budget friendly, easy meals | cowboy lasagna

Hey y'all! 

I'm mixing it up - literally and figuratively - and sharing a recipe today!

Look, I'll be the first one to admit that we aren't the most healthy household. I can eat a pan of these in one sitting. We don't shop at Whole Foods or go on juice cleanses, but we do like to create easy and budget friendly meals. 

That being said, I think this recipe is the best of both worlds! It's easy, cheap, and a good recipe for a weeknight; but I think it has a TON of possibilities to be personalized and made a bit healthier. I'll share my tips on how I think you can do that as I go.

I found this recipe on Pinterest, where I find a ton of good recipes (and lots of other great things too!) and ended up pinning it to my 'tried and true' board where I save all of the recipes we've tried and LOVED so they are within easy reach to make again. So here it is:

Cowboy Lasagna

to make the recipe as originally shown here:

-1 lb of ground beef
-Minced onions - 4 tbsp
-Worcestershire sauce - generous sprinkling
-Parsley - roughly 3 tbsp, divided
-One can of tomato soup - 10 3/4 ozs
-One can of corn - 15.25 ozs
-Dried ground mustard - 3 tsp
-One package of tater tots - 32 ozs
-Salt and Pepper to taste
-Mozzarella cheese - roughly 4 cups

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

First, you brown your meat and add in the minced onions, worcestershire sauce, ground mustard, 2 tbsp parsley, and salt and pepper. I also added in some onion and garlic powder for extra taste. 

While that's cooking, take out your baking pans and grease them. Then, place your tater tots in the bottom, spread out. I divided this recipe into two pans: one to eat now and one to freeze. Gotta prepare for baby! If you do it in one pan, use a 9x13. One even layer of tater tots is preferred. 

Sprinkle cheese over the frozen tater tots (here's a good place to cut down on or eliminate the cheese for a healthier option!)

After the meat is cooked through, add in your tomato sauce and drained can of corn. I think this is the best opportunity to play around with the ingredients - use diced tomatoes, rotel, peppers, black beans, more corn, anything! You could totally customize it for your health needs! Let this simmer for about 10 minutes.

Next, spoon out the meat mixture over your tater tots. Evenly spread. 

Add more cheese on top (again, to your liking!) and the remaining 1 tbsp of parsley (we didn't have parsley so I skipped that step). 

Pop it in the oven for about 30 minutes and cook uncovered until bubbly and cheese is slightly toasted. Let sit for at least 5 minutes before serving. Then, dig in!

Mark and I both really like this meal and it's SO easy and especially hearty. The leftovers are great too! If you're planning on freezing this, go ahead and cook the dish and freeze it fully cooked. Then just heat it up in the oven when you're ready to eat!

Enjoy!