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Cheap and Wicked Good!: 5-Ingredient Budget-Friendly Recipes for Everyday Meals
Eating on a budget doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice flavor or nutrition! This collection of cheap and delicious recipes will surprise you with its variety and how easily each recipe can be prepared with only 5 ingredients!Everyone needs to save money sometimes, and cutting down on restaurant meals in favor of budget-friendly home cooking is an excellent way to do it. The great news is that this doesn't mean you have to settle for macaroni and cheese or packaged food. The diverse and delicious recipes in this cookbook all contain five ingredients or less!Nor do you have to sacrifice your health to eat economically. Everything here is far healthier than TV dinners and fast food—things you'll be happy to see your family eating and enjoying. For added convenience, many of these recipes share one or more ingredients, making it easy to shop once and have what you need to make meals throughout the week.This collection of inexpensive meals where each recipe has only five major ingredients! There won’t be a whole lot of peeling and chopping, mixing, or getting out every single container in your kitchen to get a teaspoon of this or a cup of that. These recipes are simple. They are designed around a few main foods, with only the addition of some healthy oils or spices. It’s food the way it was meant to be enjoyed.And time isn’t the only thing you’ll be saving. When you are using only a few main ingredients, you’ll save money as well! You’ll be surprised to learn what you can prepare on a budget! We will show you how to combine staple ingredients with a variety of vegetables and spices to create healthy meals that you’ll be proud to serve. Our recipes include things like Cinnamon Apple Quinoa, Fish Tacos, Rigatoni with Turkey meatballs, and Pesto Chicken; there is no compromise on quality or flavor needed. Just some planning and a tiny bit of effort.Inside, you’ll All about eating on a budget, including tips and a list of what to buy or to skipDelightful breakfast recipes such as the Protein Pancakes and the Green Chili HuevosSatisfying lunch recipes such as the Mexican Lentil Salad and the Roasted Chickpea and Avocado BowlWholesome pork, beef, and veal recipes like the Sausage Sheet Pan Dinner and the Beef Teriyaki SkilletFulfilling poultry recipes such as Chicken Fried Rice and the Pan-Seared Turkey CutletsDelicious vegetarian recipes such as the Butternut Squash Stew and the Lentil LasagnaAmazing fish and seafood recipes like the Fish Tacos and the Italian Tilapia ParmesanTraditional soup recipes like the Roasted Tomato Soup and the Low Carb Broccoli Cheese SoupLuscious dessert recipes such as the Key Lime Pie, the Chocolate Chip Banana Bread, and the Lemon BarsAll recipes come with a detailed list of ingredients, cooking and preparation times, number of servings, easy-to-follow step-by-step instructions, and nutritional information per serving.Read on your favorite devices such as Kindle, iPhone, iPad, Android cellular phone, tablet, laptop, or computer with Amazon's free reading Kindle App.Download FREE with Kindle Unlimited!Let start cooking! Scroll back up and click the BUY NOW button at the top right side of this page for an immediate download!
- GenresCookbooks
79 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 9, 2018
488 people are currently reading
55 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
January 1, 2021
Grabbed this book off kindle unlimited for the good read challenge but ended up walking away with several recipes. Easy, wholesome recipes.
November 11, 2023
Cheap and Wicked Good! is a cookbook by Louise Davidson. According to the subheading, it promises to be “5-Ingredient Budget-Friendly Recipes for Everyday Meals”. In the Contents page, the dishes are split up into the following categories: “Breakfast Recipes”, “Lunch”, “Beef, Pork & Veal Recipes”, “Poultry”, “Vegetarian”, “Fish & Seafood”, “Soups”, and “Desserts”. Each recipe includes a few details such as Serving amounts, Prep time, Cooking time and a $/$$/$$$ (to indicate the cost of the recipes). It also has a bit of nutritional information, including the amounts of Calories, Fat, Carbs, Protein and Sodium per serving.
In the early portions of the book, and even the description on the Amazon store page for the book, the author talks about being healthy whilst on a budget. They even make a note in the store page description, “this doesn't mean you have to settle for macaroni and cheese or packaged food.” And in the “Being on a Budget” page of the book, they talk about their annoyances with frozen meals, and prepackaged foods. Their intention, with this book, is to introduce people to fresh recipes, with a maximum of “five major ingredients” per recipe.
So I’ll talk about a few of those points separately, first talking about that “five major ingredients” notation. There’s often more than 5 ingredients per recipe, I’ll be blunt. So their primary theme of the book, which is the “5 ingredient” thing is not met. The second recipe of the book has seven ingredients listed, and I noticed numerous other recipes with more than five ingredients. I even saw a bunch for eight ingredients. What I think the author means by the “five major ingredients” is that they don’t count certain ingredients as ingredients. But they still count as ingredients to me.
Another issue I have with the earlier paragraphs is that premade ingredients stuff. The author specifies that you shouldn’t have to settle for packaged food. However, I noticed several ingredient listings for packaged food, that has been premade. Such as premade sauce; “1 cup basil pesto sauce” in “Italian Pasta Salad” and then later “1 (6-ounce) jar basil pesto (or make your own)” in “Pesto Chicken Bake”. Though they don’t give us a recipe on how to make our own. And then we have “15 ounces salsa” in “Fajitas”. In “Rigatoni with Turkey Meatballs”, they encourage us to use “1 pound ground turkey (or frozen Italian flavored meatballs)” and then in the instructions, “you can use any meatball recipe if you want to add spice”; so they don’t even provide an actual recipe to make these meatballs, and they don’t give us a relevant listing for putting herbs and spices in the ingredients list. For the same recipe, there’s a listing for “26 ounces tomato sauce”. For any of these, why can’t the author teach us how to make our own? After they went through so much effort to emphasise the problems with premade ingredients, why are they then encouraging us to use premade ingredients in the recipes they provide?
I’ll mention again that subheading for the book, which specifies that these are “Recipes for Everyday Meals”. However, I’ll make a note that some of these aren’t complete meals; some of these are just a portion to a meal. So I’ll use the “Chicken Tenders” recipe as an example here. This is just a meat portion to a meal. It doesn’t even include any vegetables. So you would likely have to prepare other aspects of food in order to go with this dish, in order to turn it into a meal. As is, this recipe has eight ingredients in the list, yet in order to turn it into a complete meal, you’d likely need to use a bunch more ingredients.
One of my regular issues with cookbooks is that authors fail to include details about ingredients. And this book is no different. From the very beginning, their first recipe includes eggs, but fails to tell us what size of egg we ought to be using. This is important because differing sized eggs can change the cook time and moisture levels in the recipes. There are a few other instances of them doing similar in the ingredient listings, such as failing to include sizes of the ingredients, and failing to include details on what types of ingredients. Such as, I mentioned earlier, they instruct us to use premade tomato sauces, but don’t include information on what types of sauces; there are hundreds of different types of tomato sauces. And there were sometimes portions where they didn’t say what type of flour to use (there are heaps of different types); which could make a huge difference in how the recipe turns out.
So, as mentioned earlier, there are preparation and cook times listed with each recipe. In my opinion, I feel like these are somewhat inaccurate. I noticed the first recipe was 5 minutes of preparation time, and then a few later had a preparation time of 3 minutes. Which… I feel like these are not accurate. Just finding the ingredients in my pantry and fridge, then getting them out would take a few minutes (even in the most organised kitchen), then you would need to take further preparation steps in order to get the mixtures ready for cooking.
As for the overall cooking times… Uhhhhh… No. Those aren’t accurate either. I’ll use an early recipe in the book, “Bacon Broccoli Crustless Quiche”, as an example (and it’s also another example of being seven ingredients, I’ll note). In the beginning of the recipe, it says it has an overall “Cooking time 55 minutes”. However, once I begin reading the recipe, it has us cooking the broccoli for an undisclosed amount of time, and then to cook the rest of the meal for “50-60 minutes”. So that’s already a possible overall cooking time of more than 60 minutes. And, for that same recipe, they also have an ingredient listing for “4 ounces bacon, cooked crispy”. So the expectation is that you cook this bacon prior to beginning the rest of this recipe, and so they don’t count that bacon cooking time into the overall cooking time listing. So it’s definitely got some inaccuracies to it. Going to a different recipe, “Mexican Lentil Salad”, they don’t list a cook time for the recipe, but list the ingredient “2 cups brown lentils, cooked”; so there’s definitely cook time… So why not list it? And why not give instructions including how to prepare this ingredient? Because with listings like this, the author does not give instructions on how to cook these things. And that can be bad for some cooks, who might not know how to cook or prepare certain ingredients like those (among others). So, if I didn’t mention, the preparation time for that lentil recipe is five minutes. I looked up recipes on how to cook these brown lentils, and many of them needed at least 20 to 25 minutes cook time. So, in order to prepare this ingredient, that cooking time is at least 20 minutes, minimum. On a similar note, that doesn’t take into account the other ingredients I might need to cook these lentils. So the dish already has an ingredient listing of eight ingredients, plus whatever other ingredients I would need to cook these lentils.
As for the serving amounts, there are a variety of listings. Some are two, some four, I noticed a four to eight… It just depends on the recipe. You could always consider halving, doubling, etc the recipe, if you need more or less servings. Or you could consider putting extra servings away as leftovers, if you have spare.
Another one of my regular considerations is whether the book would be good for beginners. And I think there’s a lot of lacking information in certain recipes. I mentioned earlier that “Mexican Lentil Salad”, which doesn’t include instructions on how to cook those lentils. Some cooks might not know how to prepare and/ or cook ingredients like that. Yet the author simply has us mix the cooked lentils with the other ingredients, rather than take the time to explain how to prepare those lentils. So, for certain cooks, one might need to look up a different recipe book and/ or tutorial on how to cook them, despite the fact that the information should have been included in this one. And I noticed a variety of other recipes that have basically the same thing; you’re expected to have the ingredients cooked prior to beginning this recipe, and then you’re expected to simply mix it together with the rest of the ingredients. So there’s huge chunks of missing information, I’ll be blunt. I think some cooks might have a hard time with some of these recipes.
As for vegetarians or vegans, I think there are definitely some recipes that might be suitable for you. Though the ones that aren’t could certainly be modified to meet your needs, if you substitute meat and other animal products for plant-based alternatives. Such as using plant-based eggs, plant-based cheese, etc. But, if you’re not sure about whether ingredients are originating from animals, I recommend doing research on it beforehand, just to double check.
Another question I ask myself when I read recipe books is, “are these meals that I would like to make for myself and / or my family?” And… For this book, I don’t think I would personally enjoy any of them, and I don’t think anyone in my family would like them either. They sound okay, but it’s often just not things that we would have for ourselves. However, there are definitely a lot of different varieties of food, and there would likely be something you might like to eat. If I were to want to make recipes listed in this book, I would likely look up a different recipe for them; just so that I can have a more accurate recipe, with a more complete ingredient listing and more details on how to actually make it.
I am somewhat disappointed with this book. Plus, the fact that it’s intended as a five ingredient recipe book, and the recipes often include more than that in the ingredient listings. And these often aren’t complete meals; just one portion of a meal. So overall, as you can tell by the length of my review, there are many things I take issue with in this book. This is definitely not a book I would rate highly; it doesn’t meet its own theme, and there is definitely misleading information with those inaccuracies in the preparation and cook times. This is definitely one of the more negative recipe books I have been through, and I’m glad that I got it when it was free during a promotional period. I would be annoyed if I had paid money for this.
In the early portions of the book, and even the description on the Amazon store page for the book, the author talks about being healthy whilst on a budget. They even make a note in the store page description, “this doesn't mean you have to settle for macaroni and cheese or packaged food.” And in the “Being on a Budget” page of the book, they talk about their annoyances with frozen meals, and prepackaged foods. Their intention, with this book, is to introduce people to fresh recipes, with a maximum of “five major ingredients” per recipe.
So I’ll talk about a few of those points separately, first talking about that “five major ingredients” notation. There’s often more than 5 ingredients per recipe, I’ll be blunt. So their primary theme of the book, which is the “5 ingredient” thing is not met. The second recipe of the book has seven ingredients listed, and I noticed numerous other recipes with more than five ingredients. I even saw a bunch for eight ingredients. What I think the author means by the “five major ingredients” is that they don’t count certain ingredients as ingredients. But they still count as ingredients to me.
Another issue I have with the earlier paragraphs is that premade ingredients stuff. The author specifies that you shouldn’t have to settle for packaged food. However, I noticed several ingredient listings for packaged food, that has been premade. Such as premade sauce; “1 cup basil pesto sauce” in “Italian Pasta Salad” and then later “1 (6-ounce) jar basil pesto (or make your own)” in “Pesto Chicken Bake”. Though they don’t give us a recipe on how to make our own. And then we have “15 ounces salsa” in “Fajitas”. In “Rigatoni with Turkey Meatballs”, they encourage us to use “1 pound ground turkey (or frozen Italian flavored meatballs)” and then in the instructions, “you can use any meatball recipe if you want to add spice”; so they don’t even provide an actual recipe to make these meatballs, and they don’t give us a relevant listing for putting herbs and spices in the ingredients list. For the same recipe, there’s a listing for “26 ounces tomato sauce”. For any of these, why can’t the author teach us how to make our own? After they went through so much effort to emphasise the problems with premade ingredients, why are they then encouraging us to use premade ingredients in the recipes they provide?
I’ll mention again that subheading for the book, which specifies that these are “Recipes for Everyday Meals”. However, I’ll make a note that some of these aren’t complete meals; some of these are just a portion to a meal. So I’ll use the “Chicken Tenders” recipe as an example here. This is just a meat portion to a meal. It doesn’t even include any vegetables. So you would likely have to prepare other aspects of food in order to go with this dish, in order to turn it into a meal. As is, this recipe has eight ingredients in the list, yet in order to turn it into a complete meal, you’d likely need to use a bunch more ingredients.
One of my regular issues with cookbooks is that authors fail to include details about ingredients. And this book is no different. From the very beginning, their first recipe includes eggs, but fails to tell us what size of egg we ought to be using. This is important because differing sized eggs can change the cook time and moisture levels in the recipes. There are a few other instances of them doing similar in the ingredient listings, such as failing to include sizes of the ingredients, and failing to include details on what types of ingredients. Such as, I mentioned earlier, they instruct us to use premade tomato sauces, but don’t include information on what types of sauces; there are hundreds of different types of tomato sauces. And there were sometimes portions where they didn’t say what type of flour to use (there are heaps of different types); which could make a huge difference in how the recipe turns out.
So, as mentioned earlier, there are preparation and cook times listed with each recipe. In my opinion, I feel like these are somewhat inaccurate. I noticed the first recipe was 5 minutes of preparation time, and then a few later had a preparation time of 3 minutes. Which… I feel like these are not accurate. Just finding the ingredients in my pantry and fridge, then getting them out would take a few minutes (even in the most organised kitchen), then you would need to take further preparation steps in order to get the mixtures ready for cooking.
As for the overall cooking times… Uhhhhh… No. Those aren’t accurate either. I’ll use an early recipe in the book, “Bacon Broccoli Crustless Quiche”, as an example (and it’s also another example of being seven ingredients, I’ll note). In the beginning of the recipe, it says it has an overall “Cooking time 55 minutes”. However, once I begin reading the recipe, it has us cooking the broccoli for an undisclosed amount of time, and then to cook the rest of the meal for “50-60 minutes”. So that’s already a possible overall cooking time of more than 60 minutes. And, for that same recipe, they also have an ingredient listing for “4 ounces bacon, cooked crispy”. So the expectation is that you cook this bacon prior to beginning the rest of this recipe, and so they don’t count that bacon cooking time into the overall cooking time listing. So it’s definitely got some inaccuracies to it. Going to a different recipe, “Mexican Lentil Salad”, they don’t list a cook time for the recipe, but list the ingredient “2 cups brown lentils, cooked”; so there’s definitely cook time… So why not list it? And why not give instructions including how to prepare this ingredient? Because with listings like this, the author does not give instructions on how to cook these things. And that can be bad for some cooks, who might not know how to cook or prepare certain ingredients like those (among others). So, if I didn’t mention, the preparation time for that lentil recipe is five minutes. I looked up recipes on how to cook these brown lentils, and many of them needed at least 20 to 25 minutes cook time. So, in order to prepare this ingredient, that cooking time is at least 20 minutes, minimum. On a similar note, that doesn’t take into account the other ingredients I might need to cook these lentils. So the dish already has an ingredient listing of eight ingredients, plus whatever other ingredients I would need to cook these lentils.
As for the serving amounts, there are a variety of listings. Some are two, some four, I noticed a four to eight… It just depends on the recipe. You could always consider halving, doubling, etc the recipe, if you need more or less servings. Or you could consider putting extra servings away as leftovers, if you have spare.
Another one of my regular considerations is whether the book would be good for beginners. And I think there’s a lot of lacking information in certain recipes. I mentioned earlier that “Mexican Lentil Salad”, which doesn’t include instructions on how to cook those lentils. Some cooks might not know how to prepare and/ or cook ingredients like that. Yet the author simply has us mix the cooked lentils with the other ingredients, rather than take the time to explain how to prepare those lentils. So, for certain cooks, one might need to look up a different recipe book and/ or tutorial on how to cook them, despite the fact that the information should have been included in this one. And I noticed a variety of other recipes that have basically the same thing; you’re expected to have the ingredients cooked prior to beginning this recipe, and then you’re expected to simply mix it together with the rest of the ingredients. So there’s huge chunks of missing information, I’ll be blunt. I think some cooks might have a hard time with some of these recipes.
As for vegetarians or vegans, I think there are definitely some recipes that might be suitable for you. Though the ones that aren’t could certainly be modified to meet your needs, if you substitute meat and other animal products for plant-based alternatives. Such as using plant-based eggs, plant-based cheese, etc. But, if you’re not sure about whether ingredients are originating from animals, I recommend doing research on it beforehand, just to double check.
Another question I ask myself when I read recipe books is, “are these meals that I would like to make for myself and / or my family?” And… For this book, I don’t think I would personally enjoy any of them, and I don’t think anyone in my family would like them either. They sound okay, but it’s often just not things that we would have for ourselves. However, there are definitely a lot of different varieties of food, and there would likely be something you might like to eat. If I were to want to make recipes listed in this book, I would likely look up a different recipe for them; just so that I can have a more accurate recipe, with a more complete ingredient listing and more details on how to actually make it.
I am somewhat disappointed with this book. Plus, the fact that it’s intended as a five ingredient recipe book, and the recipes often include more than that in the ingredient listings. And these often aren’t complete meals; just one portion of a meal. So overall, as you can tell by the length of my review, there are many things I take issue with in this book. This is definitely not a book I would rate highly; it doesn’t meet its own theme, and there is definitely misleading information with those inaccuracies in the preparation and cook times. This is definitely one of the more negative recipe books I have been through, and I’m glad that I got it when it was free during a promotional period. I would be annoyed if I had paid money for this.
February 20, 2021
Short but enticing family meals both budget-wise and tasteful. As always, just a few minutes with a Louise Davidson cookbook will have your mouth watering and your feet tracking their way to the kitchen. I don't think I would have made it this far through the madness we call southwestern US winter 2021 if I hadn't had new meals to make via Louise. I give her the credit - and the blame - for those extra pounds I carry around. Everything on here tasty and doable in Instant Pot or dutch oven.
Reviewed on Goodreads, AmazonSmile on February 20, 2021. Not available for review on B&N, BookBub, Kobo, or GooglePlay.
Reviewed on Goodreads, AmazonSmile on February 20, 2021. Not available for review on B&N, BookBub, Kobo, or GooglePlay.
August 3, 2024
Most recipes in this cookbook I wouldn't eat. Maybe 5 interest me. My biggest problem with it is that it's supposed to be a budget friendly cookbook and it absolutely is not. Most recipes will cost double or triple what she said she paid for it. I want to know where she shops.
December 19, 2025
Cheats Eats Easy to Convert to Vegan
I have to eat vegan. I am allergic to mammal meat & dairy. Being Vegan isn't cheap, so cutting corners and still making it tasty is a must!
Just substitute Vegan ingredients for beef, pork, etc.
I have to eat vegan. I am allergic to mammal meat & dairy. Being Vegan isn't cheap, so cutting corners and still making it tasty is a must!
Just substitute Vegan ingredients for beef, pork, etc.
May 17, 2022
Some good recipe but, not too many
April 13, 2023
Budget Friendly Recipes
This is a short book but it has a lot of Keto and Paleo recipes that are healthy for people.
This is a short book but it has a lot of Keto and Paleo recipes that are healthy for people.
February 16, 2024
Nothing amazing or original... but some quick cheap weekday recipes. Would be good for people new to cooking.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews