One dish we have pretty much 1-2 times per week is some type of Mexican-style dinner. Here are the ingredients:

#1 Starch - rice (plain cooked in rice cooker), tortilla or tostada
#2 Protein - beans (we use canned), chicken or ground beef (plain)
#3, #4, #5 (toppings) - choice of cheese, salsa (jar), sour cream, lettuce

 It's easy to come up with a variation with 5 ingredients or less that everyone in our family will like with these basic ingredients. For the protein we use beans most often. My favorite combo is rice, black beans, sour cream, salsa and lettuce.

 I just thought of some pasta ones we make, too.

* Baked pasta (what I'm making tonight). Ingredients: pasta, jar of sauce, cheese, ground beef. Boil pasta and drain. Cook ground beef and drain. Mix pasta, sauce and ground beef in a baking dish. Top with cheese. Bake until cheese is melted.

* Spaghetti carbonara. Ingredients: spaghetti, 2 eggs, maybe 2 T. parmesan, salt/pepper, 4-5 slices of bacon, garlic. Boil spaghetti and drain. Mix raw eggs and parmesan cheese. Fry bacon and garlic (do the bacon separately and drain the fat if you want). Add egg/cheese mixture and bacon/garlic mixture to hot spaghetti - this will cook the eggs. Mix well. So unhealthy, yet so delicious.

* Infinite variations of pasta + protein (sausage, chicken or cannellinni beans) + sauteed vegetable (broccoli, zucchini, cabbage, etc.) + garlic + oil/salt/pepper

And one more winter favorite:

Roasted vegetables with sausage

Ingredients:
#1 Sausage
#2, #3, #4 Vegetables - potato, sweet potato, carrot, parsnip, etc. - any winter root veg. + onion
#5 Seasoning: whole garlic cloves and/or thyme/rosemary - if you use both, skip the onion to keep it at 5 ingredients
+ salt, pepper, oil

Place cut up sausage (we have used chicken sausage and kielbasa) in a large pan with cut-up vegetables and seasonings. Toss with oil and roast (at maybe 375 or 400) until vegetables are carmelized and getting crispy. Yum!

Oatmeal - Oats, water, butter, sugar, salt is optional

Cream of Wheat - Cream of Wheat cereal, water, butter, sugar, salt is optional

Eggs - eggs, bacon grease, salt, pepper. Cook them anyway you want to eat them

Egg Sandwhiches - eggs, bread, bacon grease, salt, pepper

Pancakes - (This has more the five because it is made homemade not from a mix) Flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, egg, oil, butter, syrup.

French Toast - Homemade bread (french toast taste so much better on homemade bread.), egg, milk, oil, syrup. You can also put a little cinamon in the egg/milk mixture, but that is optional.

Soup Beans - Water, Great Northern Beans, and meat.

Chili is a cheap meal to make, but there are more ingreients that five.

Taco Salad - Hamburger, homemade seasoning mixture, lettuce, cheese, corn chips, tomatoes.

Rice with chicken broth

Rice with sugar and butter

Chicken Breast baked in butter

Chicken Breasts marinated and baked in Italian Dressing

There are so many cheap meals that can be made with just five ingredients, I have just listed a few.

                                                        Belle

Healthier Rice Pudding

Leftover brown rice

Milk 

Sugar substitute

Cinnamon

Nuts

In a saucepan, heat up rice and milk- 2 parts rice to 3 parts milk, and sweetener to taste. Slowly heat to boiling, then reduce heat to a simmer. Watch it closely and stir often. If it's not creamy enough after most of the milk is soked up add more. Add the cinnamon and nuts at the end.