Aldi Meal Prep – Spending Under $100 Family of 4

Planning weekly meals for the family could not be easier with budget friendly stores like Aldi. Take a peek into how our family of four spends under $100 per week on groceries with this Aldi meal prep example.

It is no surprise our family loves shopping at Aldi. I started shopping at Aldi when my husband and I were in college.

We always joke it is the ‘dutch’ in our family which is brings out the hunt for a good deal and budget friendly finds. And we are lucky that our nearest local Aldi is less than 2 miles away!

Once we started planning to grow our family and began budgeting even more, Aldi became the first store we would center our meals around. Our weekly meal plan is focused on budget friendly foods which could make our dollar stretch further, provide nutrition to our family and easy recipes which can get to the table quick.

We continued to stock our pantry in preparation for postpartum, too. If you are not an Aldi shopper yet, I hope this will inspire you to consider it in your next ground of grocery shopping!

How to Meal Plan

Planning our meals for each week is pretty easy. Firstly, we start with thinking about any meals which sound good. Next, we look at the weekly ads to see where items have low prices due to discounted pricing.

This then allows us to navigate the grocery stores with confidence. We start with Aldi and then go to Meijer. Once a month, we go to Costco to stock up on bulk items.

Finally, we plan our meals by collecting recipes and taking stock of what we already have in our pantry. This means when we pull items out of our pantry for meals this week, we instantly put the item down on our grocery list for the following week to re-stock it.

Not only does this help to ensure we have most items in stock when we want to make a meal on the fly, but we are taking advantage of savings when the stores offer discounted pricing.

Our favorite method of writing out a meal plan is by having a joint note on our phone. We can both add to it when we finish something from the pantry and write down inspiration for future meals. It also helps us keep track of what we are eating each day of the week for dinners (and desserts).

Aldi Meal Plan Pantry Staples

One note to consider is we did not purchase items we already had within our pantry and refrigerator. As noted above, we consistently restock our pantry and fridge when something runs out. We also have Aldi freezer meal prep as a regular part of our rotation.

Items we always have in our pantry / fridge include:

• Oils (olive oil and coconut oil)
• Nut Butters (peanut butter, almond butter, Nutella, on-the-go squeeze nut butter packets)
• Sweeteners (high fructose corn syrup, agave, honey, maple syrup)
• Baking Supplies (sugar, brown sugar, flour, baking soda, baking powder, chocolate chips)
  • Outside of flour we buy all the baking supplies at Aldi because they are so cheap in comparison to other stores. Especially chocolate chips!
• Spices (garlic powder, onion powder and chili powder are our favorite to restock in bulk at Aldi)
• Salad Dressing and Pasta Sauce (Ranch, Catalina, Balsamic)
• Rice (white rice, brown rice, rice packets)
• Beans (Garbanzo beans, chili beans, white beans, black beans)
• Canned Tomatoes (We can our own but also have different tomatoes on back up)
• Convenience Foods (chips, pre-packaged snacks for when we run out of the house)

Sample Aldi Meal Plan

For this specific week, we focused on convenience and restocking our pantry after getting through a majority of our postpartum meal prep meals. I wanted to make easy dinners and minimize food waste. Note the prices for meat (beef / chicken) are shown twice, but we only paid for one pack and split it between all the meals.

For this week, our Aldi meal prep revolved around the following meals:

1. Korean Beef Bowls
   • Ingredients needed:
     • Ground beef ($8.18 package, $4.09 / lb for 80/20 beef), white rice ($3.69), sesame seed oil, soy sauce, red pepper flakes, ginger powder, garlic, brown sugar, lime juice, green onion ($0.89), sriracha
2. Greek Chicken and greek chopped salad
   • Ingredients needed for greek chicken:
     • Chicken breasts ($12.49 package, $2.49 / lb), cucumber ($0.89), lemon juice, olive oil, greek yogurt*, garlic, salt, pepper, flat breads
       • To save money, we buy our chicken in bulk. Additionally, we have both bought flat breads from Aldi and make our own from scratch with sourdough starter.
   • Ingredients needed for greek chopped salad
     • Cucumber ($0.89), grape tomatoes ($1.05), kalamata olives, sweet peppers (or red pepper) ($3.29), romaine lettuce ($3.55), lemon juice/lemon slices, olive oil, salt, pepper, homemade sourdough croutons
3. Spaghetti with meat sauce, spinach, and homemade garlic bread (or sourdough garlic knots)
   • This is an easy recipe that does not take much preparation!
   • Ingredients for spaghetti:
     • Gluten free pasta ($2.39) and regular pasta ($1.09), organic spaghetti sauce ($2.19), ground beef ($8.18 package, $4.09 / lb for 80/20 beef), grated parmesan cheese ($2.89), spinach ($3.19)
   • Ingredients for homemade garlic bread
     • Homemade sourdough bread (this recipe is the Aldi Specialty Sourdough bread copycat, though you could purchase it in the store if you do not have a sourdough starter), butter*, garlic powder
       • Slice bread, butter and top with garlic powder before placing in the oven under the broiler for 5-10 minutes until bread is crispy.
4. Tuna melts on homemade sourdough bread and Pacific Foods organic tomato soup
   • Ingredients for tuna melts:
     • Canned tuna, shredded cheese, homemade sourdough bread, tomato soup ($4.12). We also serve these with chips and pickles.
5. Chicken Stir Fry with white rice
   • Ingredients for chicken stir fry:
     • Chicken breast ($12.49 package, $2.49 / lb), stir fry sauce (soy sauce, coconut aminos, brown sugar, corn starch, garlic, red pepper, homemade chicken broth), white rice ($3.29) and stir fry veggies ($2.59)
6. Chicken Fingers (gluten free and homemade!) and french fries
   • Ingredients for chicken fingers/chicken tenders:
     • Chicken breast ($12.49 package, $2.49 / lb), almond flour, gluten free all purpose flour, egg*, nutritional yeast, salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, crinkle french fries ($3.09), ketchup
7. Leftovers or takeout

As you can see on our Aldi meal prep, we save quite a bit of money making our own food from scratch. Each homemade bread item saved us more than $10 (IE garlic bread, croutons, bread for tuna melts). We are big advocates of making meals from scratch.

In addition to the items above on our dinner Aldi meal prep, we purchased quite a few foods to help fill in the gaps for our breakfast, lunch, snacks and desserts. See the items below!

• Kefir – $3.65
• Whole Milk – 1 gallon – $2.89
• Cottage Cheese – $2.75
• Sour Cream – $1.89
• Unsalted Butter – $2.99
• *Whole Milk Greek Yogurt – $3.85
• *Eggs X3 – $2.79 each
• Restaurant Style Tortilla Chips – $2.19
• Butterscotch Chips – $2.09
• Chocolate Chips – $2.09
• Crispy Rice Cereal – $2.15
• Natural Creamy Peanut Butter – $1.99
• Diced Fruit Cup x2 – $2.35 each
• Mandarin Oranges – 3lb bag – $3.29
• Sliced Cheddar Cheese – $2.09

*Items with asterisk are items we bought once and contributed towards other times of eating outside of the meal listed above.

If you would like a printable shopping list, click on the photo above! The healthy meal plan is also a link to Pinterest which can save you so much money and so much time when you want to have a meal plan made for you. Or even just to refer back to for future meal ideas which can be found at your local grocery store.

Overall, the total cost of a budget Aldi meal prep for a family of four was: $97.69. Note, we did have some items already within our pantry to make easy meals, like soy sauce, almond flour, spices and flour for sourdough starter which did not factor into our overall cost.

Should you choose to follow this, your overall cost may be different depending on what you have stocked within your pantry. I would say this was a great deal for this 7 day Aldi meal plan!

What is a recipe you include on your weekly meal prep regularly? We would love to see if we can find your recipe ingredients at Aldi!