10 MORE filling and frugal snack ideas
A little while back, I made a list of 10 frugal and filling snack ideas for a reader with hungry teenagers.
Since you can never really have too many snack ideas, here are ten more.
1. Yogurt
As long as you're not buying the sugary, low-fat varieties, yogurt can be a filling, inexpensive snack.
I make yogurt with whole milk so that it has plenty of fat in it, but you can also buy whole milk yogurt at the store.
Individual cups are pretty expensive per ounce, but the larger quart containers tend to be more frugal.
Of course, they come in less interesting flavors, but we like to stir jam or fruit into our yogurt.
And topping the bowl with homemade granola (try this recipe!) adds even more staying power to this snack.
2. Energy Balls
These are a little like eating oatmeal-peanut-butter cookie dough, except they have no raw egg.
They're very easy to mix up, they keep well in the fridge, and they're full of fat, protein, and fiber.
Here's the energy ball recipe that I use.
3. Cottage Cheese
I know not everyone is a big cottage cheese fan, but my kids love it! I buy the whole milk variety, and they eat it plain or topped with fruit/jam.
4. Leftovers
Snacks don't necessarily have to be usual snack foods. Encourage your kids to look in the fridge for leftovers if they're hungry.
5. Rice pudding
When we have leftover rice, I simmer it with milk (and usually some heavy cream) and cinnamon until it's a soft, pudding-ish consistency.
My kids top that with cinnamon sugar and enjoy it as a snack, warm or cold.
6. Anything with peanut butter
(or another nut butter if your kids are allergic to peanuts!)
A peanut butter sandwich, crackers topped with peanut butter, banana chunks topped with peanut butter, celery spread with peanut butter...anything with peanut butter is going to have some staying power because of the fat and protein.
7. Cheese toast
Several readers suggested topping buns or toast with slices of cheese and then broiling (or toasting in a toaster oven). Protein, fat, and, if you use whole grain bread, fiber!
8. Toast with cream cheese and jam
A little like cheese toast, but different! A hearty whole grain bread toasted and topped with cream cheese and jam is delicious, quick, and pretty filling.
Bonus sweet idea: graham crackers spread with cream cheese are super tasty, and as long as you can get good off-brand graham crackers, it's an inexpensive snack.
9. Hummus
I like to dip my veggies into hummus, which makes a non-filling raw veggie snack into something that stays with me.
10. Whole grain crackers
White flour crackers and pretzels don't have a lot of substance, but Triscuits (no sugar! 100% whole grain!), Wheat Thins, and the like offer the snacky appeal of carbs, but with fiber.
You can find pretty sweet sales on these sometimes, and of course, private label versions are inexpensive every day.
Aldi's version of Triscuits is excellent, by the way, and super affordable.
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Ok, you guys! I'm sure you've got more ideas to add to the 20 I came up with. Leave 'em in the comments.
My son loves rice cakes as a snack, even the plain ones! You can top them with cream cheese, cheese or nut butters. He will also eat salads for a snack. And tortilla chips and salsa is a good go to.
Those look great, although we have 3 out of the 5 of us in our house that are lactose intolerant....so snacks are typically a bit harder. Aldi has quite a few things that work, though you do have to search and read all the ingredient labels
I make homemade granola bars alot.
A similar energy ball, but more like peanut butter chocolate chip cookie dough.
Fig newtons- the Aldi version. They are less than $1/ container and my kids love them so much.
We do little containers of snack mixes for them, especially if we have to go to a store. Typically, it's pretzels or popcorn, a few marshmallows, a few chocolate chips or raisins. They think it's the best snack in the world!!
Some of mine aren't super healthy, but as much as the kids eat, I'll just take frugal over the healthy most times. I can make healthy dinners! 🙂
My children are notably deprived in the snack department. Most often they get raw nuts or cheese. Neither of those are cheap, but then, they also keep kids from being hungry again like five minutes later. I will always go for protein-dense and filling over cheap and more frequent snacks. When Daddy's in charge, though, they get to have rye crispbread with peanut butter. Oh, the indulgence. And when I'm feeling particularly fun, they can have ants on a log--celery with peanut butter in the middle part and raisins stuck in the peanut butter. See? So fun. 🙂
Hey, ants on a log IS a fun snack!
I am totally uncreative when it comes to snacks! I just give our baby unsweetened cereal and fruit as snacks, and he's been ok with it so far. Snacks are sometimes more expensive than real groceries!
Oh wait. The MOST fun? Popcorn, with butter and salt. I make it on the stove in a pot, because every time I try popping it in a paper bag in the microwave, it scorches. Plus I need to make a more than will fit in a small paper bag in my microwave. For some reason, though, I only ever make it in the winter. Somehow popcorn just seems appropriate on snowy days. Lucky for my children we get so many of those. They always get creamy tea (decaf tea with sugar and heavy cream) or homemade whole-milk cocoa with popcorn, which may be the real draw for them.
Along the toast with toppings ideas... A piece of toast with liver sausage and cheese. Yum. Works with any kind of bread product, really. Bagels, English muffins, pitas, etc. I especially like Ezekiel bread for toasting (less carbs and lots of chew) with the liver sausage from Aldi (so fresh and light tasting every time I've bought it) and pretty much any cheese we happen to have on hand, be it American slices, colby, cheddar, pepperjack, etc.
1. Bean dip: mix a can of refries and some salsa (Ro-Tel are the best, IMHO). Best dipped with tortilla chips, unfortunately for health and wallet.
2. Yogurt dip. Lipton dry soup mix is inexpensive or there are decent recipes to make your own. Tasty dipped with veggies or chips. A sweet yogurt dip is tasty on fruit, especially apples.
3. Smoothies. Although not so cheap, there are ways to mitigate the expense. I've had the most luck with asking supermarkets if they have unsellable bananas. My store usually has some in the back, will well me a copier-box full for $3 or so. Another is to use fruit scraps that are unsightly, not quite to tasty, or going but not yet rotten. Many folk freeze the scraps for future use.
4. Meal-in-a-muffin. There are dozens of variations of this, all can be frozen. The basic idea is to bake the food in a muffin tin, so it's hand-sized and easy to grab. You can mini-lasangas; mix just about anything into leftover potatoes (mashed is easiest); line the tin with rolled-out biscuit dough or wonton wrapper, the layer in leftovers.
5. Fritters. Mix just about anything with mashed potatoes - such as leftover meat, cooked chopped veggies, cheese scraps - then fry or bake. These can be frozen as well.
6. Cooked eggs on (whole grain) toast, maybe with some cheese. Protein, fat, some grains ... all good filling stuff. This is what I always had before an exam because I knew it would see me though to the end.
7. Hand pies. This category includes a wide variety of items including egg rolls, cornish pasties, pirogis, and spanikopita. Chopped leftover meat, veggies, potatoes, and gravy; put into pie dough, biscuit dough, or egg roll wrapper; sealed shut; and baked or fried. Can be frozen.
Wow! Those are some pretty awesome snacks!
Thanks for sharing!
My kids used to like whole wheat toast with peanut butter and raisins as a snack.
My Japanese-American friend grew up eating snacks of leftover rice pressed into little patties, sprinkled with a little soy sauce (their rice was cooked without salt) and broiled just until the outside of the patties were a little crunchy.
When I was a kid we used to sit around in the evenings and shell and eat pecans from my grandfather's pecan tree. They are very frugal when they are free.
Like Kristin, popcorn was always a favorite, and still is. I air pop it, but I add real butter and Himalayan salt afterwards.
I like to make pizza bites out of the Triscuit type crackers by adding a dollop of pizza sauce and some cheese.
Can you microwave this or do you broil it?
Thanks for the great ideas, Kristen!
Some of my favorite filling snacks include, trail mix, cheese and crackers (string cheese and Triscuits), banana with peanut butter and honey or crackers with cream cheese and jam.
I also love cottage cheese with fruit and some cinnamon sprinkled on top (although the rest of my family does not enjoy that one).
Does anyone have a good hummus recipe that does not contain TAHINI? Thank you
So this isn't hummus, but this white bean dip is so good! https://www.budgetbytes.com/2014/02/everything-white-bean-dip/ and no tahini! 🙂
Technical point (because I'm a geek): if it doesn't have tahini, it's not hummus. It's chickpea dip.
And now the helpful answer (because I try not to be a jerk): use a hummus recipe, but substitute a mix of oil and water - or oil, water, and mashed roast garlic - for the tahini.
You can use peanut butter, almond butter or any nut/seed butter instead of tahini. I've done this and it works fine. You can also just leave the tahini out (but you may need to adjust the seasonings).
I never use tahini. I just leave it out. No one seems to notice.
We seem to go through a lot of cheese sticks, hummus with pretzel thins, cheesy popcorn from Dollar Tree, and fruit around here. (:
Mom can hard boil a bunch of eggs early in the week, and peel and refrigerate them. They make a quick, healthy snack or they are good to add to beans and pickle relish to make bean salad or to add to tuna plus pickle relish to make tuna salad, etc.
I love yogurt! I usually need to have sweetened yogurt. Otherwise it'd be a bit too sour for me. Our family rarely buys snacks. We just have 3 main meals a day and eat fruit.
For our baby, I usually get him fruit (i.e. apples, bananas) and unsweetened cereal as snacks. I want our baby to have as little sugar in his system as possible. He doesn't know what candy or ice-cream is because we've never given it to him. I hope it will stay that way until he finds our what those sweets are!
Cottage cheese is amazing stuff. I admit to eating the stuff as a dip with chips.
I like cottage cheese on toast or matzo.
My daughter loves to eat leftover rice for a snack! She loves potatoes too, but those are leftover less frequently in my house. I buy lara bars in bulk for a healthy on the go snack. They are expensive but only have 3 or 4 ingredients. Apples with peanut butter are popular this time of the year. I also like to make banana or pumpkin bread and freeze it in smaller portions for an after school treat.
Homemade granola with milk is a winner too! I use coconut milk for myself but the kids will use cow milk. Also, leftover frozen waffles or pancakes popped in the toaster are usually eaten up at my house too.
We used to have curry potato on crackers for an afternoon snack. We learned this from our lovely Sri Lankan neighbour. Yum. Easy too. When cooking a curry add some extra potato and eggs can be done too. Simple boil them, peel and pierce them a few times and through in the pot about 20 mins before the stew is finished.
We eat apple slices with peanut butter, homemade uncrustables, top a plain cored apple with cinnamon and crushed grahams or nuts then bake til soft, homemade cinnamon toast, and veggie dip made with greek yogurt then served with celery or carrots. As for leftovers, I often spoon leftover mac&cheese into single serving cups and put them in the fridge for breakfast or a snack. Who decided what we are supposed to eat as breakfast food, anyway?!? When I make pancakes or waffles it's easy enough to make a few extra and freeze them then the kids can just grab them after school and pop it in the toaster and if you add fruit, such as aging bananas, it's even more healthy. Frozen applesauce, such as the strawberry flavor one you by at the Dollar tree in the little cups, takes almost like sorbet when thawed slightly. Yogurt can be frozen for a treat similar to ice cream and we especially like the ones that come in a "popsicle like" squeezable tube. My kids also love pepperoni slices with cheese and pickles. Oh, and frozen blueberries poured into a cup of plain milk turns into a slushy treat when stirred. That's my kid tested favorites.
Oooh, I haven't made energy balls in a while! Those are sinfully delicious. 🙂 The nuts and oats in the recipe I use tend to keep me full while satisfying sugar cravings.
Every couple of weeks, I make a big batch of little (2 inch diameter) pancakes. I freeze them on a cookie sheet and then store them frozen in Ziploc bags. These make great snacks. I just warm them up in a frying pan (they are too small for the toaster) and eat them with butter or almond butter. Yum.
I second Carole: boiled eggs are cheap and have the sticking power of protein. I also like (brace yourself) a cup of hot, whole milk. I grew up in Alaska, so I got to like anything that warmed me up.:-) If I'm craving something sweet, I can use that hot milk to make homemade hot cocoa, still fairly frugal, but I cut the sugar to one-third of the recipe because regular hot cocoa is way sweet!
I like to make a dip of 16 oz. cream cheese, 16 oz. cottage cheese, ranch seasoning to taste; mix well then add 1 lb. ham cut in small pieces. Makes a delicious snack to eat with crackers, pretzels or veggies! Kind of like a cheese ball but I just dump it all in a bowl if it's just for us to snack on at home.
It's funny--I just made Greek yogurt overnight and it's sitting in my fridge right now, draining the whey, which I use when I bake bread. I have my Instant Pot full of beef bones for bone broth, and I'll add some meat and veggies to that later for dinner.
My only problem is, it's just me and my husband at home, although my older daughter lives within just a few miles. (Total aside--She went to Le Cordon Bleu and is trained as a fancy chef, but likes Mom's cooking because it's made with love!) My younger daughter is at college and rarely comes home this time of year because she's in band, but I have plenty of stuff to take down once in a while!
I've started cooking every weeknight, then having a smorgasbord of leftovers on Friday or Saturday. That helps get rid of the excess!
Lightly salted peanuts mixed with raisins, sweet and salty but healthier than chocolate covered pretzels.
Cheese and sliced fruit on a whole grain cracker, especially cheddar with apples or gruyere with grapes.
Annie's Cheddar Bunnies! Love, love, love them but I wait until they are on sale or I get an email coupon.
Homemade popcorn with Cabot Cheddar Shake, yummy with less fat than using real cheese.
Cucumber, tomato, and onion salad with a splash of Italian dressing.
Martin's Handmade Pretzels, not frugal but so darn good!
Okay, this is sort of gross (so my husband says) but I like to nuke a bowl of cottage cheese, drain off the whey, stir in a tablespoon of pizza sauce and eat it. No chips, nothing, just warm cottge cheese with pizza sauce.
Ha! When I was a kid one of my favorite snacks was cottage cheese & ketchup. Sounds disgusting to me now, but I loved it then!
We used to love cottage cheese and applesauce with cinnamon on top. Wouldn't touch it now.
I love cottage cheese but got to have a lot of black pepper on it. An inexpensive snack is to make your own tortilla chips from shells and just bake them- I also sometimes do this using egg roll wrappers too. You can serve with homemade dip/salsa or even buy it.
Love all of these ideas!
One of my favorites is oatmeal bars - they're great for taking on long bike rides. I make a big batch and then cut and freeze the individual bars.
My kids eat string cheese, popcorn, fruit (banana/nutella or peanut butter is a favorite), peanuts, pb crackers, and yogurt are their go-to snacks. They also love fruit snacks, but I don't buy them often.
Forgot the granola bars!
I like that you put leftovers on the list. If someone's is really working on a tight budget, just eat whatever's leftover from that day's lunch. If you're already making your meals cheap and healthy, then it's a cheap healthy snack and you're avoiding wasting it.
My grocery store has big tubs of plain yogurt at 2/$4, so we always have some at home. I mix frozen blueberries or strawberries into it before I leave for work, and by lunchtime they're defrosted and make the yogurt nice and naturally sweet.
I can't believe how much hidden sugar is in our food!
I don't see this one mentioned, but air popped popcorn with a sprinkling of salt and a few grates of fresh parmesan is our go-to snack. I shake a few generous dashes of green Tabasco for added zip.