ingredients
3 lb. ground chuck ($5.04) Sale price of $1.69/lb.
1 onion, finely chopped ($.30)
6 oz can tomato sauce ($.33) Look for these on sale at Walgreens!
2 Tbsp chili powder ($.20)
2 Tbsp ground cumin ($.20)
2 Tbsp garlic powder ($.20)
1 tsp salt
Pepper, to taste
1 4 ounce can green chilies (optional) ($.59) For some KICK!

Directions
1. Brown the ground chuck with the chopped onion. Drain and rinse. Return to sauce pan.
2. Add the tomato sauce and spices to the ground beef and let simmer over low heat for 10 minutes.

3. Divide meat into meal size portions into freezer containers. Freeze.

I divided this into 3 portions. And labeled.

Overall cost $6.86
Cost per meal $2.29