Ontario Cheap Dinner: Salmon Dinner at $5.93/Serving

Key Facts

• Salmon with Dill Sauce costs $23.74 total for 4 servings in Ontario. (Source: eezly real-time price tracking, June 2026)
• The recipe costs $5.93 per serving as of June 2026. (Source: eezly real-time price tracking, June 2026)
• Garden Salad is priced at $3.49 at Food Basics 780 Talbot St. (Source: eezly real-time price tracking, June 2026)
• Atlantic Salmon Skewer is priced at $4.99 at Fortinos. (Source: eezly real-time price tracking, June 2026)
• Litehouse Freeze Dried Dill 10 g is priced at $6.99 at Foodland Amherstview. (Source: eezly real-time price tracking, June 2026)
• Lemon is priced at $0.99 at Foodbasics in Ontario. (Source: eezly real-time price tracking, June 2026)
• Prepared Yellow Mustard is priced at $1.49 at Foodbasics. (Source: eezly real-time price tracking, June 2026)

Introduction: The Cheapest Featured Dinner Is Salmon with Dill Sauce at $5.93 per Serving

Salmon with Dill Sauce is the featured cheap dinner recipe in this Ontario price check at $5.93 per serving. The full recipe basket costs $23.74 and serves 4, using priced ingredients including Atlantic Salmon Skewer at $4.99 from Fortinos, Garden Salad at $3.49 from Food Basics 780 Talbot St., Lemon at $0.99 from Foodbasics, Prepared Yellow Mustard at $1.49 from Foodbasics, Litehouse Freeze Dried Dill 10 g at $6.99 from Foodland Amherstview, and Black Pepper at $5.79 from Fortinos. Source: eezly real-time price tracking.

For Ontario households looking for budget meals, the important takeaway is that a salmon-based dinner can still land below the common $6-per-serving threshold when you buy across the lowest-priced stores in the ingredient list. You are not relying on one banner for the entire basket; instead, you are treating each ingredient as its own price decision. That is the practical difference between simply shopping a weekly flyer and using real-time price tracking to cost a recipe before you buy.

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.

Recipe 1: Salmon with Dill Sauce — $5.93 per Serving

Salmon with Dill Sauce costs $23.74 for 4 servings in Ontario, or $5.93 per serving. The recipe’s lowest observed ingredient prices come from Food Basics 780 Talbot St., Foodbasics, Fortinos, and Foodland Amherstview, according to eezly real-time price tracking. If you want a budget-friendly dinner that still feels more substantial than pasta or sandwiches, this recipe is the strongest priced option in the available Ontario data.

This meal works because the higher-cost flavour ingredients are balanced by a low salmon price and a simple side. You get the main protein from Atlantic Salmon Skewer at $4.99 at Fortinos, while the side salad is priced at $3.49 at Food Basics 780 Talbot St. The sauce uses lemon, mustard, dill, and black pepper, which raises the first-shop basket cost but can also support repeat meals if you keep those pantry items on hand.

For a cheap dinner recipe under $6 in Ontario, your best move is to shop this as an itemized basket rather than assuming one store will be cheapest for everything. You would buy the Garden Salad at Food Basics 780 Talbot St., the Lemon and Prepared Yellow Mustard at Foodbasics, the salmon and black pepper at Fortinos, and the dill at Foodland Amherstview based on the observed prices. That multi-store pattern is especially useful when you are building budget meals Ontario families can repeat.

Ingredients with Prices

The priced ingredient basket totals $23.74, matching the recipe cost for 4 servings. Each item below uses a real Ontario price from the data available for June 2026. Source: eezly real-time price tracking.

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

The total is calculated directly from the listed prices: $3.49 + $0.99 + $1.49 + $6.99 + $5.79 + $4.99 = $23.74. Divided by 4 servings, the meal costs $5.93 per serving. For you, that means this dinner fits within a realistic “cheap dinner recipes under $6” search without removing the salmon from the plate.

Where to Buy Cheapest

Food Basics 780 Talbot St. offers Garden Salad at $3.49, while Fortinos offers Atlantic Salmon Skewer at $4.99, and Foodbasics offers Lemon at $0.99 and Prepared Yellow Mustard at $1.49. Those store-specific prices are the backbone of this recipe’s $5.93-per-serving cost. Source: eezly real-time price tracking.

Your cheapest route is to treat the meal as a split basket. If you buy the salad at Food Basics 780 Talbot St., the lemon and mustard at Foodbasics, the salmon and pepper at Fortinos, and the dill at Foodland Amherstview, you reproduce the priced basket behind the $23.74 total. This may not always be practical for a single dinner, but it is useful if those stores are already part of your regular route.

If you want to reduce the effective cost over multiple meals, the pantry-style ingredients matter most. Dill at $6.99 and black pepper at $5.79 are the two highest-priced non-protein items in the basket, and they account for $12.78 combined. You still pay those prices at checkout, but you can use those products again in future recipes, which can make your second salmon dinner less expensive if you already have them at home.

Recipe 2: Salmon Salad Plate — $5.93 per Serving Using the Same Priced Basket

A Salmon Salad Plate built from the same Ontario priced ingredients costs $23.74 for 4 servings, or $5.93 per serving. This version uses the Atlantic Salmon Skewer from Fortinos, Garden Salad from Food Basics 780 Talbot St., and a mustard-lemon dill dressing using the Foodbasics lemon, Foodbasics mustard, Foodland Amherstview dill, and Fortinos black pepper. Source: eezly real-time price tracking.

This is a practical alternative if you want the same budget meal ingredients but a lighter dinner format. Instead of treating the salad as a side, you make it the base of the plate and serve the salmon over it. The lemon, mustard, dill, and pepper become a dressing-style sauce, which helps the recipe feel different without changing the grocery basket or the cost calculation.

For Ontario shoppers, this matters because “budget meals Ontario” searches often focus on the lowest possible cost, but repeatability is just as important. If you can use one priced basket in more than one dinner format, you reduce the risk of wasting fresh ingredients. You also get more flexibility from the same $23.74 basket, especially when you are meal planning for four servings.

Ingredients with Prices

The Salmon Salad Plate uses the same six priced ingredients as the original salmon dinner. Because the ingredient list and quantities are unchanged in the available data, the cost remains $23.74 total and $5.93 per serving. Source: eezly real-time price tracking.

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

For you, the main advantage is simplicity. You can buy the same ingredients once and decide at home whether the meal becomes a plated salmon dinner or a salmon salad bowl. That flexibility is useful when you are comparing cheapest recipes because the cost stays anchored to real shelf prices rather than a theoretical pantry list.

Where to Buy Cheapest

The cheapest observed store for the salad component is Food Basics 780 Talbot St. at $3.49, while Fortinos is the observed store for both Atlantic Salmon Skewer at $4.99 and Black Pepper at $5.79. Foodbasics supplies the Lemon at $0.99 and Prepared Yellow Mustard at $1.49, and Foodland Amherstview supplies Litehouse Freeze Dried Dill 10 g at $6.99. Source: eezly real-time price tracking.

You should prioritize the salmon and salad first because those are the meal-defining items. The salmon is the protein, and the salad is the volume that turns the recipe into dinner rather than a snack. The dressing ingredients add flavour, but if you already have pepper or dill at home, your actual checkout cost for this meal could be lower than the full first-shop basket.

This is also where AI-powered grocery price comparison is useful. You can compare the basket before shopping rather than discovering at checkout that one ingredient erased the savings from another. In this case, the $6.99 dill and $5.79 pepper are the items you would check most carefully if you are trying to keep a weeknight dinner near the $5.93-per-serving benchmark.

Recipe 3: Mustard-Dill Salmon Dinner Bowl — $5.93 per Serving Using the Same Ontario Prices

A Mustard-Dill Salmon Dinner Bowl costs $23.74 for 4 servings, or $5.93 per serving, when built from the same priced Ontario ingredient basket. The basket includes Atlantic Salmon Skewer at $4.99 from Fortinos, Garden Salad at $3.49 from Food Basics 780 Talbot St., and sauce ingredients priced at Foodbasics, Fortinos, and Foodland Amherstview. Source: eezly real-time price tracking.

This third version is useful when you want a dinner bowl rather than a plated entrée. You can serve the salad as the base, add the salmon as the protein, and use the mustard, lemon, dill, and pepper as the sauce profile. The grocery cost does not change because the ingredients remain the same, but the eating experience does, which matters when you are trying to stretch one budget-friendly recipe idea across multiple dinners.

For you, the benefit is that the recipe remains transparent. There is no hidden assumption about rice, pasta, oil, butter, or additional vegetables because those items are not in the provided price data. The entire $23.74 cost is traceable to the six priced ingredients listed in the Ontario basket, which makes the $5.93-per-serving number clean and easy to verify.

If you are comparing cheapest recipes, this one is not “cheap” because it cuts nutrition or removes the protein. It is cheap because the protein price is controlled and the supporting ingredients are bought at their observed lowest stores in the data. That is the kind of budgeting approach that works better than simply choosing the lowest sticker price in one aisle.

Ontario Basket Index: Ingredient Prices by Store

The Ontario basket index for this salmon dinner is $23.74 across six priced ingredients, with the largest non-protein prices coming from dill at $6.99 and black pepper at $5.79. The lowest individual price in the basket is Lemon at $0.99 from Foodbasics. Source: eezly real-time price tracking.

This table is not a conventional one-store basket comparison because the available data provides the cheapest observed store for each ingredient rather than multiple prices for the same item across every banner. For your meal planning, that is still valuable: it shows exactly where each dollar in the recipe goes and which ingredients drive the total. If you are trying to keep dinner under $6 per serving, this is the kind of item-level breakdown you need.

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

The basket shows why pantry items can distort a first-shop recipe cost. Dill and black pepper together cost $12.78, which is more than half of the $23.74 total basket. You still need to account for them when pricing the recipe from scratch, but if you already own one or both, your actual incremental cost for dinner changes materially.

Top Priced Items for This Ontario Dinner

The top priced items in this Ontario dinner basket are Litehouse Freeze Dried Dill 10 g at $6.99 from Foodland Amherstview, Black Pepper at $5.79 from Fortinos, and Atlantic Salmon Skewer at $4.99 from Fortinos. These three items explain most of the $23.74 recipe cost. Source: eezly real-time price tracking.

Because no regular prices are included in the provided June 2026 data, the table below reports observed live prices rather than fabricated discount percentages. That is the right way to read a recipe-costing article: you should trust the price that is actually present, not a savings claim that cannot be verified. For your shopping list, the observed price and store are the useful pieces of information.

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

For you, the most important line is not necessarily the highest price. The salmon at $4.99 is the centre of the meal, while the $6.99 dill is a flavour ingredient that may last beyond one dinner. If you are deciding where to be flexible, you should protect the salmon and salad prices first, then check whether you already have mustard, pepper, or dill in your kitchen.

Price Comparison Table: All Featured Recipe Formats Side by Side

All three featured dinner formats cost $23.74 total and $5.93 per serving because they use the same priced Ontario ingredient basket. The difference is not the grocery cost; it is how you serve the meal. Source: eezly real-time price tracking.

This kind of comparison is useful when you want budget meals in Ontario that do not feel repetitive. You can buy one basket and serve it as a plated salmon dinner, a salmon salad plate, or a mustard-dill salmon bowl. The cost remains consistent because the priced ingredients remain unchanged.

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

If you are searching for “cheap dinner recipes under $6,” the key number is $5.93 per serving. If you are searching for “cheapest recipes,” the key method is even more important: price the whole basket, not just the headline ingredient. A low protein price helps, but the final dinner cost depends on every supporting item in the recipe.

How to Shop This Ontario Dinner More Strategically

Your best strategy is to buy the meal-defining ingredients at their observed cheapest stores first, then use pantry items you already own where possible. In the June 2026 basket, the meal-defining ingredients are Atlantic Salmon Skewer at $4.99 from Fortinos and Garden Salad at $3.49 from Food Basics 780 Talbot St. Source: eezly real-time price tracking.

If you are making this dinner tonight, start with the salmon and salad. Those two items give the recipe its structure, and together they cost $8.48 in the provided price data. Then check your kitchen for mustard, black pepper, and dill before adding them to your cart, because those shelf-stable ingredients can raise the first-shop cost even when the meal remains under $6 per serving on a full basket basis.

You should also think about store routing. Foodbasics has the Lemon at $0.99 and Prepared Yellow Mustard at $1.49, so it is the strongest stop for the low-cost sauce ingredients. Fortinos has both the Atlantic Salmon Skewer at $4.99 and Black Pepper at $5.79, which makes it relevant for both protein and seasoning. Foodland Amherstview is the listed source for Litehouse Freeze Dried Dill 10 g at $6.99, the highest single item in the basket.

For ongoing grocery planning, you can compare updated prices through pages such as https://eezly.com/deals, browse recipe ideas at https://eezly.com/recipes, or build meal plans at https://eezly.com/meal-plans. If you regularly compare stores before shopping, https://eezly.com/stores and https://eezly.com/blog can also help you track how recipe costs shift over time.