16 Cheap Sandwiches You Can Make At Home In 2026

Everyone's trying to save a little bit of money in 2026, particularly when it comes to the grocery bill. Sandwiches are a go-to cheap option when you're looking for ways to eat on a budget — but some sammies are more affordable than others. If you get to the deli section of the grocery store and start piling specialty cheeses and meats into your cart, then throw in a few artisan condiments, you can quickly end up with a meal cost that rivals what you'd pay for an entree at a mid-tier restaurant.

To help you keep your grocery budget in check, we've compiled a list of some of the cheapest sandwiches you can make at home in 2026. Pricing is based on the most affordable ingredients available at Walmart, though prices can vary depending on your location. Additionally, these sandwich prices assume you have some basic pantry and fridge staples on hand, such as small portions of mayonnaise, mustard, or a few pickles. All but one of the sandwiches are under $2 per serving as of publication and are listed from least to most expensive. 

If you already have some butter at home, you're only a mere 24 cents away from the cheapest take on this staple sandwich. With Great Value white bread going for 6 cents a slice at Walmart and Great Value American cheese available for $1.88 for 16 slices — or around 12 cents per slice — it's easy to see why grilled cheese has long been a go-to dinner for busy, cash-strapped families everywhere.

Don't have any butter at home? You can always use mayo instead of butter on grilled cheese. After all, being thrifty is about using what you have rather than buying something new. 

While you're at Walmart, consider picking up a cheap can of soup to round out your meal for only a little more per serving. The chain sells some of its Great Value condensed soups — like the cream of chicken and the cream of celery — for under $1 per can. Even if you opt for name-brand soup, you won't pay all that much more for Campbell's, with its condensed tomato soup selling for under $1.50 per can.

Whether you're eating it for breakfast, lunch, or dinner, a fried egg sandwich can sate your cravings for something savory, salty, and oh-so-satisfying. This sandwich is also highly versatile. If you want the cheapest option possible, all you have to do is fry up a single egg (don't be stingy with the salt and pepper) and place it piping-hot between two pieces of white bread. You can toast the bread if you want, but the heat from the egg will turn untoasted bread soft, pillowy, and warm, which some prefer. 

This option'll cost you 12 cents for two slices of white bread, plus 16 cents for the egg if you purchase a six-count of Great Value large white Grade A eggs. That comes out to about 28 cents per sandwich.

Of course, you can also upgrade this sandwich with relatively little extra cost. You probably already have some items in your fridge or pantry that'll do the trick, such as some mayonnaise, ketchup, or hot sauce.

If you've not yet become acquainted with the regional sweet sandwich known as the fluffernutter, you're in for a real treat. Simple and toothachingly saccharine, it's a combo of white bread, peanut butter, and marshmallow fluff. Literally, you just spread out a couple of tablespoons of marshmallow fluff onto a piece of white bread, spread a couple of tablespoons of peanut butter on the other slice, mash 'em together, and go.

For just one fluffernutter sandwich, you'll pay 12 cents for two slices of white bread. Then, Walmart's cheapest creamy peanut butter (also from Great Value) is $1.52 for a 16-ounce jar. Since the jar has 14 2-tablespoon servings and you'll use 2 tablespoons on your sandwich, you'll pay about 11 cents per sandwich for the peanut butter. Marshmallow Fluff at Walmart comes in a 7.5-ounce, 18-serving jar for $1.58. Again, assuming you're adding two tablespoons to your sandwich, you'll pay 9 cents for one sandwich's worth of fluff. Your total cost? 32 cents per sandwich.

You knew the classic peanut butter and jelly sandwich would make this list. It is the ultimate in easy, no-cook, no-frills, low-budget sandwiches. If you've more or less abandoned this childhood fave in your adulthood years, it's time to revisit it.

Grab some white sandwich bread. Then, pick your peanut butter. Walmart sells a 16-ounce jar of creamy Great Value natural PB for $1.52, and if you use 2 tablespoons on your sandwich, that'll work out to approximately 11 cents per sandwich. As for jelly, Walmart's cheapest option is its 18-ounce Great Value Concord grape jelly at $1.98. Again, if you use 2 tablespoons on your PB&J sandwich, that'll be about 16 cents.

Add it all up, and you have a classic, filling lunch sandwich for just 39 cents. With a deal like that, you might even decide that you have enough wiggle room in your budget to splurge on a glass of ice-cold milk!

However you feel about bologna, there's no denying that it makes for an affordable, savory eat, and it's at its best when you fry it. Simply plop a slice in your pan and heat it until it's brown. While fans may debate the best toppings for this sandwich, many can agree that you'll want to start with a base of white bread, and that plain yellow mustard and a slice of American cheese are requisite.

Your white bread will be 12 cents per sandwich. Great Value American cheese is $1.88 for a pack of 16 slices, which works out to 12 cents per slice and per sandwich. Let's assume you have a squirt of mustard already at the ready. From there, the only remaining cost is the slice of bologna. At $1.68 for a pack from Bar-S brand that makes 10 sandwiches, that puts your total fried bologna sandwich at a cool cost of about 41 cents per serving.

If you need to feed a crowd on a budget, make some old-school cucumber sandwiches. If you make a huge batch, you'll use up a whole loaf of bread. For the finger sandwiches' interior, you'll need 8 ounces of cream cheese ($1.56 from Great Value), an English cucumber (98 cents), fresh chives ($1.92 for a ½-ounce clamshell at Walmart, but you'll only use 1 teaspoon, so let's say a third of it at 64 cents), and dill ($2.22 for a ¾-ounce jar of Great Value's dried version, but again, you'll only use two teaspoons, so approximately 50 cents' worth). Plus, you'll need a few spoonfuls of mayo from the fridge and possibly other seasonings and spices to taste. 

When making this entire recipe, you'll pay a mere $5.20 and get 12 full-size sandwiches. That's 43 cents per sandwich, before you even cut them into the typical, smaller, finger-food-friendly portions.

Much like a fried egg sandwich, an egg salad sandwich is deliciously cheap. The egg salad option will be slightly more expensive, as you may want to use two eggs per sandwich to give it some bulk. Your two eggs will cost 32 cents when you buy a six-pack of Great Value large white Grade A eggs.

Other ingredients you'll need to buy include white bread and — well, if you have a few basics on hand, that'll be it. You'll add a few spoons of mayo, relish, and mustard to taste. Season with salt and pepper for a total of about 44 cents.

If you have other herbs or seasonings in your pantry that you'd like to add to your egg salad, go for it. Dill and paprika are good options, along with flavor-boosting ingredients potentially in your fridge, like lemon or pickle juice. Don't feel like you must do this, though. Basic and budget-friendly will work just fine.

The absolute best tomato sandwich is going to be made with a beautiful, fresh-picked heirloom tomato, still warm from the sun and either taken from your very own backyard or purchased at your nearest farmers market. However, not all of us have a garden out back, and shopping at the farmers market isn't always cost-effective. In this case, we can make do with a tomato sandwich featuring a large store-bought tomato. 

Beyond that tomato, for this sandwich, you'll just need your white bread, a bit of mayo that you already have on hand, and salt and pepper. It's as easy as that. 

The white bread is 12 cents for two slices. A beefsteak tomato (while dependent upon weight) is estimated to cost $1.16 at Walmart, and you only need half of one for each serving. That all puts you at just 70 cents for this sandwich. To amp up the experience without spending anything further, consider toasting your sandwich in a skillet before chowing down. 

Sometimes, a cheap sandwich can feel a little less cheap when you start with two affordable ingredients but then add one that's maybe somewhat on the pricier side. Take, for instance, the Nutella banana sandwich.

A sweeter version of the classic peanut butter banana sandwich, you'll just need two pieces of white bread, half a banana (10 cents at Walmart), and then the Nutella. A 13-ounce jar at Walmart is around $4.97 depending on location, but you only need 2 tablespoons for one Nutella banana sandwich. Since there are 10 2-tablespoon servings in the jar, that means your cost for the Nutella is about 50 cents per sandwich. 

All in all, for this treat, you're only out 72 cents. Make this cheap snack even more decadent by toasting the bread or air frying the assembled sandwich. It'll turn the outsides nice and crispy and the insides warm and gooey.

Don't make the mistake of thinking that Americans are the only ones who love their cheap sandwiches. It's difficult to find a country where the locals don't have their own affordable classics. In Italy, you've got tramezzini. Small, snack-sized, and versatile, these sandwiches come with a variety of fillings. One of your cheapest options, though, is a mixture of hard-boiled egg, mayo, and spinach.

If you have mayo already on hand, you're probably not going to need to buy any extra for this sandwich, because you'll only need enough to coat the bread and turn your hard-boiled egg into a salad-like consistency. This mixture is topped with spinach, and it is all served between two slices of bread, cut into triangles. 

With your white bread (12 cents), egg (16 cents each in a Great Value pack of six large white eggs), and fresh spinach (a bunch is $1.87 at Walmart, and let's assume you use a quarter of the bunch, for a cost of 47 cents), you're looking at 75 cents per sandwich.

Cream cheese and olive spread is a bit of a retro treat, combining a block of cream cheese, half a jar of olives, an optional dash of Worcestershire sauce, salt, and pepper. The spread can be used on crackers but is also a favorite for making simple olive and cream cheese sandwiches. Throwing this white-bread-ensconced meal together is exceptionally easy and very cheap, plus it results in a lot of leftovers.

White bread works out to about 6 cents per slice — or 12 cents per sandwich. Great Value cream cheese, meanwhile, goes for $1.56 per 8 ounces, and you'll need the entire block to make up a big batch of the spread. A Great Value 7-ounce jar of pimento-stuffed green olives costs $2.36, meaning a half-jar of roughly chopped olives comes out to $1.18. The resulting spread can be used to make about four sandwiches, which means the total cost of each sandwich is around 81 cents.

The cheese and onion sandwich is a British classic. It's grated cheese mixed with raw onion and a spoonful of mayo to keep it together. Spread it on buttered white bread, and it's ready to eat. (Though sprinkling in a bit of pepper for flavor is a good idea.)

The most expensive bit is the cheese. You'll need about ½ cup of sharp cheddar for one sandwich. At Walmart, a 2-cup bag of Great Value shredded sharp cheddar is $1.97, so each sandwich contains 49 cents' worth of cheese. Then, you'll need ⅛ cup of red onion and half a green onion. Let's say you purchase the latter in a bunch for $1.10 at Walmart and get seven onions in a bunch; that works out to roughly 8 cents for half of one. You purchase the former whole for 98 cents at Walmart, and use up approximately a fourth of the onion, for a cost of 25 cents.

Of course, we can't forget the bread, which is 12 cents for two slices. Considering all the above, your cheese and onion sandwich comes out to 94 cents.

Like many sandwich salads, ham salad is very versatile, but you can still keep the number of needed ingredients to a minimum. For example, you could make a ham salad spread with literally just ham, mayo, and relish or pickles. Blend it all together in a food processor, spread it on white bread, and you're golden.

Let's say you use ½ pound ham, ½ cup mayonnaise, and ⅓ cup pickle relish. That'll make four sandwiches. Ham steak is one of the go-to choices for ham salad (versus deli-style slices), and ½ pound ham steak at Walmart is $2.97. Great Value mayonnaise is $2.18 for a 15-ounce jar that holds 30 tablespoons. A ½ cup of mayo is 8 tablespoons, so your mayo cost for the recipe is 58 cents. The pickle relish, meanwhile, is $1.87 for a 10-ounce Great Value squeeze bottle that contains 21 tablespoons, and you'll need about 5 tablespoons for your ham salad — or 45 cents' worth of relish. 

All told, to make the entire batch of ham salad, you'll only pay $4. Add in white bread from Great Value and spread the salad out between four sandwiches, and you're paying $1.12 per sandwich.

Classic club sandwiches typically include ingredients that are cheap on their own but, once added all together, make for one pricey sandwich. We're talking about the chicken, the turkey, the ham, the bacon. For a cheaper club sandwich, swap out ham for bologna.

You'll build your club sandwich with the classic three pieces of toasted white bread for 18 cents. In each part of the sandwich, you'll use a piece of bologna for a total of two slices at 34 cents when buying a 12-ounce pack from Bar-S (fried, if you're feeling fancy). Let's say you use half a beefsteak tomato that costs $1.16 at Walmart, plus a few leaves of iceberg lettuce (a head is around $2 at Walmart, and we'll generously assume you'll use up about 5% of it on one sandwich, for 10 cents of lettuce).

Your pseudo-club sandwich adds up to about $1.20. If you have extra condiments in the fridge, spread some mayo between the layers as well.

Canned and prepackaged tuna is the king of cheap fish — and there are so many brands and types of tinned tuna out there. As far as tuna salad goes, there are a lot of ways you can enhance it or make it a little extra-special, but if it's cheap you're after, it's best to keep things basic.

At Walmart, you can get a 2.6-ounce pack of Great Value chunk light tuna in water for 94 cents. Then, utilize Great Value's 24-slice loaf of white sandwich bread for 12 cents for two slices. Add a stick of celery (one bunch is $2.04 at Walmart, and there can be around eight to nine stalks in a bunch, making each stick about 23 cents). A whole yellow onion at Walmart is 71 cents, and you'll probably use about an eighth of a small onion for one sandwich. Add mayo to taste, which you likely already have on hand. It all adds up to around $1.37.

The Elena Ruz is a Cuban turkey tea sandwich with minimal ingredients. It consists of a brioche bun, a smear of cream cheese and jam, and a few slices of turkey. The sandwich is grilled for just a moment before being served warm for a budget-friendly splurge.

Assuming you have some butter for the grilling, you'll need to purchase that brioche bun (87 cents for one when you buy a pack of four from the Bettergoods brand at Walmart), cream cheese (20 cents for 2 tablespoons out of a Great Value 8-ounce brick), strawberry jam (27 cents for 2 tablespoons from an 18-ounce jar of Smucker's Seedless Strawberry Jam), and sliced turkey ($1.19 for 3 ounces from a 9-ounce pack of Great Value thin-sliced, oven-roasted turkey breast). Your Cuban turkey tea sandwich comes out to $2.53. 

This list assumes you have small amounts of basic pantry staples and fridge condiments, such as mayo, pickles, or mustard (unless the sandwich requires large amounts). Prices for all other ingredients were taken from the most affordable available options on Walmart's website and based on prices at the Plattsburgh Walmart Supercenter in northern New York. Almost all of the sandwiches use Great Value white bread, in a 20-ounce, 24-slice package for $1.52, which works out to roughly 6 cents a slice. Sandwiches are ranked by the cost of the ingredients needed for just one sandwich, not the cost of buying all ingredients in full.