Easy Red Sauce on a Budget. Dinner for Under $5!

This is a recipe feeding two people, four times (yep, your gonna use your freezer)

Things you need:

4 cans chopped tomatoes/ AK Price: About $3.00  [better deal on tomatoes]

1 onion/ AK Price: $1.00

10 cloves Garlic/ AK Price: about $0.50

1 tube basil paste [If you have fresh basil, that's awesome, use three bunches] AK Price:$4.50

Olive oil [if you don`t have that in the budget, butter tastes amazing] [This fits budget better when you already have olive oil or butter in your cupboard]

Vegetable. oil

1 standard Chefs Knife

1 pair of clean scissors

1 large sauce pan [medium fits, but to save yourself splatter use large][a nonstick sauce pan would be ideal for this, but if you don't have one just be sure to start soaking the pan as soon as you finish.]
1 Spoon to stir

Cut your garlic and add it already heating oil on stove. let cook on low-med heat while chopping the onion. Add onion to oil and garlic and allow to cook for about 2-3 minutes stirring occasionally.

Leaving the lid on, shake the tomato cans vigorously for about 1-2 minutes each. (imagine you are scrambling an egg in its shell) once you have thoroughly shaken each can, add them to the pan and take note of how full the pan is. Allow it to cook off the excess water, stirring occasionally, cooking for 7-10 minutes should yield a thickened sauce about 1/4-1/3 less than original.

add a quarter cup olive oil [or a splash to save dishes, this is not a science] stir and allow to cook for another minute or so.  remove from heat.

Lastly add the tube of basil [yum!] [if you aren't a basil addict such as myself, start with half the tube and add to taste]

Divide into 3 plastic freezer bags [reserving one part in the pan to eat now] Allow those bags to cool and put them in freezer.

It Costs $9 to make 4 meals worth of red sauce, Divide that by 4, you spend $2.25 per meal [Alaska Price].
At this point i add one of three proteins, one chicken breast chopped, half a turkey breast chopped or 6 Zesty Meatballs [I will be posting this recipe soon]

Regular Chicken per pound costs me $1.49, so that's about $9 for a chicken (however it goes on sale often, and i love to snag it up for $0.99 a pound, costing only $5.50), I get 4.5 meals [and the bonus of stock, chicken 'bacon', and cooking fat] $2.00 per meal, makes chicken my favorite choice!

One box of Penne, lasts two meals in my house and it rings in at only $1.19 (About 60 cents per meal)

$2.25 Red Sauce
$2.00 Chicken
$0.60 Pasta
Total: $4.85 Alaska Price

I always try to keep my Dinners around $5 [and there's usually seconds for Justin to bring for lunch the next day]