This $50 Meal Plan Feeds You for the Week

In today's video, I'll be taking a $50 grocery list of all very standard ingredients, and I'll transform them into a week's worth of meal prep, and I'll be giving you all the recipes completely for free so anyone can follow along. All right, so we're all well aware of how expensive groceries have gotten over the last few years, which is why it has never been more important to get as much as you can possibly get out of the ingredients that you're buying. And if I have one superpower in the kitchen, it is definitely getting a lot out of a little. So, I put together a $50 grocery list that has a nice variety of affordable and very accessible ingredients that everyone should be able to find no matter where you live. And obviously, the prices of ingredients will range dramatically depending on your location, where you shop, and the quality of the ingredients. I use my local market here in New York as a reference to get me to that $50 range. And if you are shopping for organic ingredients, that's going to knock the budget for this grocery list up by about 15 to 25%. And what I'm not including in this budget that I'll be using for this meal prep is of course salt and pepper, different oils and fats that I already have in my pantry, and a small amount of sweetener like honey or maple syrup. And again, you can just take inspo from these recipes or you can print out that free Google doc below and you can follow the full plan recipe by recipe. It's totally up to you. Here is my $50 food meal plan for the week. Now, the absolute best bang for your buck in the entire grocery store is a whole chicken. There's just a crazy amount of meals we can get from this whole bird. But of course, you're not saving any money if you can't do a little butchering, which is probably familiar with some and scary for others. But if you're a beginner, I've got your back with what I think is the easiest possible way to break down a chicken. The first cut you're going to make is right between the seams of the breast and the legs. And then I'll just open the joints a little so the bird lays nice and flat, which will make the rest of the butchering much more seamless. Then I flip the bird over and you can just draw imaginary lines with your finger right between the thigh and the backbone. You'll feel a natural seam in there. And once you have that mapped out, just slowly follow that seam with your knife. And when you are breaking down a chicken, you're always looking to cut between the sockets and joints and cartilage. You never want to be going through direct bone. So if something feels hard to cut and is giving you resistance, just wiggle your knife a little bit and find a new spot until your knife can cut through much easier. Now, once those legs are removed, I'll separate the thigh from the drumstick right at the joint. Then, I'll remove the thigh bone, which is optional, but I like to do this for more flavor in my broth. Then, I'll simply slice off the wings, and I'll break those down into the three pieces. And finally, I'll make a slice right down the backbone. And I'll slowly simultaneously be cutting and peeling away that breast until it's fully removed. And remember, if you're new to this, it shouldn't be perfect the first time or even the second or even the 10th time. Repetition of this process will get you more comfortable and build those skills. And the worst case scenario is maybe you have some more meat on the carcass or some uneven cuts. It's really not a huge deal. So, I've got all my prime cuts, which I'll pop on a paper towel to remove any excess moisture. And immediately into my air fryer goes that carcass, the thigh bones, the wing tips, and any extra skin. And I'll air fry those pieces for about 20 minutes. And in the meantime, to make prep really simple, I'm just going to season up all of those prime cuts together with salt and pepper. Then I'll flip them over and season the other side. And I want the skin side up because I'm actually going to put all of this chicken in the fridge uncovered overnight, which is going to one dry out the skin so it gets super crispy, but it will also give that salt time to dry brine the chicken, which will not only season it, but also help tenderize it. And we'll get back to that chicken tomorrow. Now you can see the carcass and these extra chicken bits have roasted up nicely. I also got some nice fat rendered from the skin which I'll reserve for cooking throughout these meals. And I'll simply pop all of those pieces into my slow cooker. I'll cover it with water and I'll let that slow cook overnight. Now if your machine also does pressure cooking, which this one does, you can also just pressure cook this broth for an hour or two to save some time. Now before I pack up for the day, I'm just going to bang out some pancakes for breakfast. I'll mash up three of the four bananas in a bowl until they're nice and smooth. And for every one banana I use, I'm cracking in one egg. And I'm using about half the container of this little yogurt. I'm adding some homemade vanilla extract. I'll first whisk up all of the wet ingredients. And I'm going to add in some flour and baking powder to create my batter. You can see that this should just stall. fall right apart. It's almost disintegrating. And when you taste this chicken, it has the texture of chicken, but it has basically zero flavor. And that's good. That means all of the flavor has transferred to this. This is optional, but you can season your broth. This is very neutral. No aromatic flavor in here. But what this represents for all of my meals is body and nutrients. Such a deep, rich roasted chicken flavor. Ready to go. So, I'll let it cool and I'll package it up. All right. So, now that the pressure cooker is freed up, I'm actually going to cook the entire package of lentils in one go, which will really help speed up my meal prep moving forward. This package is around 2 and 1/2 cups of lentils. And I'll add in equal parts chicken broth and water. And just a little bit of whole ginger and garlic. I'm keeping these lentils pretty neutral since I'm going to be using them in a variety of different ways. Now we can get back to the chicken, which has been dry brining overnight. I'm going to save the breast for now and just focus on the thighs, the drumsticks, and the wings. I'm isolating that dark meat since it all cooks in a similar fashion. To a wide sauté pan, I'm going to add in some of that chicken fat that came from the air fryer. And I'll get all of the pieces rendering on the skin side down on just a medium low heat. And in the meantime, I can prep some veg. I'm slicing up about half of that cabbage into these small little wedges. I'll cut up one onion into quarters. I'll peel and rough chop a few carrots into these nice bigger chunks. And finally, I'll peel a few of those garlic cloves. I'll give the chicken a flip when it's super crispy. And I'm only cooking it on the other side for about a minute. I'll remove all the chicken from the pan and I'm going to replace it with my veg. And the pan at this point was a bit dry, so I did need the rest of that chicken fat. Now, while the veggies are cooking, I just threw that entire tray of chicken in the oven just to cook completely through. And after about 5 minutes, when the veggies had some nice color, I poured in a little bit of chicken broth. I squeezed in a little wedge of fresh lemon juice. I drizzled in just a bit of honey and I seasoned everything up with salt and pepper. And I let these veggies braze to perfection for about 10 to 12 minutes. Nice and soft. I'm just going to cook this down till this liquid gets a little more delicious. I honestly feel like I'm living in Alaska. It's snowstormed maybe 3 weeks ago and it's been so cold that all of this snow froze and just stayed here for about 3 weeks. I mean, it's melting a little bit now. But it's virtually made it impossible to do any type of chores around the homestead or at least it just makes things much more difficult. But one thing that is very cool, I'm going to show you right now. This right here is the new climate battery greenhouse. Although it was not the best year to plant little baby trees, considering it's been so cold, the citrus trees are holding up. This is a meer lemon. This is really exciting. These are kumquats and they're actually starting to ripen a little bit. I see a little bit of color coming in. So, even just being in here kind of outside is nice. It's about 60° in here and I'm just very excited to see what happens to these trees. All citrus and different tropical trees now that we're getting more sun and it's starting to warm up a bit. So, I just want to take a minute to tell you about today's sponsor, which is Anker Solex, which has honestly been a lifesaver here at the studio. So, last time I told you about the Anker Solex F3800 Plus, which I currently use as my entire home backup generator. This time I'm adding onto my system with the F-3800, which is just as powerful, but at a more accessible price point. And this power station couldn't be easier to set up because it lives right here in my basement and it is perfectly quiet. We get a ton of storms here on Long Island. This has been the most intense winter in decades. While I'm filming this video, we just had the biggest blizzard we've had in years, which just took down a tree, which took down a power line in my driveway. So, I'm currently dealing with that, which is fun. But guess what? This entire Life by Mike G operation didn't lose a beat. I just flip on the power station, which has a 3.84 kilowatt hour capacity, enough to power a home for an entire day. And since it has a 6,000 watt output, I can still use all my high power appliances like my stove top and oven. I can power up and charge all my studio gear. And most importantly, I can keep all my refrigerators and freezers running. None of that preservation hard work goes to waste. And you can easily add additional power stations and batteries to expand the system up to 53.8 kwatt hours, which can power your home for days or even weeks. So, if you're interested in Anchor Solex, just click the link below for more information. Now, I've already been enjoying those lentils with the chicken and veggie dish I just made, but let's utilize them in some more creative ways by making a lentil cracker. To a food processor, I'm going to add in a bunch of the cooked lentils. You can see I still have a good bit left for other recipes. I'll add in three of my eggs, some salt to season, and a garlic clove. And I'll just pulse that together until it's very nice and smooth. M. That's actually really good. Just lentils, garlic, salt. Oh yeah, there's eggs in it. I'm eating raw eggs. Still damn good. I'm going to add some flour. Bind it up. Now I'm going to take a baking sheet. I'm going to line it with some parchment paper and I'll dump that lentil mixture right onto it. I did have a little leftover mixture which I added to a smaller sheet pan. And I'm just doing my best here to smooth out this mixture without creating any gaps or holes in the crackers. Ultimately, I'm putting in minimal effort. This cracker is very forgiving at any level of unevenness or thickness. Now, for some additional flavor, something that wasn't on my grocery list, but highly recommended, I had some homemade everything bagel seasoning left over from these amazing rice paper bagels I made in a recent air fryer video, which I'll sprinkle right on top. And these get baked low and slow so they can get nice and crispy at 300° Fahrenheit for about an hour to an hour and a half, depending on the thickness. So, we'll check back in on those crackers in a little bit. All right, it is time to make one of my favorite desserts. I've actually only made this once before and it was with peaches, but today I'm working within my budget and the season of course. So, I've got apples which I'll first give a peel and then I'm going to slice around the core. And then I'll take those pieces and I'll cut them in half so you get some nice even apple chunks. Now, this is an upside down cake that you make in a cast iron pan. So, I'll get my cast iron preheating on a medium heat and I'll add a few tablespoons of butter into the pan and I'll get those apples slowly stewing away. I am adding just a little bit of honey to accentuate the natural sweetness of the apples and help them caramelize up. I'll also add just a little squeeze of lemon juice to balance out that sweetness with some tartness. And I'll let these apples slow cook. Now, while that's happening, I'll work on this batter, which couldn't be easier. I'm starting off with three eggs that have been sitting at room temperature. I'll crack those into a bowl. I'll add in just a little drizzle of honey, which is all of the sweetener in this batter. And I'm going to take my hand mixer and start whipping these eggs. And this step is crucial right here. You need to build some volume and some air in these eggs, which takes around 5 to 7 minutes on a high-speed electric mixer. And you're looking for those eggs to transform into a more pale yellow, fluffy, airy mixture like this, which is when I'll add in some flour. I'll zest some of that same lemon, a little homemade vanilla extract, and some salt. And I'll just gently fold everything together until that batter is nice and smooth. Now, these apples have been cooking for about 10 minutes. They're just lightly stewed. They don't need to be super soft since they're going to bake in the oven. And I'll pour that batter evenly over all of those apples. And this puppy goes in the oven at 350° F, which conveniently was the same exact temperature my crackers were cooking at. And it needs to cook for just about an hour until that cake is perfectly spongy and cooked through. All right, so just from cooling, you can see a lot of this has already released from the side, which is a very good sign. I am just going to run my knife around just for that extra shebang shebang. All right, so I've only done this one other time with the peach turnover. Very similar recipe and it worked. Surprisingly, I did freestyle this one a little bit. We'll see. Sha. Oh my god. Oh, off. Oh no, the one freaking apple. Are you kidding me? I'm going to place him back so gently. There you go. Flake was always there. So, last time I made this with almond flour and peaches, and I said it was I think my favorite cake I've ever made. For some reason, I haven't made it again since now. But clearly, this recipe is customizable with the flour you use and the fruits. It's like a sponge cake, but it only has like three ingredients in that crust. If I had some ice cream in this challenge. Oh, wait. Oh, wait. Yes. I've got a little bit of this yogurt left. I might just eat it on this spatula. M. What in the hell is that? You can't be serious without the apple and the cake are both soft, so they create almost one texture. I don't remember last time I could not stop eating this. And what's great is there's very little sugar in it. You can make it gluten-free very easily. And it's so easy. Wow. That's better than the peach. If you make one thing from this entire video, make this and report back to me. All right, so remember those reserved chicken breasts? Well, it's time to put them to work. and I'm going to be making a absolutely delicious and refined chicken salad. Now, since I already seasoned the chicken breast, I'm just going to get some oil in a frying pan and I'll start to cook them on the skin side down. And in the meantime, I'm going to dice up some celery. I've got a few carrots left, which I'll peel and dice up. And I'm taking about a third of the parsley, which I'll just give a rough chop. And I've got that perfect sear on the skin side. So, what I'll do to keep these chicken breasts super tender is I'll cook them for about 1 to 2 minutes on the other side, just for some color. Then I'm going to delaze with some chicken broth. I'll add a squeeze of lemon juice. And I'll pop a lid right on the pan so they can just slowly steam until they are perfect. And while they're steaming, I'm going to whip up a quick little mayo dressing. I'll crack one egg into a bowl. And I'll remove the yolk and I'll add that to a larger mixing bowl. And I'm just going to start whisking that up while simultaneously slowly drizzling in some olive oil, one a little bit at a time. And if you do this nice and slowly, you will see that that mayo is going to thicken in no time. And once I have about a/4 cup of mayo, I'll add a little homemade fermented mustard. I'll grate in one clove of garlic. I'll squeeze in a little bit of lemon juice. I'll season it up. And boom. That is a delicious dressing just in time for that chicken to be perfectly cooked through. All right, we're going for about 160. Oh yeah. I just completely guessed the timing. Sometimes things work out. Oh yeah. Lemon chicken goodness. So, this first batch, you can see like there's some thicker, more chewy parts, almost like a pita, and then obviously super crispy fats. You can also just go super thin and make much more chips. It's really kind of choose your own adventure. This is an awesome little snack or lunch. Lentil chips with the chicken salad. I was just thinking too when you get chicken salad from the market, it's generally around 95% chicken, little bit of vegetables, whole lot of mayo. And the term salad almost doesn't make sense for something like that. Whereas this that looks like a salad, feels like a salad, tastes a little bit more like a salad. So maybe this is what chicken salad was supposed to be. >> That's wonderful. Those lentil chips taste like pita chips, yet they're like 80% lentils. That's crazy. All right. So, I've made so many good dishes already. And this is every single ingredient I have left. We've got some chicken stock, cooked lentils. This is all my fresh ingredients right here. Got this chicken jew, some eggs, the egg white, and some flour. Now, I've been racking my brain because I will use every last ingredient. That is the point of this meal prep challenge. And I think I have two perfect dishes that should wrap all of this up. Now, one of the best ways to use up a bunch of leftover random ingredients is, of course, making soup, especially with what I have. So, I'll dice up this last onion. I'll dice up the rest of my celery. I'm peeling basically the rest of my garlic. I'll chop up a little piece of ginger. And I'll chop up the rest of my parsley. Now, I had that little container of chicken juice, which was left over from the brazing of the chicken breast. And when it solidified in the fridge, it actually had a really nice layer of fat, which was rendered from the skin of the chicken breast. So, I skim that off. Pop that right into the pan to fry up all of these aromatics. And I'm just going to season them up with salt. And they'll cook for around 10 minutes. Then once they have some color, I'm dumping in the rest of that chicken juice flavor bomb. And I'll dump in all of the chicken stock. Just reserving a little bit for the next recipe. Then the rest of the cooked lentils are going in. All of that parsley. And then finally, the last little nub of lemon juice that I have right here. I'll bring the soup up to just a gentle simmer. And then I'm going in with my immersion blender. This is my absolute favorite trick for making soup. I'll usually blend up about half of the ingredients. So, you've got the smoothness and a little bit of that chunkiness for texture. It's the best of both worlds. And then all I have to do is give this soup a final seasoning. Now, this lentil soup is going to be served right along with this final recipe, which is going to be inspired by the Japanese okonomiyaki, but of course, just using what I have left, which is not much, but is definitely enough to make a delicious cabbage pancake. So, I thinly sliced the remaining cabbage. I got that into a mixing bowl. I added the rest of the chopped parsley that I had. I grated up my last garlic clove. I also grated in some ginger. I added that leftover egg white I had from the mayo, as well as the remaining three eggs. The last few tablespoons of chicken broth that I reserved, a little bit of flour to bring this batter together. And finally, some salt and pepper. And I gave it a mix to get my mixture ready for the frying pan. I'm frying up about half of the mixture. With this little 8-in pan, I had enough for these two bigger pancakes. And the pancake takes about 5 to 7 minutes on a medium heat for that bottom to get super brown. And if you want to live dangerously, just give this a flip right in the pan. I'm not that brave. So, I popped it right onto a tray and I slid it back into the pan to cook on the other side. So, unfortunately, I have failed the challenge. I've got a little bit of chicken stock, a knob of ginger, little piece of cabbage, and a banana, which I'll eat for dessert. But I think I did pretty damn good. I mean, I am very satisfied with the amount of food, with the creativity, the lack of waste, and just overall how delicious everything was. And I get a final little shebang here. That soup is simple, but that is a perfect winter lentil soup. Let's try this pancake. M. Wow, that's nice. Okay, that is awesome. Hell yeah. So, hopefully you got something out of this video. Whether it's a technique, a philosophy, a specific recipe, or if you want to just follow the entire video completely, recipe by recipe, just check out the free Google doc below. Print that baby out, buy the ingredients, and be on your way.

Check out the Anker SOLIX 3800 Home Power Station for full backup power going into hurricane season! #AnkerSOLIX #LIVEINPOWER#AnkerSOLIXF3800 Anker SOLIX official website: https://ankerfast.club/3x24sq Amazon: https://ankerfast.club/jd2ms3 Recipes and Shopping List Here! https://bit.ly/3Nd6EVd 00:00 - Intro 01:20 - Day 1 04:52 - Day 2 14:58 - Day 3 Anker SOLIX official YouTube handle https://www.youtube.com/@AnkerSOLIX/featured Learn to cook with confidence using my courses, cookbooks, and free recipes at https://lifebymikeg.com Music Credits: Epidemic Sound: https://www.epidemicsound.com Video Credits Creator, Host - Mike G Editor - Cooper Makohon Motion Graphics - Raphael Oliveira Culinary Producer - Carly C