2 cups chicken broth (bouillon cubes are way cheaper than boxed broth; I just use a 2-cup Pyrex cup<\/a> and my hot water kettle<\/a> to make it)<\/li>

2 cups water<\/li>

2 teaspoons Franks or another hot sauce (if you don\u2019t really like the flavor of hot sauce you could reduce this to a few shakes or cut it, and if you REALLY like hot sauce I would add up to 2 tbsp!)<\/li>

Garlic powder, mustard powder (you can skip this or substitute another seasoning like onion powder if you don\u2019t have it), salt, and pepper to taste (I go pretty heavy on the garlic powder and black pepper and just a few shakes of the salt and mustard powder)<\/li>

12-16 oz diced ham (I bought a ham steak at Aldi and chopped it into cubes)<\/li>

4 ounces cream cheese, softened (15 seconds in the microwave if you don’t take it out ahead of time)<\/li>

\u00bc cup sour cream<\/li>

8 ounces shredded colby-jack cheese<\/li>

\u00bd cup milk + more if needed <\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n
Directions:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Add the uncooked pasta, chicken broth, water, hot sauce, and seasonings to the Quick Cooker.<\/li>
Stir it. Try to get as much of the pasta covered by broth\/water as you can.<\/li>
Put the lid on your Quick Cooker and ensure that the manual release button is level with the handle (otherwise you won\u2019t get pressure). <\/li>
Select \u2018custom\u2019, then select \u2018time\u2019 and use the down arrow to set the Quick Cooker to 5 minutes and press \u2018start\u2019.<\/li>
When the timer goes off (it takes longer than 5 minutes, in case you haven\u2019t used a quick cooker before), hit \u2018cancel\u2019 and manually release the steam (push the button on the handle). <\/li>
Carefully open the Quick Cooker. PROTIP: keep the lid over the cooker and tip it toward the cooker to catch the juice from the lid in the pot instead of on your counter.<\/strong><\/li>
Stir in the cream cheese and sour cream until combined.<\/li>
Add the milk and the cheese. I stir quickly but if you don\u2019t, you might want to add the cheese in two batches. <\/li>
Add in the ham and evaluate your consistency. Sometimes it’s spot on and sometimes it needs more milk. <\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n $\"Budget$ <\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
I immediately spoon this into 10 glass Pyrex storage containers<\/a> (we use both round and rectangle) for a week of lunches for two. The cost breakdown for this week of lunch prep is freaking great (and this list assumes you have salt, pepper, garlic powder, mustard powder, and Frank\u2019s or another hot sauce):<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cost\/Meal Breakdown: <\/strong>
Everything was bought at Aldi:
$0.79 – 16 oz box of pasta
$0.15 – 2 chicken bouillon cubes ($1.89 for 25)
$3.50 – ham steak
$0.40 – half a block of cream cheese
$0.15 – 4 tbsp (\u00bc cup) sour cream
$1.69 – 8 ounce block colby-jack cheese
$0.11 – \u00bd cup milk
Total: $6.79 <\/strong>
Total cost\/meal for 10 meals: $0.68 (rounded up!)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
$\"Delicious,$ <\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
You certainly aren\u2019t going to grab lunch anywhere for less than $1, let alone lunch this delicious and filling \ud83d\ude42 I have a feeling this will be in our monthly set of lunch meals for a looooong time. If you decide to give a go, let me know how you like it and if you make any changes of your own!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This delicious ham and cheese pasta is made the Quick Cooker – you’ll get 10 servings for less than $0.70 per serving!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":241,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"bgseo_title":"","bgseo_description":"","bgseo_robots_index":"index","bgseo_robots_follow":"follow","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5],"tags":[11,29],"class_list":["post-237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-food","category-household","tag-budget-friendly-meals","tag-quick-cooker","floral-has-thumbnail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deliberatelydeb.dreamhosters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/deliberatelydeb.dreamhosters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/deliberatelydeb.dreamhosters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deliberatelydeb.dreamhosters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deliberatelydeb.dreamhosters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=237"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/deliberatelydeb.dreamhosters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":338,"href":"https:\/\/deliberatelydeb.dreamhosters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237\/revisions\/338"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deliberatelydeb.dreamhosters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deliberatelydeb.dreamhosters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deliberatelydeb.dreamhosters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deliberatelydeb.dreamhosters.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}