Mahogany chicken with chipotle-lime sweet potatoes & cilantro chimichurri: $2.16/serving

If you’re thinking this looks awfully fancy and composed for something I’d come up with on my own, your suspicions would be founded. It’s an oldie but goodie from the Food Network—a recipe I’ve had in the rotation for quite a few years now when I happen to have some chicken thighs to spare (in this case, Costco: $1.69/lb.) and the weather calls for sweet potatoes. Not only are the colors fantastic, but it’s relatively quick to make and is an excellent vehicle for an ending-its-lifespan bunch of cilantro. (If you haven’t yet been enlightened with my tip for making bunches of herbs last for weeks past when they’d normally die a sad, slimy death in the crisper, check it out.)

Asian cabbage slaw: 50 cents/serving

This very well might be the most versatile slaw I know of—it’s terrific on its own as a salad, as a side with meat, or as a meal in a wrap, over noodles, or with rice, as it was enjoyed this time. I’m not a fan of mayonnaise-based slaws, so this one features light, crisp flavors and a sesame vinaigrette—perfect for summer, when it might have to sit outside in the sun. Make up a big ol’ bowl and keep it in the fridge for light, cheap, filling lunch salads throughout the week. (If you do this, save the peanuts as a garnish rather than mixing them in, as the acid in the rice vinegar will turn them mushy after a few days.)

Black beans and rice with roasted sweet potato & lime: 49 cents/serving

In the realm of cheap-but-filling foods, few things deliver more bang for the buck than a big ol’ pot of beans. Throw in some cooked rice as filler and you can stretch a 50-cent portion of bulk beans for several days, as I was able to do with this meal. The trick of adding balsamic vinegar, sherry and soy sauce to bring out the umami compounds in black beans is an old favorite of mine, courtesy of Bon Appetit, and in this case the flavor perfectly complements the sugary sweet potatoes, tart lime, and earthy-crunchy pumpkin seeds. In fact, this meal is so good it would work for a dinner party (it’s even vegan!), and no one would ever guess the whole thing cost less than $3 to make.

Leek fritters: $1.06/serving

It’s hard to believe this restaurant-quality dish (in flavor, at least; let’s just quietly ignore my food-staging skills) only costs around $4 to make, but there you have it. They’re admittedly a lot like pancakes, so they work great for brunch or dinner. They can also be made with or without the tzatziki-like sauce, although I would not advise going without. If you’re lucky enough to still have overwintered leeks in your garden, this is definitely the time to use them.

Burrito pie: $1.41/serving

As if the name and photo didn’t already give it away, this hot mess of a meal dates back to when I first graduated from college. (The recipe is scrawled in my even-back-then-barely-legible handwriting on a stained, torn-out sheet of binder paper.) It doesn’t really have anything to do with burritos, or pie, but no one has ever cared. It’s not only quick to throw together on a weeknight, but it’s turned out to be one of B.’s favorite dishes. He’s lucky I even made it for him in the first place, but I do admit, even after all these years it’s still pretty good in an early-aughts “Mexican” food kind of way.

Tofu mole tacos: 42 cents each

Now, I’m not always one to toot my own horn, but I hereby announce that this is the best tofu dish I’ve ever made—or even tasted. I’m not anti-tofu by any means, but even I admit it can be an impenetrable, waterlogged block of blah, resistant to all but the most drastic attempts at flavor or textural improvements. This dish changes all of that. In fact, you’d be hard-pressed to even tell this is tofu—it has a firm, almost meat-like texture and really soaks up the rich, chocolatey mole flavor. (This does call for pre-made mole sauce. Back in October I made a super-fantastic version from scratch and still had a bag of it kicking around the freezer, which is how I conceived of this dish to begin with. You can certainly use store-bought, but be forewarned I can’t vouch for it in taste or price.)

Lemongrass beef noodle salad: $1.24/serving

“Some of us have great stories, pretty stories that take place at lakes with boats and friends and noodle salad. Just no one in this car. A lot of people, that’s their story. Good times, noodle salad.” —Jack Nicholson, “As Good as It Gets”

What else can I say? This probably in no way resembles the kind of noodle salad invoked above, but it’s a noodle salad all the same. The recipe was originally featured in an older post extolling the virtues of marked-down meat at the grocery store, but it’s high time it had its own page. Not only is it simple to make and a proven crowd-pleaser (good times, noodle salad), it’s a great antidote to all those heavy seasonal braises and gratins that start to get a little old about now. Judging by the view out the window, Punxsutawney Phil (“the world’s most famous prognosticating rodent,” according to Wikipedia, where I went to look up how to spell Punxsutawney) is not planning to deviate from his 13% accuracy rate any time soon.

Splurge: Vietnamese beef noodle soup, hue-style (bun bo hue): $4.34/serving

As is often the case with upright chest freezers, sometimes things get forgotten about beneath the boxes of frozen butter and yogurt containers full of stock. Things you remember buying, but can’t exactly recall why—marked-down oxtails, turkey gizzards, a single vacuum-sealed plantain. This weekend it was the oxtails and a Ziploc bag of short-rib bones with most of the meat scraped off that had me scratching my head. What, exactly, had I planned to do with a measly 1 1/2 pounds of oxtails and some meatless bones? Make a stock, probably, but for what? It’s not enough meat for subtly flavored pho, and would make a pretty weak oxtail soup. Instead I decided to use them in a soup that gets enough flavor assistance from other ingredients: bun bo hue (pronounced “hway”). It’s similar to pho in that it includes beef and noodles, but the type of noodles, flavorings, and preparation are completely different. I obviously had bought the oxtails pre-$35-a-week, because I could NEVER afford them now, therefore, this meal didn’t exactly come out of our current budget. It’s not cheap, but as is always the case, it’s cheaper than eating out.

Best-ever potstickers: $1.08/serving

When B. and I first started dating, he had to travel a lot for work. During one particular trip, I got the idea to stock his freezer with something he could eat when he got back. For reasons that remain unclear even to this day, potstickers came to mind. I had never made them before, but I forged ahead all the same with what I thought was a reasonable approximation of the frozen ones I had been buying at Trader Joe’s. What resulted were inedibly salty, dense little meatballs in inelegant rubbery pouches. These Best-Ever Potstickers, the result of many subsequent years’ worth of trial and error, are better than anything you could buy at the store. Not too salty and not too dense, with a burst of freshness from ginger and cilantro. They’re great for snacks, appetizers, lunch, dinner, or to freeze uncooked for later, and I guarantee whoever you make them for will be impressed.

Weeknight Thai curry: 71 cents/serving

As I’m sure is apparent, I’m not a big advocate for prepackaged processed foods. This includes everything from canned beans to pre-ground spice mixes and sauces. But there is something I’m willing to make an exception for: the little 89-cent tins of curry paste you can find in Asian markets. Have you ever tried to buy curry paste at the supermarket? Because I have, and it’s not pretty: $4.25 or more for teeny tiny jar containing a white-person approximation of the real thing, which is so watered down you have to use almost the entire jar for one meal. These little tins may not be available in your area, but they’re easily found online (at Amazon.com they’re $1.25 or so, and if you spend $25 you get free shipping). They might not be 89 cents, but they’re still cheaper than $4.25. Plus, not only do you get more paste, it’s stronger stuff, so you only have to use a tablespoon or two. Once you open a can you can put the contents into a plastic bag, freeze it, and carve chunks off of it whenever you need some. Usually I can get about 3-4 meals out of a single can, bringing the average cost per meal to about 26 cents. This, believe it or not, is cheaper than making it yourself. I know, because I’ve done it, and not only was the homemade stuff more expensive, it had weird textural issues from the coriander seeds and lemongrass that no amount of blending or processing seemed to be able to fix.