$1.13per plate
Casseroles, priced per plate
12 Casserole Recipes Under $2 a Plate
12 real Budget Plates casseroles - 10 dinners and 2 side dishes - built from ordinary grocery-store ingredients and baked in one dish. Every one shows its total time, servings and cost per plate before you start, and not one of them needs a can of condensed soup.
Browse the 12 casseroles
12casserole recipes
$1.37median cost a plate
$0.56cheapest serving
0cans of condensed soup
A casserole is the cheapest honest way to feed a table: one pound of meat, something starchy to carry it, a sauce to hold it together, and a dish that goes straight from oven to table. These 12 all come in under $2 a serving - the median is $1.37 a plate and the cheapest is $0.56 - and every sauce here is made from scratch rather than poured from a can. Numbered 1-12 for reference; it's a curated collection, not a ranking.
The Sunday-dinner shelf
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Beef & chicken casseroles
One pound of meat, a starch, and a dish: this is how a casserole feeds six for the price of a sandwich. The pot pie gets a biscuit lid, the cottage pie a mashed-potato one, and the tater tot casserole the crispiest lid of all.
$1.24per plate
$1.5per plate
$1.56per plate
$1.78per plate
$1.88per plate
Cheapest by the plate
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Pasta casseroles
Pasta is the cheapest way to fill a baking dish, and these four prove it - two of them are the least expensive recipes in the whole collection. Boil, stir, top with cheese, bake. See the rest of our pasta recipes if you want a skillet instead of a dish.
$0.82per plate
$0.87per plate
$1.57per plate
$1.62per plate
Cook once, eat twice
Build a week around one casserole
A 9x13 dish that serves eight is two dinners for a family of four. The Budget Meal Planner turns the recipes you pick into one shopping list with a running total, so you know what the week costs before you get to the store.
For the potluck table
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Side-dish casseroles
Not every casserole is a dinner. These two are the dishes people actually ask you to bring - and at 56 and 68 cents a serving they are the cheapest way to turn up with something warm.
$0.56per plate
$0.68per plate
Casseroles on a budget
How to use this collection
What makes a casserole a casserole
One dish, assembled and baked as a single thing: a protein or a vegetable, something starchy to carry it, a sauce to bind it, and usually cheese or a crisp lid on top. That is the test used to build this page - a sheet-pan dinner or a plain baked chicken breast is not a casserole, however good it is.
You do not need a can of condensed soup
None of the 12 recipes here use one. 12 of 12 build their sauce from scratch or skip it entirely, and six of them make a simple roux - butter, flour, milk - in the same pan you already dirtied. It costs less than the can, has no condensed-soup aftertaste, and takes about four minutes.
Why casseroles are cheap
A casserole stretches one pound of meat across six to ten servings by leaning on pasta, rice or potatoes, which are the cheapest calories in the store. That is the whole trick: the median plate here is $1.37, and the two side dishes come in under 70 cents a serving.
Make it ahead, freeze the rest
All 12 of these carry freezer instructions on their own recipe page. Most freeze best baked and cooled, in portions; the cottage pie and the baked ziti can be assembled and frozen unbaked, which is the useful trick when you want a dinner waiting rather than leftovers.
The dish itself
Most of these are built for a 9x13-inch baking dish - the standard rectangle that comes in glass, ceramic or metal. Glass and ceramic hold heat and brown the edges more gently; metal heats fastest. A deep 9x13 is the only pan this page assumes, and each recipe names the dish it wants.
How we work out the cost
Every price is the sum of that recipe's ingredient costs at typical U.S. grocery prices, divided by the servings the recipe makes - not a checkout total. The full method is on how we calculate costs.
Good to know
Casserole FAQ
What counts as a casserole on this page?
A dish that is assembled in a baking dish and baked as one unified thing - a protein or vegetable, a starch, a sauce, and usually a cheese or crisp topping. There are 12 of them here: 10 dinners and 2 side dishes. Recipes that merely bake in a dish, like stuffed peppers or baked oatmeal, are not included.
What is the cheapest casserole here?
The corn casserole at about $0.56 a serving, and the hashbrown casserole is next at $0.68 - both side dishes. The cheapest full dinner is the tuna noodle casserole at $0.82 a plate. Every recipe on this page costs under $2 a serving, and the median is $1.37.
Can I make these casseroles ahead of time?
Yes - all 12 include storage and freezer instructions on their recipe pages. The cottage pie and baked ziti can be assembled and frozen before baking; the rest freeze best after baking, cooled and portioned. Follow the instructions on the individual recipe, since thawing and reheating differ by dish.
Do I need cream-of-mushroom soup for these?
No. None of these recipes call for a can of condensed soup. Six of them make a quick roux instead - melt butter, whisk in flour, add milk - which is cheaper than the can and takes a few minutes in the pan you are already using.
How many people does a casserole feed?
These serve between 4 and 10 people. Most are built for six in a 9x13-inch dish; the tater tot and corn casseroles serve eight, and the hashbrown casserole stretches to ten, which is why it works for a potluck.
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