I'm adding beef heart to my chili. It's about half the price of ground beef where I live. While not as cheap as beans, it's still making it stretch some, and definitely more nutritious. You may also consider more egg-based dinners through the month to help offset the meat consumption.

add another side? like coconut bread, link: coconut bread, cheap and filling

but! Play around with it, because following this video makes a bland bread (but I guess you could try to toast it and throw some raw honey on it like a biscuit?), so what I have done is kind of used this to make a zucchini quiche-like concoction and it came out great, and it's quite filling.

Maybe cooking with a little more fat? The Fat is far more satiating than protein/carbs so you can add a little more of good fats with smaller portions. There are also kelp noodles?

So my zucchini quiche-like recipe is:

3 eggs

2 tsp of coconut flour

10 oz grated green zucchini or yellow crookneck squash (i like the flavor with the yellow squash)

2 Tbsp of Coconut Oil (or butter)

a dash of salt

you can optionally also add 1 tablespoon of a gluten free, wheat free flour and 1 tsp of baking powder to make it more bread like (as my aunt did, I haven't tried it but she says it came out great)

Preheat oven to 350 degree Fahrenheit, bring eggs to room temperature (if you doing coconut oil) otherwise add melted butter to eggs whisk, add flour and salt, whisk some more and quickly add grated zucchini, mix well, throw it in a casserole dish, bake for about 25-30 minutes

It's kind of a boring dish, but I am a student and its cheap, economical, easy and quick :)

So I hope you enjoy it, play around with it its quite versatile, the egg/coconut flour mixture is very forgiving.

Just what I was going to say Michelle; offal is very cheap and easily disguised/incorporated into meat dishes. You can grind liver into meatballs, meatloafs and hamburgers to stretch it out, add cubed heart or kidneys to stews, braises and chillis ... Some offal is very strong-tasting so if your family likes the taste you don't have to use much to have it come through in the final dish. Large mushrooms are also very meaty and tend to absorb flavour well, though they will release some moisture on cooking.

Instead of adding more vegetables to the actual dish, could you increase the amount of vegetables accompanying it? For instance, serving mashed cauliflower, cauliflower rice, steamed, sauteed or buttered vegetables, kale chips, spaghetti squash or zucchini pasta or wilted greens on the side to make the main meat dish go a bit farther. Sweet potatoes, if you do them, can be stuffed with relatively little meat for a substantial meal.

Skewers are great because you need a lot of vegetable to balance the meat. Plus I suppose it looks like you're eating more than you are, and they go well with a non-meat side. You can make pizzas with eggplant crusts, which, again, requires little meat in comparison to other dishes.

You could also serve a soup as an appetiser. Bone broth comes to mind, but I find that having soup before a main meal reduces my appetite and I'm inclined to eat less of the main. Buying meat on the bone tends to be cheaper, and of course you can use the bones to make broth.

You're probably already doing this, but buying meat in bulk and that's on sale will save money. If you can get a good slab of pork belly you can make your own bacon cheaply, which in turn lends a lot of flavour using very little. Slow/pressure cookers (American: crockpot) are great for cheaper cuts of meat and tougher offal.

I hope this helps. Good luck!

I think that adding more vegetables, making things into soups or stews, and just eating less (as you mentioned) are the easiest ways to stretch meat usage out (especially if you don't want to lose the meatiness of a particular dish). I also love using egg as filler. Like a beef and vegetable stir fry type dish with some eggs thrown in for flavor and filler, relatively cheap and super filling.

More vegetables, and more fat.

When I am on a budget, my ground meat always gets cut with carrots, which can be pan roasted and makes the meat slightly sweeter, but takes seasoning well. Instead of rice, I use sautéed cabbage or cauliflower. The stews with bone broth don't need as much meat as other casseroles.

Also, use more fat. It might seem like a smaller amount of food, but the extra fat will help most people feel fuller. (my bottomless pit of a fiancé gets more vegetables to "seem like" he has more food, though, so it depends on your family.)

Adding more vegetables is of course an option, but that often significantly changes the overall flavor of the dish.

...or, how I approach this, double the amount of sauce, spices, etc... that go into the dish to flavor all those extra veggies. I make a cabbage sloppy joe mix that already called for a bit of cabbage but nothing compared to paleo standards and I doubled (or more) the cabbage and usually use some zucchini in it too and I just add extra stuff in proportion to the mass ov veggies that I've added. If I ever finalize a "recipe" I'll be sure to share it but at this point I've never made it the same way twice.

Take a cue from chinese restaurants. You ever notice how little meat is in their dishes? You can dice up meat and stir fry it with a ton of different veggies. And yes, its ok to eat just like that in a bowl, without rice or noodles, unless you are ok with rice.

Our standard stirfry is: Meat (beef, chicken, pork, etc.), Onion, Green and Red Peppers, Garlic, red pepper flakes or diced chili pepper, salt/pepper, a little broth,

and one or more of the following: Bok Choy, Kale, Spinach, Basil, Other Greens, Fresh veggie from the farmer's market, mushrooms (shitake is the best!), gluten free soy or tamari, chili oil.

It ends up being somewhere between a stir-fry and soup and everyone loves it!

I dice up sweet potato and add it to stews and chili. When it cooks and softens, it has that bean-like texture I'm missing and adds some volume to the dish. Or I serve the stew on a scoop of cauliflower rice (as I don't tolerate real rice well). You only need a little to make the portion size seem much bigger.

Offal and broth with plenty of gelatin. You can get by with no muscle meat if you wish.