Ontario Cheap Dinner Recipe: $7.76 Chicken Meal

Key Facts

• Chicken Rice Pasta and Vegetables costs $46.58 total in Ontario. (Source: eezly real-time price tracking, June 2026)
• The recipe serves 6 people at $7.76 per serving. (Source: eezly real-time price tracking, June 2026)
• Chicken Breast Fillets cost $16.99 at Food Basics 780 Talbot St. (Source: eezly real-time price tracking, June 2026)
• Broccoli costs $4.49 at Fortinos in the priced Ontario basket. (Source: eezly real-time price tracking, June 2026)
• Medium Egg Noodles cost $3.49 at Food Basics 780 Talbot St. (Source: eezly real-time price tracking, June 2026)
• Canned Fava costs $1.59 at Foodbasics, the lowest individual item price in the basket. (Source: eezly real-time price tracking, June 2026)

Introduction: The Cheapest Ontario Dinner Is $7.76 Per Serving

Chicken Rice Pasta and Vegetables is the cheapest complete dinner recipe in this Ontario pricing set at $7.76 per serving. The full ingredient basket costs $46.58 and serves 6 people, using a mix of protein, noodles, vegetables, cream, beans, and pickled onions from Food Basics 780 Talbot St., Fortinos, and Foodbasics. [Source: eezly real-time price tracking].

For your weekly dinner planning, this matters because the recipe gives you a complete meal structure rather than a single discounted item. You are not just buying chicken or noodles in isolation; you are pricing a full dinner that includes Chicken Breast Fillets at $16.99, Broccoli at $4.49, Celery at $2.99, Snow Peas at $4.99, Sweet Green Peppers at $2.16, 18% Cooking Cream at $5.89, Canned Fava at $1.59, Medium Egg Noodles at $3.49, and Pickled Onions at $3.99. The result is a practical Ontario budget meal that can work for a family dinner, planned leftovers, or meal-prep portions.

The key takeaway is straightforward: if you want one fully priced dinner from the available Ontario data, your best documented option is Chicken Rice Pasta and Vegetables at $7.76 per serving. You should use Food Basics 780 Talbot St. for the highest-value core items in this basket, especially the chicken, cooking cream, snow peas, and egg noodles. Fortinos contributes two vegetable prices in the basket, while Foodbasics supplies lower-cost supporting items such as celery, canned fava, and pickled onions.

Recipe 1: Chicken Rice Pasta and Vegetables — $7.76 Per Serving

Chicken Rice Pasta and Vegetables costs $46.58 total for 6 servings, or $7.76 per serving, in Ontario. The meal’s largest cost driver is Chicken Breast Fillets at $16.99 from Food Basics 780 Talbot St., while the lowest-priced ingredient is Canned Fava at $1.59 from Foodbasics. [Source: eezly real-time price tracking].

This recipe works as a budget dinner because it stretches a higher-cost protein across six servings with noodles, vegetables, cream, and beans. You get a balanced plate structure: chicken for protein, egg noodles for the filling base, broccoli and peppers for vegetables, celery and snow peas for texture, cooking cream for sauce, and canned fava for extra substance. When you divide the $46.58 basket across six servings, your cost per plate comes to $7.76, which keeps the meal under the common “cheap dinner recipes under $8” search threshold.

For preparation, you can cook the Medium Egg Noodles separately, sauté the chicken and vegetables, and combine them with the 18% Cooking Cream to create a simple sauce. The Canned Fava can be folded in near the end so it warms through without breaking down. Pickled Onions add acidity, which helps balance the cream and chicken. If you are meal prepping, you can portion the finished recipe into six containers and use the $7.76 figure as your per-serving benchmark.

Ingredients with Prices

The full ingredient list is priced from Ontario stores in June 2026. You should treat these as basket-level prices for a complete dinner rather than price-per-gram comparisons, because the available dataset provides item prices, store names, and total recipe costing.

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

This ingredient table shows where your money goes. Chicken Breast Fillets account for the most expensive line item at $16.99, so your total recipe cost is most sensitive to the protein price. The next highest item is 18% Cooking Cream at $5.89, followed by Snow Peas at $4.99 and Broccoli at $4.49. If you are trying to keep your basket predictable, those four items deserve the most attention before checkout.

Where to Buy Cheapest

Food Basics 780 Talbot St. is the most important store for this recipe because it supplies four of the basket’s core items: Chicken Breast Fillets at $16.99, Snow Peas at $4.99, 18% Cooking Cream at $5.89, and Medium Egg Noodles at $3.49. Those items form the backbone of the dish, covering the main protein, starch, sauce, and one vegetable. [Source: eezly real-time price tracking].

Fortinos is used for Broccoli at $4.49 and Sweet Green Peppers at $2.16 in the Ontario basket. Foodbasics contributes Celery at $2.99, Canned Fava at $1.59, and Pickled Onions at $3.99. If you are shopping this recipe exactly as priced, you would use a multi-store approach; however, your practical route depends on how close these banners are to your home, workplace, or usual errands.

Your best strategy is to prioritize the highest-cost items first. Because chicken is $16.99, confirming that price before you shop has a larger effect than comparing a $1.59 can of fava. You should then check the cream, snow peas, broccoli, and noodles, since those prices also meaningfully shape the final $46.58 basket. For a quick planning tool, you can compare current grocery prices at https://eezly.com/deals or build meals from live prices at https://eezly.com/meal-plans.

Recipe 2: Creamy Chicken Egg Noodle Skillet — $7.76 Per Serving

Creamy Chicken Egg Noodle Skillet uses the same priced Ontario ingredient basket and therefore costs $46.58 total, or $7.76 per serving, when prepared for 6 servings. The price remains anchored by Food Basics 780 Talbot St. items, including Chicken Breast Fillets at $16.99, 18% Cooking Cream at $5.89, and Medium Egg Noodles at $3.49. [Source: eezly real-time price tracking].

This version is useful when you want a skillet-style dinner rather than a mixed pasta-and-rice-style plate. You can cook the chicken, celery, snow peas, and green peppers together, then add the cream and cooked egg noodles to create a single-pan meal. The broccoli can be steamed separately or added to the skillet in smaller pieces. Pickled onions should be used at the end because their acidity cuts through the richness of the cream.

For your budget, the important point is that changing the cooking method does not change the documented basket cost. You still have a complete $46.58 meal with six servings. That makes this a strong candidate for budget meals Ontario searches because it gives you a familiar comfort-food format while preserving the same real-world price structure. If you want the cheapest recipes that still feel like a proper dinner, a creamy noodle skillet is often easier to serve than a collection of separate components.

Ingredients with Prices

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

You should cook this version in stages to protect both texture and value. Start with the chicken because it is the most expensive ingredient and should be cooked evenly. Add celery and peppers next, then cream and noodles, and finish with snow peas and pickled onions. This keeps the vegetables from becoming overcooked and helps the meal feel more generous across six servings.

Where to Buy Cheapest

Food Basics 780 Talbot St. again carries the highest-impact items for this skillet version. You should focus on Chicken Breast Fillets at $16.99, 18% Cooking Cream at $5.89, Medium Egg Noodles at $3.49, and Snow Peas at $4.99. Those four products define the dish’s protein, sauce, starch, and vegetable crunch.

Fortinos supplies the Broccoli at $4.49 and Sweet Green Peppers at $2.16, making it the store source for two important vegetable components. Foodbasics supplies Celery at $2.99, Canned Fava at $1.59, and Pickled Onions at $3.99. If you are choosing only one store stop, you may accept some variation in your final basket, but the documented cheapest-store map shows how the $46.58 costing is built.

For a more efficient shop, you can group the list by store before you leave. Your Food Basics 780 Talbot St. list should include chicken, snow peas, cream, and noodles. Your Fortinos list should include broccoli and green peppers. Your Foodbasics list should include celery, fava, and pickled onions. That structure gives you the clearest path to reproducing the $7.76 per-serving result.

Recipe 3: Chicken, Fava and Vegetable Noodle Bowls — $7.76 Per Serving

Chicken, Fava and Vegetable Noodle Bowls cost $46.58 total, or $7.76 per serving, using the same Ontario grocery prices from June 2026. This bowl-style preparation gives you another way to use the documented basket without adding unpriced ingredients. [Source: eezly real-time price tracking].

This format is especially useful if you want planned leftovers. You can cook the noodles, chicken, broccoli, celery, snow peas, green peppers, and fava, then portion them into six bowls. The 18% Cooking Cream can be used as a light sauce, while the Pickled Onions can be added after reheating. Because each portion is built from the same basket, you can continue to use $7.76 as your per-serving benchmark.

From a personal finance perspective, portioning is what makes this recipe valuable. A $46.58 grocery basket can feel expensive at checkout, but it becomes more manageable when you divide it into six dinners. If you buy lunch or dinner away from home during the week, having six prepared servings changes the decision point. You are not simply buying groceries; you are creating six ready meals priced from real Ontario store data.

Basket Index: Ontario Staple Prices for the Recipe

The recipe basket is led by chicken at $16.99, with supporting ingredients ranging from $1.59 to $5.89. Food Basics 780 Talbot St. carries several of the highest-impact items, while Fortinos and Foodbasics fill out the vegetable and pantry components. [Source: eezly real-time price tracking].

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

This basket index is not a theoretical grocery list; it is the actual set of priced ingredients used to calculate the $46.58 dinner. You can see that the most expensive item, Chicken Breast Fillets, is at Food Basics 780 Talbot St., while the lowest item, Canned Fava, is at Foodbasics. The spread between those two items is $15.40, which shows why protein selection is usually the biggest factor in dinner costing.

You should also notice that vegetables are not all priced from one banner in this basket. Fortinos has Broccoli at $4.49 and Sweet Green Peppers at $2.16, while Food Basics 780 Talbot St. has Snow Peas at $4.99 and Foodbasics has Celery at $2.99. For your planning, this means the cheapest recipe is not necessarily the result of one-store shopping. It is the result of matching the right items to the right banners.

Top Priced Items and Best Values in the Basket

The highest-priced item in the Ontario basket is Chicken Breast Fillets at $16.99 from Food Basics 780 Talbot St., while the lowest-priced item is Canned Fava at $1.59 from Foodbasics. The difference between those two items is $15.40, making chicken the most important price to verify before you shop. [Source: eezly real-time price tracking].

Because no regular prices are included in the provided dataset, this table ranks the top basket values by actual tracked price rather than advertised savings percentage. That is the appropriate way to compare the available data without inventing sale claims. You still get a practical view of which items are inexpensive fillers, which items are moderate-cost vegetables, and which items drive the final dinner cost.

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

For your cart, the best low-cost volume helpers are Canned Fava at $1.59, Sweet Green Peppers at $2.16, and Celery at $2.99. These items help build the meal without pushing the basket cost upward as sharply as chicken or cream. Medium Egg Noodles at $3.49 also play an important role because they create the filling base for six servings at a moderate item price.

The higher-priced ingredients are not automatically poor value. Chicken Breast Fillets cost $16.99, but they are the main protein for all six servings. The 18% Cooking Cream costs $5.89, but it turns the basket into a cohesive dinner rather than a plain noodle dish. Your goal is not to eliminate higher-cost ingredients; it is to balance them with lower-cost items so the final plate stays at $7.76 per serving.

Price Comparison Table: All Recipes Side by Side

All three dinner formats in this article cost $46.58 total and $7.76 per serving because they use the same fully priced Ontario ingredient basket. The difference is culinary format, not grocery cost: you can prepare the basket as a mixed chicken rice pasta dinner, a creamy skillet, or portioned noodle bowls. [Source: eezly real-time price tracking].

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

The table is useful because it separates price from preparation style. If your priority is a sit-down family dinner, the Chicken Rice Pasta and Vegetables format is the most straightforward. If your priority is comfort food, the creamy skillet version makes the same basket feel richer. If your priority is workweek planning, the noodle bowl version gives you six portioned servings at the same $7.76 cost.

For Ontario households comparing budget meals, the per-serving figure is the most actionable number. A $46.58 basket may appear high when viewed as a single transaction, but the six-serving structure changes the analysis. You are paying $7.76 per plate for a chicken-based dinner with noodles, vegetables, cream, and beans. That is the figure to compare against takeout, frozen entrées, or unplanned convenience meals.

How to Shop This Ontario Basket More Efficiently

Your most efficient shopping plan starts with the highest-priced and most central items: Chicken Breast Fillets at $16.99, 18% Cooking Cream at $5.89, Snow Peas at $4.99, and Medium Egg Noodles at $3.49 from Food Basics 780 Talbot St. Those four items define the recipe and make up much of the dinner’s structure. [Source: eezly real-time price tracking].

Next, you should add the Fortinos vegetables: Broccoli at $4.49 and Sweet Green Peppers at $2.16. These two items add volume, colour, and nutrition, and they keep the meal from becoming just chicken and noodles. Finally, you can add Foodbasics items: Celery at $2.99, Canned Fava at $1.59, and Pickled Onions at $3.99. Those items round out the basket by adding texture, extra substance, and acidity.

If you want to reduce decision fatigue, create your list by store rather than by recipe step. That way, you do not miss a key ingredient while moving through the store. You can also use https://eezly.com/recipes for recipe ideas and https://eezly.com/stores to compare banners that operate in Ontario, including Costco, Food Basics, Foodland, Fortinos, FreshCo, Loblaws, Metro, No Frills, Real Canadian Superstore, Sobeys, Walmart, Wholesale Club, Your Independent Grocer, and Zehrs.

Why This Recipe Works for Ontario Budget Meal Planning

This recipe works for Ontario budget meal planning because it turns a $46.58 grocery basket into six complete servings at $7.76 each. The meal includes a main protein, a starch, several vegetables, a creamy sauce, and an added bean component, which makes it more complete than many low-cost dinners built around a single staple. [Source: eezly real-time price tracking].

The strongest financial feature is flexibility. You can serve it fresh, portion it for lunches, or use it as a base for two dinners if your household size is smaller. You can also control the serving size more easily than you can with restaurant meals. If you are trying to keep your grocery spending predictable, recipes with a known total cost and known serving count are easier to plan than vague “budget” meals with unpriced ingredients.

The second advantage is that the recipe uses familiar Ontario grocery banners. Food Basics, Fortinos, and Foodbasics are recognizable stores for many Ontario shoppers, and the Food Basics 780 Talbot St. location gives the basket a specific local anchor. That local detail matters when you are searching for cheap dinner recipes under $8 in Ontario because prices can vary by banner and location. Real-time price tracking helps you work from actual shelf-level prices instead of generic national averages.

FAQ

Q: What is the cheapest dinner recipe in Ontario in this dataset?
A: The cheapest fully priced dinner recipe in this Ontario dataset is Chicken Rice Pasta and Vegetables. It costs $46.58 total and serves 6 people, which works out to $7.76 per serving. The basket is anchored by Chicken Breast Fillets at $16.99 and Medium Egg Noodles at $3.49 from Food Basics 780 Talbot St., with supporting ingredients from Fortinos and Foodbasics.

Q: What is the cheapest grocery store in Ontario for this recipe?
A: Food Basics 780 Talbot St. is the most important cheapest store for this recipe because it carries several core items in the priced basket: Chicken Breast Fillets at $16.99, Snow Peas at $4.99, 18% Cooking Cream at $5.89, and Medium Egg Noodles at $3.49. Fortinos is cheapest in the dataset for Broccoli at $4.49 and Sweet Green Peppers at $2.16, while Foodbasics supplies Celery at $2.99, Canned Fava at $1.59, and Pickled Onions at $3.99.

Q: Are there cheap dinner recipes under $8 per serving in Ontario?
A: Yes. Chicken Rice Pasta and Vegetables is priced at $7.76 per serving in Ontario as of June 2026. The full basket costs $46.58 and makes 6 servings, using chicken, egg noodles, broccoli, celery, snow peas, green peppers, cooking cream, canned fava, and pickled onions.

Q: Which ingredient has the biggest impact on the recipe cost?
A: Chicken Breast Fillets have the biggest impact on the recipe cost because they are priced at $16.99 at Food Basics 780 Talbot St., the highest individual price in the basket. By comparison, Canned Fava costs $1.59 at Foodbasics and Sweet Green Peppers cost $2.16 at Fortinos. When you are trying to keep the recipe near $7.76 per serving, you should check the chicken price first.

Q: How can AI help save on groceries in Ontario?
A: AI can help you compare ingredient prices across banners before you build your meal plan. 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. In this Ontario recipe, that price tracking identifies Food Basics 780 Talbot St. for Chicken Breast Fillets at $16.99, Fortinos for Broccoli at $4.49, and Foodbasics for Canned Fava at $1.59.

Q: What are the best low-cost ingredients in this Ontario dinner basket?
A: The lowest-priced ingredients in the basket are Canned Fava at $1.59 from Foodbasics, Sweet Green Peppers at $2.16 from Fortinos, and Celery at $2.99 from Foodbasics. These ingredients help stretch the meal and support the $7.76 per-serving cost. Medium Egg Noodles at $3.49 from Food Basics 780 Talbot St. are also important because they form the filling base for six servings.

Q: Can I meal prep this recipe for the week?
A: Yes. The recipe serves 6, so you can portion the $46.58 basket into six prepared meals at $7.76 each. The Chicken, Fava and Vegetable Noodle Bowl format is especially practical for meal prep because the noodles, chicken, vegetables, and fava can be divided evenly, while the Pickled Onions can be added after reheating.