Inexpensive Recipes For the Carnivore Diet (2024)

The Carnivore Diet is healthy, nutritious, and delicious. It can also be rather expensive. However, while meat is necessary, expense is not. Here we present some tips, tricks, and ideas for inexpensive recipes and ingredients to help you follow the Carnivore Diet without breaking your budget.

Planning Your Carnivore Diet

To start with, you need to know how much money you have to spend, in order to determine how best to spend it. So sit down and figure out your budget, then turn that into an average cost per meal. Also budget how much you eat to feel satisfied, so you can calculate an average cost per pound. That lets you know approximately how much money to spend per pound of food. Now you can begin finding or creating carnivore recipes that fit our budget.

Carnivore Recipes For Ground Meat

Versatile, tender, and low-cost, ground meat is a must for any budget-friendly carnivore diet. Also there are already many inexpensive recipes for ground meat which you can easily modify. For instance, try using extra liquid and grass-fed cheese as mix-ins to make tender meatballs or meatloaf. Also, extend the flavor of a rich but expensive meat like lamb by mixing it with bland ground turkey. Soon you’ll find your creativity as fueled as your metabolism as you create delicious carnivore recipes based on ground meat.

The Carnivore’s Best Friends: Butchers and Farmers

You’ve heard the saying “cut out the middleman”, right? The best way to do so for your carnivore diet is to befriend a local butcher and/or a nearby farmer. However, this approach provides many more benefits than lower prices. Your friendly butcher and farmer will be delighted to share their work with you. They’ll teach you about overlooked (and thus cheaper) cuts and inexpensive recipes for them. They’ll also provide information about the raising and condition of the animals. Thus, they can guarantee their appropriate diet, which in turn benefits yours. So make some new friends today! This link has more information about finding farmers near you.

Learn a Little: Do [Some Of] Your Own Butchering

Speaking of butchering, you can save a lot of money by learning how to do some. The larger the piece of the animal you can buy, the less its cost per pound. Because the provider has less work to do they can pass those savings on to you. Also, you can save the scraps you otherwise would have missed, and use them in many carnivore recipes. If you’re intimidated by the thought, start by breaking down a roast into steaks or jointing a raw chicken. From there, with a little study and a sharp knife, you can work your way up.

Inexpensive Recipes For Cheaper Cuts

In general cheaper cuts of meat require longer cooking. The Cinder Grill excels at long slow cooking. Just set the meat to the target temperature and the Cinder can hold it there for hours. Also, because the Cinder uses no extra liquid and works in a closed environment, it maintains the meat’s native moisture but doesn’t wash away nutrients. Slow cooking has inherent benefits for the carnivore diet. For instance, it breaks down collagen into more available gelatin. So you can turn some inexpensive recipes into carnivore recipes with the help of the Cinder Grill.

Inexpensive Recipes Based On Eggs And Dairy

Eggs are a reliable source of protein at low cost. Dairy was originally designed to increase the protein yield from domestic animals, and grass-fed dairy products benefit the Carnivore Diet. Don’t be afraid to take advantage of these nutritious foods! Best of all, eggs cook quickly, and have many inexpensive recipes available. A tasty omelet, for example, comes together in no time and is loaded with protein, vitamins, and good fats. Make eggs a pillar of your carnivore diet.

Carnivore Diet Mainstays: Organ Meats

You may not be used to eating organ meats, but they are a rich resource for carnivores. Because these cuts aren’t very popular in the US they can be obtained for low cost. Several, especially liver, are high in beneficial vitamins and enzymes. Furthermore they can be surprisingly delicious. (Try tongue. Really, try it.) Also, the inexpensive recipes designed around organ meats tend to not include too many plant-based ingredients. Seek out organ meats in Asian, Latin, and Caribbean markets, and base your carnivore recipes on these cuisines. While you're there, grab some canned sardines for the benefits of inexpensive fish rich in good fats.

The Carnivore Diet often brings up visions of steak and tuna for dinner every night. Which would be delicious, but perhaps not so frugal. However, by basing your carnivore recipes around less expensive sources of animal protein, you’ll improve its long term sustainability. Also, you’ll probably save enough money to have those steak and tuna dinners as a regular treat.