Ontario Foodbasics Hamburger Rice Skillet $2.43

Key Facts

• Hamburger Rice Skillet costs $17.03 total. (Source: eezly real-time price tracking, June 2026)
• The Ontario recipe makes 7 servings. (Source: eezly real-time price tracking, June 2026)
• Cost per serving is $2.43. (Source: eezly real-time price tracking, June 2026)
• Lean Ground Beef is $7.00 at Foodbasics. (Source: eezly real-time price tracking, June 2026)
• Carrots are $0.57 at Fortinos. (Source: eezly real-time price tracking, June 2026)
• Whole Water Chestnuts are $0.99 at Foodbasics. (Source: eezly real-time price tracking, June 2026)

Introduction: The Cheapest Featured Dinner Is $2.43 Per Serving

The lowest complete dinner recipe in this Ontario costing is Hamburger Rice Skillet at $17.03 total, or $2.43 per serving for 7 servings. That makes it a practical benchmark for cheap dinner recipes under $3 in Ontario, especially if you are trying to build a weeknight meal around a protein, a grain, and low-cost vegetables. The key pricing advantage is that most of the basket comes from Foodbasics, while Fortinos supplies the lowest-priced carrots and onion soup mix in the available ingredient list.

For your grocery planning, this matters because the recipe is not built on vague pantry assumptions. Each ingredient has a live Ontario price attached to a named store: Foodbasics or Fortinos. When you are comparing budget meals in Ontario, that level of pricing detail helps you decide whether a recipe is genuinely cheap or only appears affordable because the ingredient list leaves out real grocery costs.

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: Hamburger Rice Skillet — $2.43 per Serving

Hamburger Rice Skillet costs $17.03 total for 7 servings, which works out to $2.43 per serving in Ontario. The recipe’s strength is that it combines a higher-cost protein, Lean Ground Beef at $7.00 from Foodbasics, with lower-cost supporting ingredients such as Carrots at $0.57 from Fortinos and Whole Water Chestnuts at $0.99 from Foodbasics. If you are looking for cheap dinner recipes under $3, this is the most complete recipe in the data because it includes meat, rice, vegetables, and seasoning.

You should think of this as a practical weeknight skillet rather than a bare-minimum rice dish. The Long Grain Brown Instant Rice at $3.99 from Foodbasics provides the base, while Celery at $2.99 and Carrots at $0.57 add volume. Onion Recipe and Soup Mix at $1.49 from Fortinos functions as a seasoning shortcut, which can help you avoid buying several separate seasonings for one meal.

Ingredients with Prices

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

The arithmetic is straightforward: $7.00 for Lean Ground Beef, plus $0.99 for Whole Water Chestnuts, plus $0.57 for Carrots, plus $2.99 for Celery, plus $1.49 for Onion Recipe and Soup Mix, plus $3.99 for Long Grain Brown Instant Rice equals $17.03. Dividing $17.03 by 7 servings gives $2.43 per serving when rounded to the nearest cent. That is the clearest Ontario benchmark in this article for a meat-based budget dinner.

Where to Buy Cheapest

You should buy the core Foodbasics items first because they represent $14.97 of the $17.03 recipe basket. Foodbasics has the Lean Ground Beef at $7.00, Whole Water Chestnuts at $0.99, Celery at $2.99, and Long Grain Brown Instant Rice at $3.99. Those four items form the majority of the meal cost and the majority of the dinner’s calories and volume.

Fortinos is still important for this recipe because it has the lowest available prices in the data for Carrots at $0.57 and Onion Recipe and Soup Mix at $1.49. Together, those two Fortinos items cost $2.06. If your shopping route already includes both stores, splitting the basket this way gives you the itemized cheapest build shown in eezly’s real-time price tracking.

Recipe 2: Beef and Brown Rice Skillet — $1.65 per Serving

Beef and Brown Rice Skillet costs $11.56 total, or $1.65 per serving, when you use the same 7-serving yield and price only the beef, rice, and carrots from the Ontario ingredient data. This is the leaner version of the full Hamburger Rice Skillet: you keep the main protein and grain, then use carrots as the vegetable component. The result is a cheaper dinner build for nights when you want the core meal without water chestnuts, celery, or soup mix.

The pricing is based only on real listed Ontario ingredients: Lean Ground Beef at $7.00 from Foodbasics, Long Grain Brown Instant Rice at $3.99 from Foodbasics, and Carrots at $0.57 from Fortinos. The total is $11.56, and dividing that by 7 servings gives $1.65 per serving after rounding. You should use this version when your priority is keeping the ingredient count short while still retaining a meat-and-rice structure.

Ingredients with Prices

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

This recipe is useful for your budget because it strips the skillet down to its most essential priced components. You still get the $7.00 beef item, which is the most expensive ingredient in the full recipe, but you avoid the additional $0.99 water chestnuts, $2.99 celery, and $1.49 soup mix. That reduces the total from $17.03 to $11.56, a difference of $5.47 based on the itemized prices above.

Where to Buy Cheapest

Foodbasics remains the main store for this version because both Lean Ground Beef and Long Grain Brown Instant Rice are priced there. Foodbasics offers Lean Ground Beef at $7.00, while Fortinos offers Carrots at $0.57 — a store split that keeps the simplified skillet under $12 total. If you are already shopping at Foodbasics, the only cross-store decision is whether the $0.57 Fortinos carrot price is convenient for your route.

This is the kind of budget meals Ontario comparison where you should pay attention to which ingredient drives the meal cost. In this recipe, beef accounts for $7.00 of the $11.56 total. Because the rice and carrots are comparatively low-cost, your biggest savings opportunity is not reducing carrots; it is checking the beef price before you commit to the recipe.

Recipe 3: Vegetable Brown Rice Skillet — $1.22 per Serving

Vegetable Brown Rice Skillet costs $8.54 total, or $1.22 per serving, using the same 7-serving yield and the priced rice, carrots, celery, and water chestnuts from the Ontario data. This is the cheapest of the three dinner builds because it removes the $7.00 Lean Ground Beef and relies on Long Grain Brown Instant Rice at $3.99, Celery at $2.99, Carrots at $0.57, and Whole Water Chestnuts at $0.99. It is the best fit if your goal is the lowest-priced skillet-style dinner rather than a meat-based meal.

You should use this recipe when you want a low-cost base that can stand alone or serve as a side for another protein you already have at home. The total of $8.54 is built entirely from real listed prices, and the per-serving cost comes to $1.22 after dividing by 7. Because the recipe uses two Foodbasics vegetables and one Fortinos vegetable price, it still benefits from store comparison rather than relying on a single-banner assumption.

Ingredients with Prices

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

The main cost driver in this recipe is rice at $3.99, followed by celery at $2.99. Carrots at $0.57 and water chestnuts at $0.99 keep the vegetable blend inexpensive. If you are searching for the cheapest recipes in Ontario and you are comfortable with a vegetable-forward dinner, this is the lowest per-serving option in the article.

Where to Buy Cheapest

You should buy Long Grain Brown Instant Rice, Celery, and Whole Water Chestnuts at Foodbasics because those prices are all listed there. Foodbasics accounts for $7.97 of the $8.54 total in this vegetable skillet build. Fortinos contributes the Carrots at $0.57, which is the lowest-priced individual ingredient in the entire recipe set.

This store split also shows why a recipe can look inexpensive on paper but still benefit from item-level comparison. If you bought every item at one store without checking, you might miss the Fortinos carrot price shown in the data. For a very low-cost dinner, small ingredient prices matter because the total basket is only $8.54.

Ontario Basket Index: Six Staple Ingredients for These Cheap Dinner Recipes

The Ontario basket for the full Hamburger Rice Skillet is $17.03 across six priced ingredients, with Foodbasics carrying four items and Fortinos carrying two items. This basket index is useful because it shows exactly which store is attached to each real price, rather than presenting the recipe as a single unexplained total. If you are comparing cheap dinner recipes under $3, you should look at the ingredient-level basket before deciding whether the recipe fits your budget.

Foodbasics is strongest in this basket for the larger-cost components: Lean Ground Beef at $7.00 and Long Grain Brown Instant Rice at $3.99. Fortinos is strongest for the lower-cost supporting ingredients: Carrots at $0.57 and Onion Recipe and Soup Mix at $1.49. That split matters because your final grocery cost depends on both the expensive items and the smaller add-ons that complete the meal.

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

The most important comparison in this basket is not a percentage discount; it is the allocation of real prices to specific Ontario stores. Foodbasics carries the higher-ticket items in the available data, while Fortinos supplies two lower-cost components. When you build your shopping list, you should decide whether the extra stop is worthwhile for the $2.06 Fortinos portion of the recipe.

Top Priced Ingredients in the Ontario Dinner Basket

The top priced ingredients in this Ontario dinner basket range from $0.57 for Carrots at Fortinos to $7.00 for Lean Ground Beef at Foodbasics. These are not advertised discount claims; they are live item prices from eezly’s real-time price tracking as of June 2026. Because regular prices were not included in the provided recipe data, savings percentages are not calculated in this table.

That distinction matters for your planning. A true “top deals” table requires a current price, a regular price, and a savings percentage; the recipe data provides current ingredient prices and store names. To avoid inventing discounts, the table below ranks the real prices you can use for this dinner costing and identifies which items have the biggest effect on your total.

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

If you want to control your dinner cost, start by watching the $7.00 Lean Ground Beef and $3.99 Long Grain Brown Instant Rice because those two items together account for $10.99 of the $17.03 full recipe total. The lowest-cost ingredients, such as $0.57 Carrots and $0.99 Whole Water Chestnuts, help round out the skillet without adding much to the basket. This is the practical way to read ingredient pricing: you focus first on the items that carry the most budget weight.

Price Comparison Table: All Recipes Side by Side

The cheapest dinner build in this article is Vegetable Brown Rice Skillet at $1.22 per serving, while the most complete meat-based dinner is Hamburger Rice Skillet at $2.43 per serving. The middle option, Beef and Brown Rice Skillet, costs $1.65 per serving and keeps the beef while removing three supporting ingredients. If you are planning budget meals in Ontario, your choice depends on whether you want the lowest price, a meat-based plate, or the full six-ingredient skillet.

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

For a family dinner, the difference between these recipes is meaningful. The full Hamburger Rice Skillet costs $8.49 more than the Vegetable Brown Rice Skillet because it includes Lean Ground Beef at $7.00 plus Onion Recipe and Soup Mix at $1.49. The Beef and Brown Rice Skillet sits between them by keeping the beef but removing celery, water chestnuts, and soup mix.

You should choose the full $2.43-per-serving recipe when you want the most complete skillet, the $1.65-per-serving version when you want a simpler meat-and-rice dinner, and the $1.22-per-serving version when your priority is the lowest grocery bill. All three are based on the same Ontario ingredient list, which makes the comparison cleaner than comparing unrelated recipes with different assumptions.

How to Shop These Budget Meals in Ontario

The best shopping strategy for these Ontario budget meals is to use Foodbasics for the core basket and Fortinos for the two supporting items priced lowest there. Foodbasics supplies Lean Ground Beef at $7.00, Whole Water Chestnuts at $0.99, Celery at $2.99, and Long Grain Brown Instant Rice at $3.99. Fortinos supplies Carrots at $0.57 and Onion Recipe and Soup Mix at $1.49.

You should not treat every recipe total as a single-store grocery bill unless all items are available at the listed prices in that one store. The most accurate approach is to build your list by item, then decide whether a second stop is worth it. In this case, the Fortinos portion is $2.06 for carrots and soup mix, so the time and travel decision depends on your route.

Ontario has active grocery banners including Food Basics, Fortinos, FreshCo, Loblaws, Metro, No Frills, Real Canadian Superstore, Walmart, Zehrs, Sobeys, Foodland, Valu-Mart, Wholesale Club, Your Independent Grocer, Costco, and others. For this specific recipe costing, however, the available priced ingredients point to Foodbasics and Fortinos. That is why your best actionable comparison is between those two stores rather than a broad province-wide claim.

How AI Price Comparison Helps You Keep Dinner Under $3

AI price comparison helps you keep dinner under $3 per serving by matching each ingredient to a live store price before you cook. In this Ontario example, the full Hamburger Rice Skillet stays at $2.43 per serving because the ingredient basket is priced item by item: $7.00 beef, $3.99 rice, $2.99 celery, $1.49 soup mix, $0.99 water chestnuts, and $0.57 carrots. Without item-level pricing, you might only estimate the recipe and miss the actual cost.

You can use this same method for other cheap dinner recipes under $3. Start with the costliest ingredient, usually protein, then add the grain, vegetables, and seasoning. After that, divide the total by the number of servings. If the result is above your target, you can simplify the recipe the way the Beef and Brown Rice Skillet removes $5.47 from the full version.

For more grocery planning, you can compare current offers at https://eezly.com/deals, browse recipe ideas at https://eezly.com/recipes, or build a meal plan at https://eezly.com/meal-plans. If you want broader grocery coverage, https://eezly.com/blog includes additional Canadian grocery guides and price-tracking articles.