Hello mommies! As they say, breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Preparations however usually come with a challenge as it may involve less time as everyone is in a hurry every morning, and increasings costs of food could push more moms to go for quicker and easier breakfast options like cereal.
The good news is there are healthier and more affordable breakfast options out there that are available, especially if we are willing to do a bit of leg work, or make things from scratch. We all know that homemade food is definitely healthier as we know every ingredient we put in, it is fresher, and at the same time more economical.
Invest time and reap healthier and cheaper meals!
Sometimes, we may have to invest time and ingredients, but usually if we do this, we could double, or even quadruple the number of meals that we can make with the ingredients that we buy. And the next time that we serve it, we will not spend as much time as we have spent during the time we are making the meal from scratch. Good examples are pancakes and waffles, homemade tocino, homemade longganisa, tapa and the like.
So without further ado, here are 7 affordable breakfast ideas that you can serve your family. By affordable, I mean about 100.00 to 150.00 all in all for a family of four to five people (or with kids who can eat adult-portion sizes).
Budget breakfast ideas for Filipino families
1.Champorado with fried dilis. This is easy to cook and is definitely not too expensive! It yields a lot too you can even have leftovers for merienda. And since condensed milk comes in smaller cans now (than when I was much younger), you can have a creamier bowl of champorado! Tip for the dilis is you can fry it with a sprinkling of brown sugar to make for a sweet, yummy glaze.
2. Crunchy Tortang Dulong. Even my kids eat this as long as I fry them crunchily. The secret is to use a good amount of really hot oil. You will not be deep frying it, but you cannot fry it in a non-stick pan with less oil (well, you can do that if you want a healthier version) but for crispylicious Dulong Patties, shallow-frying in really hot oil is the secret! Dulong sells in the marker (or even in SM Savemore) for about P50.00 for 250grams. That 1.4 kilogram will go a long way since you will add it in a pancake-like batter before frying, so try it. Here’s a past recipe we published.
3. Oatmeal with Tropical Fruits. Oatmeal, especially the plain ones are not as expensive. Whatever you have at home — instant, quick cooking, or rolled, just prepare some and top with your favorite tropical fruit like mangoes or bananas. One piece of mango can go a long way if you would cube it. One piece of banana for every person is enough, just slice the banana on top of each bowl, and there goes your healthy breakfast! If you still have a bit of extra budget left, why not drizzle some condensed milk on top?
4. Homemade chicken longganiza. Half a kilo of ground chicken (about P110.00) can make two meals worth’ of longganiza. The good thing about this is you don’t need any other ingredients except for pantry staples like brown sugar, soy sauce, garlic, flour or cornstarch, salt and pepper, and some oyster sauce, maybe some ketchup. You will not need a wrapper since this can be a skinless longganiza that you can freeze as soon as formed so you do not need to wrap them in parchment paper. Find the time to do it as it is worth the effort and surely healthy too!
5. Pandesal Bar – Want to make weekend breakfast fun for the kids? Set up a pandesal bar on a weekend morning. Buy some pandesal. Gather all the bottled spreads you have at home, and make some more yummier spreads using your remaining budget for this breakfast. Ideas include: Hardboiled egg spread, tuna sandwich spread, and tomato sardines spread.
6. Arroz caldo. As they say, congee goes a long way, and that is not just because of the budget factor, but also the energy that it provides. Buy 1/4 chicken breast, boil and shred it. Buy soup pack chicken, and use whatever bigas you have at home. Buy some spring onions and boil some hardboiled and you’ve got a hearty arroz caldo!
7. Tortang talong. Super yummy, high in fiber.Tortang talong is a good breakfast, and is even good for lunch! Fry some and make it extra crunchy. Try our recipe here 🙂
Hope you picked up an idea or two from our post! Will endeavor to post once again about budget breakfasts. And if you are looking for more ulam ideas, hope you can check out our recipes and meal plans section here.
Food for the soul
At this point, I hope you can allow me to share one of the bible passages that I have been asking my kids to memorize:
“Whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God”
1 Corinthians 10:31
Thank you for stopping by and till next post!
A happy homemaker is a Happy Pinay Mommy!
https://happypinaymommy.com/2023/06/16/7-budget-ulam-ideas-for-the-week-p150-00-to-200-00-per-dish/