cheap eats

Fast-food companies face a two-headed monster after every New Year%u2019s Day: Diet resolutions and empty wallets. So purveyors of burgers, tacos, fried chicken and the like are getting aggressive, which means means a solid month of gooey, cheesy, melty deals.

While many fast-food restaurants have added healthier options, most still focus on cheap, high-calorie, high-fat fare. But who provides the most calories per dollar? To find out where you can get the biggest bulge for your buck, we compared McDonald's, KFC and Taco Bell.

We've been buying cheap food off carts since the beginning of civilization, but over the past few years, there's been a quantum leap in the quality of the fare on the streets of many American cities. San Francisco, a city known for sophisticated palates and rigorous ethical standards, is home to...

We insist upon discounts for groceries, hotels, gifts, and just about everything else we buy. But what about eating out? How can you save when you're on the business end of a napkin? Let's round up some of the primary methods and compare them.

Money College isn't just for college students, but those who care about them -- and pay those tuition bills, too. Self-described "shopping dad" James Buffington takes on the challenge of feeding a college student on $35 a week, without a single slice of stale bread in sight. Can a college...

After pasta, chicken is a popular feature on many home menus. It's inexpensive and can appeal to different tastes because it's, well, safe and bland. But it doesn't have to be. Shawn McClain, James Beard Award-winning chef of Las Vegas' Sage restaurant, cooks up a tasty chicken dish that makes...

When you're a parent, pasta appears on the dinner menu all too often -- and at least twice a week. For those nights when the kids are clamoring for more tasty noodles and you're fresh out of ideas, try a fast and fun version of spaghetti and meat sauce from Chef Antonio Frontera, author of Chicken...

How about if I told you that you can get a large bag of great-quality tortilla chips for only about 50 cents per bag, as opposed to the $2.99 you're probably paying for your Tostitos? And just to sweeten this even more, how about I tell you that this deal is available year-round, and doesn't...

Sure, you can grab a hot dog or slice of pizza in New York for cheap, but a balanced meal for $10 or less? In Manhattan? That's the idea behind the new site CheapEatery.com. At first it seemed too good to be true. When Daniel Lyu, a former producer for The Food Network, told me about launching...

This game of chicken is getting interesting. After KFC offered up a free piece of chicken on Monday, Boston Market upped the ante by offering its online customers a $1 chicken meal. That's a complete meal with a quarter white or 3-piece dark chicken served with mashed potatoes and cornbread. All...