Keto Budget Meal Plan: A Handy Guide For Beginners

(Last Updated On: May 7, 2019)

Think Keto is expensive? It doesn’t really have to. A popular high-fat, low-carb diet, Keto has often been regarded to be a pricey initiative for someone who wanted to lose weight. With the right Keto budget meal plan, however, one can easily enjoy a hearty meal without deviating from your macros and nutritional mileage. How to do it?

First Stop: Macros Calculation

Before crafting any budget meal plan for keto, always start calculating your macros. It’s just virtually impossible to tailor-cut a budget-friendly meal that will suit everyone’s requirement as each person can have different constitution like say current weight, height, activity level, and so on. The idea is to work around 1200 calories per day and adding more fat to meals. For example, adding at least 2 tablespoons of healthy oil or fat per day will guarantee a topnotch fat:protein ratio essential to your keto diet’s roaring success. Here’s a cool link on auto-calculating your macro requirement.

 

Budget Keto Shopping List

Once you’re on the know of how much macronutrients you need that’s well within the boundary of your keto diet, it’s time to build up a budget-friendly shopping list. This list can change from time to time and highly dependent on what meals you wish to prepare. Though you may want to shop on a daily basis for freshness, doing it at least once a week will be tops. The idea is to keep your menu for the day, week or month as simple as possible. Remember that the fewer ingredients you will needs means less spending, too. Some of the important points to remember when building a budget keto shopping list:

• Check in-season vegetables and buy them fresh
• Buy whole chicken instead of choice cuts (carcasses can be boiled to make broth).
• Subscribe to local grocery deals or look for deals in retail sites like Amazon, Target and the likes. Stock up on ingredients you tend to use a lot like say cheese, olive oil, nuts and seeds, and so on.

Want to save more on your shopping list? Have your own garden. Aero gardening for lettuce, tomatoes, herbs and spices right at your own kitchen’s windowsill, for instance, is an excellent idea to save money, effort from braving a crowded grocery, and to ensure freshness and quality of your ingredients.

 

Cheap Low Carb Lunch Ideas

 

Lunch in Five

 

Prepping breakfast is no biggie when it comes to the ketogenic diet. The harder part, however, is lunch. This midday meal can make or break one’s resolve in sticking to the diet hence, appropriate focus must be done when crafting a keto budget meal plan for lunch. First stop– meat and eggs. The easiest ingredients to find and often, the easier foods to prepare, making an avocado-egg salad can give a creamy fat-fueled boost to your midday meal. Bacon is also not just for breakfast. You can make a bacon and olive quiche for a to-go lunch or perhaps, a bacon-spinach frittata. Meaty beefy spiced meatballs can also be prepped ahead of time and then, baked or deep-fried in vegetable oil. Making keto fish cakes is also an excellent option. You can check out for more budget-savvy keto lunch recipes with few ingredients via this book– Keto in Five (Book 2).

 

Cheap Keto Meals for Family

 

Instant Pot LUX60V3 V3 (6 Qt)

 

Keeping up with the family’s taste while staying on a budget can be tough even to the most experienced Moms. But there are actually family-friendly keto meals that are affordable without tasting bland or boring. Think: tuna casserole, hamburger gratin, or omelets. Investing in a slow cooker like the 6-in-1 Instant Pot above allows you more liberty in prepping meals for the whole family while sticking consistently to your keto macros. You can simply program this pot to slowly cook keto-friendly Mexican shredded beef or butter chicken. Warm leftover low-carb chili from last night and so on. Salads like low-carb taco salad or chicken-cucumber-avocado salad also make delicious recipes for a meal that the whole family will enjoy. You may also want to check out this book from Maria Emmerich which features dairy-free ketogenic recipes made up of classic family favorites that are easy to prepare and low in carb.

 

Cheap Keto Fastfood

 

In a perfect world, cooking keto meals are best done right at the comfort of one’s home. But what about busybodies who rarely have time to even boil or poach an egg? Are there are fast food centers which can cater to your healthy keto meal plan in mind? You’ll be amazed to note though that most fast foods have keto-friendly meals for you to enjoy– but with a few tweaks. McDonald’s grilled chicken sandwich or bunless burger, for instance, make a scrumptious low-carb keto-friendly that’s easy also to the pocket. So does vast array of salads from Chipotle, sandwiches from Jersey Mike’s, chicken from KFC, and so many more. Definitely, you can eat anywhere so long as you know what macros you need. When eating fast food, staying in ketosis can mean:

 

• No more buns, pancakes, hash browns and so on
• no more breaded or fried things
• Go for grilled, steamed or fresh.
• Go for meat, cheese, veggies.
• Go for salads but check dressing used.

 

Indeed, there’s so much you can do when prepping a keto budget meal plan. Whether you cook meals right at the comfort of your home or do a rush drive via a friendly fast food or diner, knowing what you want matters a lot. As always, it’s all a matter of mindset and attitude– and planning, too!