9 Organic Meals from Costco for under $100

97 Comments / By Erin Chase / July 9, 2014 / Food Shopping

This is a guest post by Erin Chase, founder of 5DollarDinners.com and author of The $5 Dinner Mom Cookbook series.

9 Organic Meals from Costco on 100 Days of #RealFood

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Since moving to Texas in 2012, I find myself shopping at Costco more and more. I’m not sure if it’s because my family is growing (I’m feeding 4 boys, ages 9 to 18 months), or if it’s because I’m now a full time work from home mom-blogger-consultant, or the fact that there is only 1 major grocery store chain in my town…which results in not so fabulous sale prices because there is no direct competition nearby.

With all of these factors combined together, I found myself working hard to make the most of the bulk ingredients I was purchasing each month from Costco. And I quickly discovered that I was in a game of ‘mix and match’ with ingredients like chicken breast, ground beef, stew beef cubes, canned tomatoes, baby carrots and others.

It became a challenge to use up the fresh produce before it went bad, to package up some of the ingredients together into slow cooker packs and toss into the freezer, or double up on some meals and stash the doubled portion in the freezer for a future meal.

Last September, I pulled together all my favorite ‘mix and match’ meals using the ingredients I regularly purchase at Costco. I priced out this list and was shocked to find that I could make 20 meals within a $150 budget. That’s $7.50 per meal!

I was thrilled with this price point because it was close to $5, but not so high that it was going to break the bank…plus this also includes higher prices that you pay for higher quality meats at Costco as compared to grocery store sale prices. I shared the list on $5 Dinners, and it quickly went viral and has been seen by millions since. So I created a second plan, and most recently, a gluten free meal plan.

{Complete Listing of all my 20 Meals from Costco Meal Plans.}

So when Lisa asked me to pull together a similar list using their organic products, I gladly agreed! While our family doesn’t personally eat 100% organically, I do squeeze as many organic ingredients into my grocery cart as my budget allows. Thankfully, Costco has a great inventory of organic ingredients, and many of them are priced competitively to conventional ingredients at the regular grocery store.

I have shared an Organic Ingredient Price List for Costco, including my recommendations for which organic ingredients to purchase from Costco when you’re on a tight budget. For example, the price per meal/per pound on frozen organic vegetables is half as much as frozen organic vegetables at the local grocery store in my area; and almost the same price per meal/per pound as conventional frozen vegetables.

Therefore, I recommend getting frozen organic vegetables from Costco. Check out the list for other organic ingredient prices and my recommendations for those on a tight budget.

Here’s how this plan works:

I’ve pulled together a list of 9 recipes that call for organic ingredients that you can find at Costco. I expect that you would have some of the staple ingredients like olive oil, spices, and baking supplies already in your pantry or fridge. These smaller amount ingredients and pantry staple ingredients are not figured into the total cost from Costco. I have outlined below what organic ingredients you’ll need for each recipe.

On the shopping list I have indicated the total price, as well as the number of meals you will need to make with that ingredient. At quick glance, you’ll notice that there will be quite a few additional ingredients leftover after these 9 meals have been made. I’ll give you a few ideas of ways to use up those extra ingredients.

I have included 2 totals for you…one is the total for all the ingredients, including the items/ingredients that you won’t use in the plan. The second “prorated” total is based on the price for only the ingredients used for the meals in the plan.