Holiday Cookout on a Budget? Here’s My Menu Plan for Our Backyard Labor Day Feast

This Labor Day, we’ll be having a cookout around the fire ring. That means we’ll be doing foods that can cook on sticks (or at least some of the foods.) Also, since my son and daughter-in-law do not have a garden, I want to incorporate as much as I can from our garden, but also have it be fun! No one wants to come to a cookout where the only sides are sautéed collard greens, steamed Swiss chard, and a kale salad. 

Here’s the menu plan:

• Fire-roasted hot dogs and sausages. I went to Walmart Wednesday morning, and I’m glad I did. They were down to the last few packages of the Marketside all-beef, uncured hot dogs that I mentioned yesterday. I see them sell out of these before most summer holidays. Someone else must have discovered them. While on that aisle I picked up some Marketside pork sausages, too. The Marketside all-beef franks are comparable in taste, texture, and overall quality to Hebrew National. However, the Marketside brand is $6.97/lb while the HN brand is $7.65/lb. And the Marketside are uncured.
• Homemade hot dog buns. I use a refrigerator roll dough for the buns. I make the dough a day or two ahead, then bake up how ever many buns I think we’ll need for the cookout on the day of. Soft, fluffy, sometimes still warm from the oven.
• Now for the sides — an apple and celery salad, both from our garden.
• Fresh garden tomatoes, cucumber, and basil in a vinaigrette.
• Watermelon slices (not from our garden, but already purchased).
• Scratch macaroni and cheese, because who doesn’t love some good home-cooking at a cookout?
• Blackberry pie, using our blackberries.
• S’mores — I buy the Great Value dark chocolate and milk chocolate 3.52-oz bars for $1.86 each. The cost is 53 cents per ounce. Compare that to Hershey’s king-size chocolate bars at $1.07/ounce or the Giant size for 55 cents/ounce, which would be more chocolate than we want. By buying the 2 different Great Value bars, we get variety that satisfies everyone at a good price. The Great Value bars are good quality for s’mores, every bit as good as Hershey’s. Each bar breaks up into 5 rows of 3 squares each. 

The entire meal was planned with minimal new purchases — the dogs and sausages, and the chocolate bars. While this isn’t strictly made from what was on hand, it’s still a budget-friendly gathering. I spent $16.11 and will use another $9 or $10 worth of foods I have at home, for a grand total of about $26.

To cost compare to average spending for Labor Day BBQs, an average of $7.38 per person will be spent this year by Americans on LD. My family’s total spending (including ingredients I will use from my pantry and fridge) will come to about $4.40 per person. So, yes, I think this is a budget-friendly end-of-summer holiday meal.

What will be on your Labor Day menu plan? Will you get together with others on Monday, or will this be a quiet day for you?