Rebecca Chobat, a renowned content creator on TikTok, has dedicated her channel to showcasing cheap recipes made using ingredients from "dollar stores". With Thanksgiving approaching, many people are looking to save a few dollars and spend as little as possible on dinner. Chobat, known as "dollartreedinners" on social media, bases her popularity on a simple yet powerful concept: making ingenious and delicious meals by taking advantage of the affordable ingredients found in dollar stores. This has turned her account into a space where creativity and a tight budget come together. Unlock Affordable Thanksgiving Delights with Dollar Store Recipes
Using Frozen Vegetables for Cost-Effective Meals
Chobat often emphasizes the importance of using frozen vegetables in her recipes. For example, she shows how to incorporate canned chicken as a source of protein. By being flexible with ingredients, one can create truly excellent meals. She believes that dollar stores offer a decent selection of food items and that some establishments may lack fresh produce or meat. This forces her to rely heavily on her creativity.
She shares various ideas for cooking an affordable Thanksgiving dinner. One of her recent recipes is titled "Turkey Dinner in a Bag". This video, which explains how to mix and plate the ingredients, has received over a million views and nearly 175,000 likes.
The necessary ingredients for this Chobat-inspired recipe include a bag of turkey stuffing, two cans of turkey, a package of turkey sauce mix, a can of green beans, and a package of instant mashed potatoes in the desired flavor. The recipe serves two plates and takes 30 minutes to cook. The total cost for all the ingredients is $8.
The Cooking Process: A Step-by-Step Guide
The first step is to drain the liquid from the turkey cans without discarding it. The protein is then added to a pot with two cups of water and the sauce packets. The liquid is heated until it forms a thick mixture.For the stuffing, Chobat recommends following the box instructions and substituting the recommended butter or margarine with the reserved turkey juice from the cans.In the third step, the green beans are heated and the bag of mashed potatoes is prepared.Finally, all the dinner ingredients are simply plated. A classic crispy apple dessert can be added to the turkey dinner, which Chobat reimagined using dollar store ingredients.
To make this dessert, she used apple pie filling and included a box of granola bars. She made the granola bars into crumbs, toasted them with a little butter, and placed them on the fruit. This created a dessert that doesn't need to be baked.