Recipes under $2 a serving
Affordable meals built around this week’s in-season produce, all under $2 per serving.
9782 recipes
Two dollars a serving is where most everyday home cooking sits, and it is a more useful threshold than a dollar for anything you want to eat regularly. It leaves room for a real protein portion, or for one ingredient that is worth paying for, instead of demanding that every component be the cheapest possible option.
The list is rebuilt each week from current advertised prices, so it tracks what is actually cheap right now rather than what is cheap on average. Sorting by cost puts the best value at the top, but the recipes near the two-dollar line are often the more interesting cooking.
Costs are computed from the ingredients we can match to USDA price data, with pantry staples priced from a fixed reference list. A tilde means at least one ingredient was estimated.
- Cucumber lime jalapeno granita for oystersRecipe by RecipeTin Eats~$0.10 / serving 3 in-season
- PopoversRecipe by Love & Lemons~$0.10 / serving 0 in-season
- Chewy Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Breakfast CookieRecipe by Skinnytaste~$0.11 / serving 1 in-season
- Homemade Lemon CurdRecipe by Budget Bytes~$0.12 / serving 0 in-season
- Buckwheat and Spelt CrêpesRecipe by Cookie + Kate~$0.13 / serving 0 in-season
- Carrot Baby FoodRecipe by Eating Bird Food~$0.16 / serving 1 in-season
- PopoversRecipe by Budget Bytes~$0.16 / serving 0 in-season
- Roasted BeetsRecipe by Spend With Pennies~$0.17 / serving 1 in-season
See all 9782 recipes in this collection →Filter by diet, time, budget, and macros.
The gap between one dollar and two is almost entirely protein. At two dollars a serving you can put a real portion of chicken thigh, pork shoulder, eggs, or beans-and-dairy on the plate and still have room for a vegetable and a starch. That is the level at which most everyday cooking sits, and it is a more useful target than a dollar for anything you intend to eat regularly rather than as an exercise.
It also buys one ingredient worth paying for. A dish where everything is the cheapest available option tastes like it; a dish with one good component — real parmesan, a decent olive oil, an actual bunch of herbs — reads as considerably better than the sum of its costs. Spending the marginal dollar on one thing rather than spreading it across five is generally the better move.
Because these costs are recalculated weekly from advertised prices, the composition of this list moves with the season. A recipe built on peppers and tomatoes sits comfortably under two dollars in August and drifts above it in February. Sorting by cost shows you which version of the season you are currently in.
The recipes nearest the two-dollar line are usually the more interesting cooking, so it is worth scrolling past the cheapest few.
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