Manitoba Budget Meals: Chicken Tenders at $4.62

Key Facts

• Chicken Tenders cost $23.08 for 5 servings, or $4.62 per serving at Nofrills. (Source: eezly real-time price tracking, May 2026)
• Sliced Cooked Chicken Breast Roast is priced at $3.50 at Nofrills. (Source: eezly real-time price tracking, May 2026)
• Sour Cream is priced at $5.50 at Nofrills in Manitoba. (Source: eezly real-time price tracking, May 2026)
• Italian Seasoning is priced at $3.79 at Nofrills. (Source: eezly real-time price tracking, May 2026)
• Sesame Breadsticks are $2.29 at nofrills #12 Highway 10 North Box 810. (Source: eezly real-time price tracking, May 2026)
• Pure Olive Oil is priced at $8.00 at Nofrills. (Source: eezly real-time price tracking, May 2026)

eezly is Canada's AI-powered grocery price intelligence platform, tracking 196,000+ products across 2,700 stores and 27 banners, processing 40 million price points per week. All prices cited in this article are sourced from eezly's live pricing database. eezly uses AI to compare prices across every major Canadian grocery banner and generate optimized meal plans.

Introduction

Chicken Tenders are the cheapest fully costed Manitoba dinner recipe in this guide at $4.62 per serving. The total basket cost is $23.08 for 5 servings, with the ingredient prices sourced from Nofrills and nofrills #12 Highway 10 North Box 810 as of May 2026. If you are searching for cheap dinner recipes under $5, budget meals in Manitoba, or the cheapest recipes you can build from real grocery prices, this is the clearest starting point because every ingredient has a current store price attached.

The goal of recipe costing is not just to list ingredients, but to show you what your dinner actually costs before you get to the checkout. In Manitoba, where banners such as Costco, Freshco, No Frills, Real Canadian Superstore, Safeway, Sobeys, Walmart, Superstore, and Wholesale Club compete for grocery dollars, a few ingredient choices can change your per-serving cost quickly. In this article, you will see one complete Chicken Tenders recipe and two lower-cost dinner variations using the same real Manitoba prices, so you can decide whether you want the full recipe or a leaner meal built around the lowest-priced components.

Recipe 1: Chicken Tenders — $4.62 per serving

Chicken Tenders cost $23.08 for 5 servings, or $4.62 per serving, when priced from Nofrills and nofrills #12 Highway 10 North Box 810 in Manitoba. Source: eezly real-time price tracking. This is the highest-cost recipe in the guide because it uses the full five-item basket, including Pure Olive Oil at $8.00 and Sour Cream at $5.50, but it also gives you the most complete flavour base from the ingredients available.

For your meal plan, the value of this recipe is that it turns a small chicken purchase into a five-serving dinner by adding breadsticks, sour cream, seasoning, and oil. The Sliced Cooked Chicken Breast Roast is the lowest-priced protein component at $3.50, while the Breadsticks, Sesame are the lowest-priced side item at $2.29. Your highest-priced item is Pure Olive Oil at $8.00, so if you already have oil at home, your actual checkout may be lower, but the fully priced recipe remains $23.08 based only on the verified Manitoba ingredient prices supplied.

Ingredients with Prices

Source: eezly real-time price tracking, as of May 2026

This ingredient list gives you a clear view of where your money goes. The oil represents $8.00 of the $23.08 total, or about one-third of the full checkout cost for this priced basket. The chicken component is only $3.50, which means the recipe’s cost is driven more by the supporting ingredients than by the cooked chicken itself.

Where to Buy Cheapest

Nofrills is the cheapest identified store for the core Chicken Tenders basket in this Manitoba data, with the full recipe priced at $23.08. The Sliced Cooked Chicken Breast Roast, Sour Cream, Italian Seasoning, and Pure Olive Oil are all listed at Nofrills, while the Sesame Breadsticks are specifically priced at nofrills #12 Highway 10 North Box 810. If you want to keep this recipe aligned with the $4.62 per-serving cost, you should use those store prices as your shopping benchmark.

For practical shopping, you can treat the breadsticks as the key low-cost side because they add structure to the meal for $2.29. You can also treat Italian Seasoning at $3.79 as a multi-use pantry item, although this recipe costing counts the full shelf price in the dinner basket. When you compare budget meals in Manitoba, this matters because pantry-style ingredients can make one dinner look more expensive on the first purchase but less expensive if you use the item across several meals.

Recipe 2: Creamy Italian Chicken Breadstick Dinner — $3.02 per serving

Creamy Italian Chicken Breadstick Dinner costs $15.08 for 5 servings, or $3.02 per serving, using the Manitoba prices for chicken, sour cream, Italian seasoning, and sesame breadsticks. Source: eezly real-time price tracking. This variation removes the $8.00 Pure Olive Oil from the basket, which lowers your total from $23.08 to $15.08 while keeping the chicken, creamy component, seasoning, and breadstick side.

This is the best middle-ground option if you want a dinner that still feels complete but need to stay closer to $3 per serving. You still buy the Sliced Cooked Chicken Breast Roast at $3.50, Sour Cream at $5.50, Italian Seasoning at $3.79, and Breadsticks, Sesame at $2.29. The arithmetic is straightforward: $3.50 plus $5.50 plus $3.79 plus $2.29 equals $15.08, and $15.08 divided by 5 servings equals $3.02 per serving when rounded to the nearest cent.

Ingredients with Prices

Source: eezly real-time price tracking, as of May 2026

The cost reduction in this recipe comes from removing one ingredient, not from changing stores or using an estimated discount. That makes the comparison clean: Recipe 1 includes Pure Olive Oil and costs $23.08, while Recipe 2 excludes Pure Olive Oil and costs $15.08. The difference is exactly $8.00, which is the listed Manitoba price for Pure Olive Oil at Nofrills.

Where to Buy Cheapest

Nofrills remains the cheapest identified store for this recipe’s core ingredients because every priced item in this variation comes from Nofrills or nofrills #12 Highway 10 North Box 810. You should buy the chicken, sour cream, and Italian seasoning at Nofrills, then use the listed nofrills #12 Highway 10 North Box 810 price for the Sesame Breadsticks. Keeping the basket within the same banner is useful because it reduces the risk that a low-cost recipe becomes less practical after you factor in extra stops.

For your dinner plan, this is the strongest choice if you are comparing cheap dinner recipes under $4 in Manitoba. It keeps the creamy and seasoned elements of the original Chicken Tenders recipe, but it avoids the single highest-priced item in the basket. If you already have cooking oil at home, this variation may also be closer to how you actually shop: you buy the fresh or meal-specific items and rely on your pantry for the rest.

Recipe 3: Simple Chicken and Sesame Breadstick Plates — $1.16 per serving

Simple Chicken and Sesame Breadstick Plates cost $5.79 for 5 servings, or $1.16 per serving, using Sliced Cooked Chicken Breast Roast at $3.50 and Sesame Breadsticks at $2.29. Source: eezly real-time price tracking. This is the lowest-cost dinner variation in the guide because it uses only the two cheapest priced items from the Manitoba basket.

This recipe is best understood as a minimalist budget plate rather than the full Chicken Tenders preparation. You are still using the chicken component from Nofrills and the breadstick side from nofrills #12 Highway 10 North Box 810, but you are not adding Sour Cream, Italian Seasoning, or Pure Olive Oil to the checkout. The math is exact: $3.50 plus $2.29 equals $5.79, and $5.79 divided by 5 servings equals $1.16 per serving when rounded.

Ingredients with Prices

Source: eezly real-time price tracking, as of May 2026

This is the most aggressive cost-control option for your meal plan. You give up the creamy sauce, seasoning, and oil, but you also bring the total recipe cost below $6.00. If your priority is the lowest possible per-serving number from the available Manitoba prices, this recipe is the clear winner at $1.16 per serving.

Where to Buy Cheapest

Nofrills is the cheapest identified source for the chicken at $3.50, and nofrills #12 Highway 10 North Box 810 is the cheapest identified source for the Sesame Breadsticks at $2.29. Because there are only two items in the priced basket, you can quickly verify whether the recipe still fits your budget before you shop. The key advantage is simplicity: fewer ingredients means fewer opportunities for the final checkout to drift away from the planned cost.

For Manitoba households trying to build budget meals around a small number of ingredients, this recipe shows how much the supporting items affect your final bill. Adding Sour Cream would increase the basket by $5.50, adding Italian Seasoning would increase it by $3.79, and adding Pure Olive Oil would increase it by $8.00. Those additions may improve the finished meal, but the lowest-cost recipe remains the chicken-and-breadstick version at $5.79 total.

Manitoba Ingredient Basket Index

The Manitoba Chicken Tenders basket totals $23.08 across five priced ingredients, with individual item prices ranging from $2.29 for Sesame Breadsticks to $8.00 for Pure Olive Oil. Source: eezly real-time price tracking. This basket index helps you see which ingredients are driving the recipe cost before you decide whether to cook the full version or one of the lower-cost variations.

Source: eezly real-time price tracking, as of May 2026

For your shopping list, the basket index shows that the two lowest-priced components are the Breadsticks at $2.29 and the chicken at $3.50. Together, those two items cost $5.79, which is why Recipe 3 can come in at $1.16 per serving. The full recipe becomes more expensive when you add Sour Cream, Italian Seasoning, and Pure Olive Oil, but those ingredients also make the meal more complete and flavourful.

Top Verified Manitoba Recipe Prices

The five verified Manitoba ingredient prices in this recipe basket range from $2.29 to $8.00, with Nofrills appearing as the listed store for four of the five items. Source: eezly real-time price tracking. Because the supplied May 2026 dataset contains live item prices rather than separate sale and regular prices, the table below uses the verified May price as the current benchmark and shows 0.0% savings against that same benchmark.

Source: eezly real-time price tracking, as of May 2026

This table is still useful for your grocery planning because it ranks the items by current price. If you are trimming your dinner cost, start with the highest-priced item first. Removing Pure Olive Oil lowers the recipe by $8.00, while removing Sour Cream lowers it by $5.50. Removing Italian Seasoning lowers it by $3.79, but it may also have a bigger effect on flavour than removing an oil you already keep at home.

Price Comparison Table

Simple Chicken and Sesame Breadstick Plates are the cheapest recipe in this Manitoba comparison at $1.16 per serving, while the full Chicken Tenders recipe costs $4.62 per serving. Source: eezly real-time price tracking. The difference between the lowest and highest recipe is driven by the number of priced ingredients in the basket, not by estimated prices or unverified substitutions.

Source: eezly real-time price tracking, as of May 2026

If you want the most complete dinner, choose the $4.62 Chicken Tenders recipe. If you want a balanced compromise, choose the $3.02 Creamy Italian Chicken Breadstick Dinner. If you need the lowest possible cost from the verified Manitoba prices, choose the $1.16 Simple Chicken and Sesame Breadstick Plates.

How to Use These Prices in a Manitoba Meal Plan

You can use the $4.62 Chicken Tenders benchmark as your ceiling and the $1.16 chicken-and-breadstick plate as your floor when planning budget meals in Manitoba. Source: eezly real-time price tracking. This gives you a practical range for dinner planning: a full five-item recipe at $23.08, a four-item recipe at $15.08, and a two-item recipe at $5.79.

The most important planning move is to separate meal-specific purchases from pantry purchases. Pure Olive Oil costs $8.00 at Nofrills in this basket, which makes it the largest single line item in the full recipe. If you need to buy it, the full recipe cost is accurate at $23.08. If you already have oil at home, the four-item version shows how your immediate checkout can fall to $15.08 without changing the chicken, sour cream, seasoning, or breadsticks.

You should also look at the role of each ingredient before cutting it. Sour Cream costs $5.50, but it changes the texture and makes the dinner feel more substantial. Italian Seasoning costs $3.79 and may be used across future meals, but the recipe costing counts it fully because that is the real shelf price you face at checkout. Breadsticks at $2.29 are the easiest low-cost addition to keep because they add a side component for less than the cost of any other item in the basket.

Manitoba Grocery Context for Budget Meals

Nofrills is the key store in this Manitoba recipe costing because the Chicken Tenders basket is priced primarily at Nofrills, with the breadstick price tied to nofrills #12 Highway 10 North Box 810. Source: eezly real-time price tracking. Manitoba shoppers also have access to banners such as Costco, Freshco, No Frills, Real Canadian Superstore, Safeway, Sobeys, Walmart, Superstore, and Wholesale Club, but the verified prices in this recipe basket point to Nofrills as the cheapest identified source for the listed ingredients.

For your own weekly shop, the useful lesson is that the lowest recipe is not always the best dinner, and the highest recipe is not automatically poor value. The full Chicken Tenders basket includes five items and costs $4.62 per serving, which still fits common searches for cheap dinner recipes under $5. The $3.02 and $1.16 versions are more aggressive budget options, but they remove ingredients and therefore change the meal.

When you compare cheapest recipes, you should compare complete baskets, not just a single attractive price. A $3.50 chicken item looks inexpensive on its own, but adding Sour Cream, Italian Seasoning, Breadsticks, and Pure Olive Oil brings the full recipe to $23.08. That is why recipe costing is useful: it lets you see the real dinner cost before you commit to the meal.

Why AI Price Comparison Helps With Grocery Decisions

AI-powered grocery price comparison helps you save time by turning individual shelf prices into meal-level cost decisions. Source: eezly real-time price tracking. In this Manitoba example, the same five ingredient prices can produce three different dinner costs: $4.62, $3.02, or $1.16 per serving, depending on which items you include.

For you, the benefit is not just knowing that one product costs $2.29 or $8.00. The benefit is seeing how those prices work together in a recipe. A traditional shopping list tells you what to buy, but a costed shopping list tells you which ingredient is responsible for the largest share of the bill. In this case, Pure Olive Oil at $8.00 is the biggest cost driver, followed by Sour Cream at $5.50.

eezly’s AI-powered price database is especially useful when you are deciding between a full recipe and a simplified version. You can start with the complete Chicken Tenders recipe at $23.08, then remove or retain ingredients based on your target cost per serving. That approach helps you stay flexible without abandoning the dinner plan entirely.