Rollies chef Mateo Otero shares his tips for affordable meals at home

I’m lying on my couch and scrolling through dinner-idea TikTok videos, trying to figure out what I want to make for dinner this upcoming week.

I can usually find a few things that pique my interest, but I always find myself going back to my old faithful: chicken and vegetables.

What is it that always deters me from trying a new recipe or dish?

Money.

I try to make my weekly grocery trip cost me as little as possible, which means if I see a recipe that requires me to buy all kinds of spices and ingredients, then I’m automatically vetoing it.

But now I’m taking a stand. No more am I going to risk deliciousness for affordability; I can have the best of both worlds.

Mateo Otero, the mastermind and chef behind Rollies Mexican Patio, is sharing his tips and tricks on how to make tasty meals that won’t break the bank.

Otero’s biggest tip: learning how to make things stretch. For example, a couple of weeks ago, he bought five pounds of ground turkey for his family of four. He split the turkey in half and used the first 2.5 pounds of it for turkey chorizo.

He cooked up the ground turkey and added in spices including garlic salt, onion powder, Santa Cruz chili powder, red wine vinegar and whatever hot sauce he has in the pantry. Once that’s done, he’s able to make breakfast burritos for his children for the rest of the week.

With the other 2.5 pounds of ground turkey, he decided to make turkey burger sliders for dinner. It’s easy to make hamburger patties out of the ground turkey, leaving you to have to get some buns and whatever burger fixings you love.

Otero’s so good at making his meals stretch out, he even had ground turkey left behind to cook up some tacos dorados for dinner one night.

“I was able to make three meals out of five pounds of ground turkey,” Otero said.

I price-checked what five pounds of ground turkey would cost at Walmart (Jamie pro-tip: I did a grocery store tour to see who had the lowest prices and Walmart won), and it would be around $25, leaving you some extra cushion to buy other ingredients you’d need to make a few tasty meals.

Another easy meal Otero likes to make at home is pizza. A lot of us already have a jar of marinara or a bag of cheese in our refrigerators, so you’d just need to grab a few extra ingredients.

“My son came up to me and said, hey, dad, do we have flour? Yes. Do we have water? Yes. Do we have baking powder? Yes,” Otero said. “With some salt and a little olive oil, we made a pizza dough without yeast.”

Once the dough was ready, all they had to do was add some sauce, cheese and pepperoni. The best part? They didn’t have to pay any delivery fees.

Otero always likes to have Tajin and saladitos on deck at all times. A sprinkle of Tajin on watermelon or squeezing a saladito in the middle of an orange slice is the perfect refreshing snack.

It’s summertime in Tucson, which means lots of families are probably getting together to swim and cook up carne asada. As the king of tacos, Otero also has some good advice when it comes to preparing for these big cookouts.

It’s easy to head into a carniceria and want to buy all the meat and chicken you possibly can, but that can easily get expensive. Otero suggests you make a plan before heading in so you don’t overorder your meat.

“Some people have carne asadas, and they want to have big bags of chicken, big bags of carne asada, like they want to do 10 pounds of chicken and 10 pounds of carne asada,” Otero said. “You got to know how to make it spread.”

Otero likes to go to Los Amigos Meat Market, 3929 S. 12th Ave., where he gets four pounds of chicken and three pounds of carne asada. He also always grabs a tub of their pico de gallo so he doesn’t have to worry about making one.

If you are going to splurge on one thing for your carne asada, Otero suggests making fresh guacamole.

“I'll grab like three avocados and one jalapeño, some lime juice, and of course season with garlic salt, and you got a good guac right there,” Otero said.

You can also pickle your own onions. Otero likes to slice up some red onion, squeeze in some lime juice, add in a bit of salt and oregano and put that mixture into a mason jar. You can then let it sit in the fridge and marinate; you’ll have fresh, pickled onions all summer long, ready for your next carne asada.

Above all else, you can also always head to Rollies Mexican Patio for an order of potato tacos.