Cheap and Easy Recipes: Beefy Flatbread Dinner (Feed 4 for $5.21)

Have you ever started preparing a meal and found that you’re missing one of the key ingredients?

Not so long ago I was creating one of my cheap and easy recipes for tacos, everything was done and all that was left to do was fry up the taco shells. I went to the refrigerator to pull out the corn tortillas and SURPISE, they were nowhere to be found. Must’ve been one of those days that I took the kids shopping with me, you know, where everything ends up in your cart except for what’s on your list.

I was in a pickle!

I could’ve served taco salad, but my little one detests lettuce, so I had to figure something else out. That’s when I remembered having flatbread at an Indian PowWow that we went to a few years ago.

I’d never made flatbread before so I had to improvise. I heated up some vegetable oil, mixed up a batch of my BakeQuick Biscuits and ended up with an amazing meal.

Don’t you love it when a small mishap ends up becoming a family favorite?

Here’s my tasty dough just waiting to be flattened.


If you don’t have the time to make the biscuits from scratch, you could always use the pre-made biscuits, but beware they won’t taste as yummy as the BakeQuick ones do. 


Oh yea, you might want to buy the Grand version that way they’ll be big enough to hold all of the toppings.

Here’s my tasty little biscuit getting a much needed massage.

Now that he’s relaxed and flatted to about the size of a salad plate he’s ready for the hot tub.

Here he is chillin’ out, maxin’, relaxin’ all cool and shoot n’ some b-ball outside the school….  Sorry, the Fresh Prince of Bel Air theme popped into my head.

Here he is just chillin’ with his bro’s, waiting to be the star of the show.

All of a sudden I seemed to have gone into rapper mode,

Before you start frying up the flatbread it might be a good idea to get all of your toppings prepared. The flatbread is best when it’s served hot.

What an awful picture!  This is taco meat just in case you couldn’t recognize it. For some reason whenever I take pictures of my food while it’s on the stove the pictures never turn out very well.

Now that all of your ingredients are prepped and the flatbread has been fried it’s time to smother on the first layer.

Beans, beans the magical fruit…. I’m sure you know the rest, especially if you have kids. It’s a favorite saying in our house whenever we have beans.

**Another yummy topping for the flatbread is to spread a little butter on it and then sprinkle it with sugar and cinnamon.

For the second layer, add your taco meat.

If you are a vegetarian you could eliminate the meat, but I wouldn’t advise it, it’s one of the tastiest layers, in my opinion.

Now. add your favorite toppings and serve it with some Spanish rice.

How to eat, this is a debate in our house. Some think it should be eaten like a tostada, others think and should be folded like a taco and some of us, who have good etiquette, prefer to use a fork.  Whichever way you choose to eat it I know you are going to love it.

Print Recipe

Beefy Flatbread

Prep Time5 minutes mins

Cook Time20 minutes mins

Total Time25 minutes mins

Servings: 4

Author: Robin | Fluster Buster

Ingredients

• 1 pound ground beef
• 1 package taco seasoning
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 can re-fried beans
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 package grand biscuits 8

Toppings

• cheese
• lettuce
• onions
• tomatoes

Instructions

• Brown ground beef in a skillet over medium heat. Stir in taco seasoning mix and water, lower heat and simmer until liquid is gone.
• In a small pan heat the beans.
• In a cast iron skillet heat oil over medium heat. While the oil is heating up, roll out biscuits to about the size of a salad plate. Place dough into the hot oil and fry until lightly brown on both sides. Place on paper towels.
• Spread the beans onto the flatbread, top with ground beef and toppings

Ingredients

1 cup pinto beans, dry ($0.44)

1-2 tablespoons pork lard ($0.05-$0.10)

1 cup white rice ($0.42)

1 package taco seasoning ($0.39)

1-10 ounce can tomatoes w/green chilies, diced, drained ($0.49)

¾ pounds ground beef ($1.41)

½ cup vegetable oil ($0.20)

8 BakeQuick biscuits ($0.36)

1 cup cheddar cheese, shredded ($0.75)

¼ head lettuce, chopped ($0.25)

4 green onions, chopped ($0.16)

8 tablespoons taco sauce ($0.24)

How I got these prices:

• Pinto Beans – (32 ounces for $1.79) purchased from a discount grocery store. I’m sure that they can be purchased cheaper, but this is the price that I had listed in my price tracking log when I created this recipe. 
• Lard – (64 ounces for $5.88) purchased from Walmart. Again there is probably a better price out there, I just haven’t had to buy any in a long time and I didn’t have it logged in my price log.
• White Rice – (32 ounces for $1.69) purchased the rice from a discount grocery store. *To save time, I’ll cook a whole bag of rice and freeze it in 2 cup portions. When freezing, to keep the granules separated, lay the rice out flat on a baking sheet and flash freeze. Once the the granules are frozen divide and store in freezer bags. **One cup of dry rice makes about 3 cups of cooked rice.
• Taco Seasoning – (?? ounces for $0.39) purchased from a discount grocery store. It’s usually cheaper to make your own mix, however I used the package version for this recipe because I got it for free when I purchased another item. Not a great freebie when it was only $0.39 to purchase in the first place.
• Tomatoes w/green chilies – (10 ounces for $0.49) purchased on sale at our local supermarket. My local supermarket had a sale, if you purchased 6 Rotel tomatoes you would get $3.00 off your bill, so they only cost me $0.49 each. I bought several.
• Ground Beef – (1 pound for $1.88) purchased on sale from our local supermarket. I track the sales and when ground beef goes on sale for this price I stock up and freeze. I only used 3/4 of a pound for this recipe because I didn’t want a protein overload when combined with the beans.
• Vegetable Oil – (48 ounces for $2.39) this is the regular price and it was purchased from a local discount grocery store.
• BakeQuick Biscuits – (16 cups for $3.18) you only need 2 cups of the Homemade BakeQuick Mix for this recipe.
• Cheddar Cheese – (8 ounces for $1.50) purchased on sale from a local supermarket. Did you know that there are only 4 ounces of cheese in a cup?
• Lettuce – (1 head for $1.00) lettuce regularly goes on sale for a $1.00 or less. After I wrote this post lettuce went on sale for $0.69. 
• Green Onions – (1 bunch for $0.49) purchased on sale from a discount grocery store. One bunch of green onions has around 8-12 onions in it. I wonder how they decide how many to put in a bunch.
• Taco Sauce – (10 ounces for $0.69) purchased from a discount grocery store. If you want to be really frugal you could use the leftover packets from Taco Bell. I’ve never done it, but I’ve heard of people doing it. LOL

DollarTree – this is another discount store that I purchase my groceries from. When you think of Dollar Tree you don’t always think about groceries, but they have some great buys and the best part is that they accept coupons now. I buy a lot of our snacks and condiments from here.

Walmart – this is one of my not so local grocery stores, only because it’s about 15 miles away. Even though it’s out of my way I do shop here often. They have some great prices and I love that they accept coupons and price match local ads.

Dollar Stores – we have several little, mom and pop, dollar stores around town where I find good deals on snacks and condiments.

Drug Stores – when you think of food, a drug store isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. Believe it or not you can find some really great deals on canned food, snacks and beverages.  RiteAid is one of my favorites because they always have great sales and when you pair the sales with their online coupons and their rewards program you can usually pick things up pretty cheap.

I do pick up items from other stores when I see them at a good price, however those stores aren’t ones that I shop at regularly.