Name: Chicken Mac & Cheese Casserole
Prep time: 5 min
Cook time: 15 min
Total time: 20 min
Yield: 8
Ingredients: 12.5 oz can of chicken breast (not drained); 2 cans of 10 oz Rotel (not drained); 1 Cream of mushroom soup; 8 oz package of cream cheese; 4 cups of shredded cheese (3 cups for sauce mixture & 1 cup to sprinkle of top of casserole); 3 cups of cooked elbow noodles; 1 tsp salt; 1 tsp black pepper

Y’all, this Chicken Mac & Cheese Casserole is sooo easy! As a stay at home mom, I am always looking for easy lunch or dinner ideas. When I wake up in the morning and I’m not even finished with breakfast I’ll be trying to figure out what is for Supper that day. I hope that I’m not the only mom doing this! LOL. Usually, my husband gets home around 5:20pm and I try to have Supper ready. For Supper my family will sit down together at our dining room table, eat and discuss everyone’s day.

Sometimes, Supper will be a simple meal of homemade hamburgers and chips or sometimes it will be a casserole, vegetables and a salad. But, the endless question is always “What’s for supper?” LOL

“What’s For Dinner?” – Cheap Dinner Ideas!

Easy & Cheap Chicken Alfredo. *$1 per serving is for 6 servings, but for small children there would be more servings, so the price would even be cheaper. *Plus, this is with can chicken and cooking your own chicken breasts would also lower the price too.
Spaghetti and garlic bread. Spaghetti is another meal that is cheap. I like spaghetti noodles and sauce, but my kids like meatballs, LOL, so I add meat balls to my sauce. Sometimes, I’ll buy french bread and a garlic butter spread to make garlic bread. However, I have been know to take white or light bread, spread with butter, sprinkle garlic powder on it and shredded cheese, then bake in the oven. So, this can be a cheap dinner meal too. Again, leftovers can be meal prepped and frozen for Gerald’s lunch, LOL.
Dorito Casserole – another EASY, EASY meal is a Dorito Chicken Casserole, plus it’s fairly cheap. You take a bag of tortilla or dorito chips, can of chicken, can of mushroom soup, can of enchilada soup and shredded cheese. I love this meal! Because, I can assemble this casserole 20 minutes before Gerald is to arrive home from work and the meal is done and ready to eat by the time he is home.

Family Secret!

Pinto Beans – I was raised eating a lot of pinto beans, fried potatoes and cornbread. While growing up my mom made this meal EVERY week, lol. I never thought too much about it, because I loved it. But, later after I had my own family of four kids I understood, because it was a VERY inexpensive meal to make and feed a family. Plus, it was a nutritious meal, beans which are protein, potatoes a vegetable and then cornbread, so in this meal we have our protein, vegetable and a grain. As a kid growing up I just knew I had a delicious meal! LOL. I do have a recipe of this meal called Beans, Taters & Cornbread. When I wrote this recipe up for the website, this meal was $0.24 per serving and this was 2 years ago in 2020. The price might be a little higher now, but not by much, because this is a VERY CHEAP MEAL. AND, I usually cook pinto beans every week, first with fried potatoes and then the leftovers are made into burritos!
Taco Salad – this is a cheap, cheap meal. I haven’t posted this recipe yet, but it’s basically 1 lb of browned ground beef, couple cans of refried beans and 2 -3 cups of picante sauce. Let this simmer 10-15 minutes, then add a scoop to a serving of tortilla chips, lettuce, tomatoes and onions. It’s a meal that my father-in-law always prepared for us. And, he could cook! The more cans of refried beans that you add, then the more people it will feed.

We live out in the country a few miles from town, so I try to always have on hand a lot of staples in my pantry. For example, the following for this recipe and some other great ideas of staples to have on hand:

Essential Pantry Staples:

Can chicken breast
Cream of mushroom soup
Cream of chicken soup
Cream of celery soup
Rotel
Chicken broth
Beef broth
Canned black olives
Green chili enchilada sauce
Green chilis
Red enchilada sauce
Canned beans
Canned corn
Tomato sauce
Diced tomatoes
Spaghetti noodles
Elbow noodles
Various pasta noodles
Tortilla chips
Rice
Oatmeal
Pasta sauces
Block cheese like Velveeta or an off brand type
Flour and corn meal

Refrigerated Essential Items:

Butter
Shredded cheeses, blocks of cheeses and sliced cheese
Milk
Eggs
Cream Cheese
Condiments
Pickles
Jalapenos
Salsa
Diced garlic
Pepperonis
Lunch meats, weiners and sausages
lettuce, tomatoes and onions
Corn tortillas
Flour Tortillas

Freezer Essential Items:

Hamburger meat
Chicken breast, legs & thighs
Breakfast sausage by the lb and breakfast sausage patties
Bacon
Extra breads, loaf and buns
Extra weiners and lunch meat
Frozen vegetables
Frozen berries

A great idea for a freezer item is the bags of frozen uncooked chicken breasts or tenderloins. If I forget to lay a frozen meat out for supper then I can take a couple of these frozen chicken breasts and place them directly into a skillet frozen, place a lid on top and they will cook perfect. Then, add seasonings or barbeque sauce and I have a quick meal.

Of course, let’s not forget a variety of oils and spices. I don’t buy a lot of seasoning packets, bc the individual spices will go farther as far as your grocery bill. Here are a few that I keep on hand:

Essential Spices:

Salt
Black pepper
Garlic powder
Smokehouse maple (essential to my kiddos, lol)
Chili powder
Cumin powder
Paprika powder
Ginger powder
Tumeric powder
Onion flakes
Red pepper flakes
Italian seasoning
Spaghetti seasoning
Dill
Mustard seed
Cinnamon
Nutmeg
All spice