Cheap Eats: Pancake Breakfast

When you need to keep your grocery bill down, eating breakfast for dinner is a great way to save. When you prepare the meal at home, from scratch, it can really be an inexpensive meal. Plus it’s nice to enjoy a good breakfast even at night.

Now you might be thinking that cooking from scratch will take too long. But with quick cooking items like pancakes, your dinner will be done in no time. I can usually get a full breakfast dinner cooked in about 15-20 minutes from start to finish.

Remember you don’t have to cook all the pancakes before you start eating. I usually cook just enough to get us started and then we eat. I get up from eating every few minutes and flip the pancakes as needed.

Cheap Eats, Pancake Dinner in 15 Minutes

Here’s how I get my pancake breakfast on the table in about 15 minutes or so. First I start the sausage links cooking on the griddle. I have a bigger griddle that I can cook 4 pancakes on and the sausage at the same time. I get the griddle heating up and place the sausage to start cooking at one end.

Then while the sausage is cooking, I mix up the pancake batter. Or if I have a homemade pancake mix waiting for me in the pantry, I dump that into a bowl. I add the wet ingredients and stir until just combined and take the bowl over to the griddle. I add four pancakes to the griddle and move the sausage to a new side to brown.

I use the measuring cup I measured the wet ingredients for the pancakes and break 4 eggs into it. I use the whisk I used to mix the pancake batter to whisk the eggs. Then I set them next to the stove and get a skillet out and place it on the stove top.

I go over and flip the pancakes and roll the sausage to a new side once again. I start the skillet on the stove and add a little fat, either leftover bacon grease from my grease cup in the refrigerator or oil from the cupboard, and let it get hot.

While the oil is getting hot, I remove the sausage and place it in the oven on warm, to stay warm. I also remove the first 4 pancakes and place them in the oven to keep warm too.

I add six new pancakes to the griddle to cook and go back to the stove to add the eggs to the skillet. I will scramble the eggs until done and let them sit in the hot pan on the stove, while I go back to the pancakes on the griddle and flip them.

Once the other 6 pancakes are done cooking, we start to eat and I continue to add pancakes, flip and remove them, as we eat. Usually the time that has passed from start to finish is about 15 minutes. Not bad for a from scratch dinner I’m sure your family will love.

The Cost Breakdown of this Pancake Dinner

Homemade Pancakes from Scratch $1.02
4 Eggs, one per person $.44
5 Links of Sausage $.50
Homemade Pancake Syrup for all of us $.15

Total cost of the meal, $2.11 or just $.53 a person. This is a lot less expensive than going out, or even purchasing the ready made frozen breakfast meals in the freezer section. You can even make the pancakes ahead of time and have them waiting in the freezer, for an even faster meal.

I find the easiest way to save money is to make the items from scratch. I have found very few things that I can get on sale or even with coupons that can compare to the price of making an item from scratch. Although there are those exceptions, like getting an item for free after a sale and coupons.

How often do you make a breakfast for dinner for your family? It really can help you save money.

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This is part of my cheap eats series, I’m working on revamping. If you are looking for ways to cut your family grocery budget while still eating well, take a look at the other posts in this series. Some of the posts are quite old and need to be updated but the information is still good.