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Composed: Mar 22, 2023

Author: Autumn

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Frugal Fare: Pork Rind Nachos for the Budget-Conscious

Pork Rind Nachos is the second installment in my Budget Meal Series, following the Bacony Chicken Soup I did for the first post.

For background, the inspiration for this series comes from an account I follow on TikTok called Dollar Tree Dinners. The creator makes meals using ingredients only from Dollar Tree. I love the concept and she comes up with some really great-looking and great-sounding meals, usually for a very affordable price. But, the dishes she makes are high carb, which my body doesn't respond well to.

The concept got me thinking. Could I prepare meals using only Dollar Tree ingredients that fit my way of eating, and if so, would they still be budget-friendly? The first dish I made from Dollar Tree, Bacony Chicken Soup, contained some additives I didn't love. So, this time, I made it my goal to look for cleaner ingredients. I found all the things I need to make Pork Rind Nachos, so that's what I'm making next.

Dollar Tree Pork Rind Nachos

My goal with each is to only use what I buy at Dollar Tree and not incorporate any ingredients I already have in my fridge or pantry such as spices, seasonings, oils, etc.

Cost Analysis

I found all the things to make pork rind nachos using ground pork, cheese, olives, pickled jalapeno, hot sauce, and pork rinds. I wanted to incorporate some salsa but they didn't have any that day. So, I picked up a can of Rotel instead and I'll use that in my recipe. Here's what I bought and how much it cost:

Dollar Tree Pork Rind Nachos Ingredients

I only used 1/2 of the can of olives, 1/4 of the jar of pickled peppers, and 3 of the 35 servings of hot sauce. Taking that into account, this meal cost:

The total cost of all these ingredients was $6.17 and I got two servings out of this, so the cost works out to $3.09 per serving.

Effort

Making this meal was pretty simple. I cooked up the pork sausage with 3/4 of the can of Rotel and 1 serving of hot sauce (1 tsp). While that was cooking, I shredded the entire block of mild cheddar cheese. I put 1/2 the cheddar cheese on the pork rinds and heated those to melt the cheese.

Dollar Tree Pork Rinds with Cheese

This is THE KEY to not having soggy pork rinds. If you've ever made pork rind nachos and they came out soggy, a good trick is to melt some cheese on top of your pork rinds before adding your wet ingredients. It creates a coating on the pork rinds that prevents them from becoming soggy.

I also diced the olives and mixed the remaining Rotel with one more serving of hot sauce (1 tsp).

Once the sausage was fully cooked, I was ready to assemble. On top of the pork rinds and melted cheese I layered the cooked pork sausage, the remaining shredded cheese, the diced black olives, the pickled jalapenos, and my Rotel and hot sauce mixture and topped it all off with a few dashes of hot sauce (1 tsp).

Taste

My taste tester and I both agreed, these nachos were delicious! They stayed nice and crispy, all the ingredients had great flavor, and combined it made for a delicious meal.

Dollar Tree Pork Rind Nachos

Macros

Nutritional Breakdown

This dish was much more nutrient-dense than the Bacony Chicken Soup I made from Dollar Tree.

The ingredients on most of the products I bought for this dish were pretty clean. The pork rinds themselves are just made from pork skin and salt.

Brim's Pork Rind Ingredients: Pork Rinds, Salt

The mild cheddar cheese is real cheese and has very simple ingredients:

Lakeside Mild Cheddar Cheese Ingredients: Pasteurized Milk, Cheese Cultures, Salt, Enzymes, and Annatto

The olives, hot sauce, pickled peppers, and can of Rotel all had pretty OK ingredients:

Louisiana Hot Sauce Ingredients: Aged peppers, distilled vinegar, salt McTrades Sliced Jalapeno Pepper Ingredients: Sliced jalapeno peppers, water, salt, acetic acid, calcium chloride.McTrades Sliced Jalapeno Peppers Bell's Black Olives Ingredients: Ripe olives, water, salt, and ferrous gluconate.Bell's Black Olives Rotel Ingredients: Tomatoes, water, chopped green chili peppers, less than 2% of: salt, calcium chloride, natural flavors, citric acid, and cilantro

The sausage had the most questionable ingredients, but all in all, it wasn't bad.

$3.09 for 1038 calories from a fast food joint would be a huge struggle and that food would be filled with all sorts of additives, fillers, preservatives, etc. So, keeping things in perspective here, this is a healthy option if you're on a budget and/or don't have the option to source cleaner ingredients.

Farmer John Original Pork Sausage Ingredients: Pork, pork broth, water, contains 2% or less of salt, dextrose, flavorings, BHT, citric acid, and propyl gallate

Dollar Tree had a couple of different taco seasoning mixes, but these packets were full of all sorts of additives and sugars, so I opted to forego the taco seasoning and instead season my pork sausage with tomatoes, peppers, and hot sauce.

Some Dollar Tree Stores also have "beef patties", which Rebecca from Dollar Tree Dinners sometimes uses in her dishes. But those patties are mostly made from soy, which I don't eat, so I opted to buy the pork sausage and use that in my dish instead.

@autumnallyear.us For the next installment of my Budget Meal Series where I make foods using ingredients I only got from the Dollar Tree, I'm making Pork Rind Nachos. get the full recipe, nutritional breakdown, and details on how I made this recipe on my website, AutumnAllYear.us. Link in bio. ##budgetmeals##dollartree##dollartreedinners##lowcarb##keto##grainfree##lipedema##ketoforlipedema##ketoathome##easyketodinner ♬ original sound - Autumn