Chicken Alfredo

Makes 14 servings · ~537 cal · 59g protein · 52g carbs · 13g fat per serving.

Ingredients

• Chicken breast — 2,311 g (~5 lb)
• Cottage cheese — 678 g (~24 oz, about 1½ tubs)
• Alfredo sauce (Great Value) — 1,362 g (~48 oz, about three 16-oz jars)
• Rotini pasta — 784 g (2 boxes)
• Broccoli florets — 1,190 g (~2½–3 lb, one large bag)

Estimated Cost

Rough estimate only — prices swing by region and by what's on sale.

• Chicken breast (~5 lb): ~$15
• Cottage cheese (~24 oz): ~$4
• Alfredo sauce (3 jars): ~$6
• Rotini pasta (2 boxes): ~$5
• Broccoli (~2½–3 lb): ~$4
• Batch total: ~$34 at 14 servings → about $2.40 per serving

These are generally non-sale prices — you can go even cheaper by catching chicken on sale and using store-brand for everything else.

That's roughly $2.40 a meal — versus the $25 we'd drop on a single takeout dinner.

Shop Smart

• Buy chicken when it's on sale, then freeze it. Stores drop chicken to a sale price at random — we recently grabbed 50 lbs at $1.99/lb instead of our usual $2.99/lb and loaded the deep freezer. That one buy saved us $50. At ~5 lbs per batch, 50 lbs makes 10 batches — that's 140 portions, or about 70 nights of dinner for two.
• Go store-brand on the Alfredo sauce. It's a fraction of the price, and if it tastes a little bland, just season it up.
• Pasta is flexible. We use Barilla Protein pasta for the macros above, but store-brand pasta is dirt cheap — just know your macros will shift a little if you swap.
• Buy cottage cheese in bulk at Costco/Sam's. The price per ounce is far lower than a regular grocery store. But always check your local weekly ads too — and whatever you buy, compare price per ounce. That's the number that actually tells you the deal.

Make it

1. Weigh your empty pot first. Put the largest pot you'll use to mix everything onto your large scale and write down its weight — you'll need that number at the end to portion accurately. 2. Boil the rotini in that pot until al dente; drain and set aside. 3. Cube and cook the chicken breast. Season it to your liking — salt, pepper, garlic, Italian seasoning, a little cayenne if you want heat. No wrong answer; go with what your taste buds love. 4. Blend the cottage cheese until smooth, then stir it into the Alfredo sauce and warm it through. (The cottage cheese bumps the protein up without changing the creamy taste.) 5. Steam or roast the broccoli. 6. Combine everything back in the pot and stir to coat.

Portion it

Set the full pot on your large scale and subtract the empty-pot weight you noted in Step 1 — that's your total food weight. Divide it by 14, then scoop that amount into each glass container. Every meal lands right at ~537 cal / 59g protein.

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