Dollar Tree Meal Kit Donations – $40 for 4 Complete Meals

This is an entirely different food blog post from my normal recipes.

In an effort to promote giving back, I came across some TikTok’s that motivated me to try my own thing and see how I can feed more families for less dollars with an investment that will stretch further.

I live in a small town and we have a food pantry here as well as a food bank for the community members in need. A few years ago this very nice local couple started a food pantry they placed in their front yard and have helped so many people in this lovely small town.

I try to donate canned goods and other non-perishables, when possible, but I truly loved the idea of being able to donate a complete meal.

This meal is one that is near and dear to me, as I love chicken and dumplings. Although, I have all these ingredients readily available to me, I acknowledge that not everyone has a fully stocked pantry, freezers, and access to food and ingredients.

My objective was to make a meal that would be holistically homemade but for minimal funds. This creamy chicken and dumpling meal is something I would absolutely make and it’s a warm comforting meal that can stretch to feed 4 to 6 people, especially if they are toddler people.

I know the selection at Dollar Tree can vary, however, these are some pretty basic ingredients that they consistently carry. I also think that the addition of shelf stable 2% milk is a wonderful addition as you have enough milk to make this recipe and still have a little leftover.

I love adding a “dessert” eliminate to this meal to make it a more complete meal and the blueberry muffins don’t require anything but milk to make. This could be used as a breakfast or dessert option.

For roughly $40 I put together 4 meal kits that include everything needed to make chicken and dumplings and blueberry muffins. This could represent 2 meals for 4 families. Such a small investment to make such a big impact.

Locally, if you collected $10 donations you could make dozens of meals for you local food pantry. This is an easy solution to a complex problem. I plan on doing more research and testing to see if I can come up with some other $10 meal kits from Dollar Tree.

I hope this post inspires you to give back to your community!

What you need for four meal kits

So for all of the ingredients for this meal it costs roughly $10 a meal. For this project I made four complete meal kits for roughly $40.

The only things you will need to have at home is water and salt and pepper. The biscuits are prepared using only milk or water and the blueberry muffins only require milk.

I used mixed vegetables, diced potatoes and added the chicken bouillon for additional flavor.

When purchasing the ingredients to make 4 meals, you only need to buy one box of the chicken bouillon, there are 8 cubes of bouillon in the box, and I put two cubes of bouillon in each meal kit.

Also, I purchased the 5 pack of gallon size bags when I bought all the ingredients for this meal prep, but obviously if you had them at home, or purchased a big thing from Sam’s Club that would also cut down on the total cost at Dollar Tree.

There are some variations you could make, like using the cheddar biscuit mix, or the garlic herb biscuit mix if that is available at your local Dollar Tree. I stuck with the regular Pillsbury biscuit ix as it is more readily available.

Canned chicken works great for this recipe and is a great addition of protein.

Of course, another preparation would be to just make the soup as directed and cook the biscuits separately if people would prefer to not do dumplings and rather have soup with biscuits.

Lots of options with these ingredients!

I have included a printable PDF of the recipe that you can print and fold into the bag you prepare.

To prepare the meal kits for donation

At your local Dollar Tree purchase the following items for four total meal kits:

1 five pack of Hefty Gallon Size Bags

4 Modern Pantry Shelf Stable 2% Milks

4 Pillsbury Home-style Biscuit Mix

4 Martha White Blueberry Muffin Mix

4 Cans of Diced Potatoes

4 Cans of Mixed Vegetables

4 Cans of Cream of Chicken Soup

8 Cans of Crider Chunk White Chicken

1 box of Maggi Chicken Bouillon

(You will need some clear packing tape to secure the milk to the bottom of the bag)

Below is a printable list of ingredients and instructions for shopping:

Meal Kit Assembly

Print four copies of the recipe PDF link below:

Into each gallon bag, add one can of soup, one can of mixed vegetables, one can of diced potatoes, the biscuit mix, the blueberry muffin mix, and two cubes of bouillon.

Fold the recipe in half and place in front of the cans into the bag.

Using a sturdy clear packing tape, tape the box of milk onto the bottom of the bag as pictured here.

Drop off at your local food pantry!

I hope this motivates you to give back to your community too!