Is there an alternative to canned cat food?

I have 4 cats. Two adults and two kittens. I was feeding them dry food but one of the kittens seems to have an exceptionally hard time chewing it. I took her to the vet and besides worming them he said maybe changing them to canned food would be better. He recommended Science Diet but omg that is expensive. I think we are doing Friskies. They are littermates....and one weighs 4 lbs and the other was 3.5 both are female. The skinnier one is the one that seems to not chew as easy. They were bottle fed until about a month ago. The problem is even though I still feed the two adults the dry food, they want the canned food too. I am feeding two cans of food in the a.m. and two in the p.m. It is getting mucho expensive. Could I use the dry food soaked in milk or water or something to soften it? I can't do more real meat like 100% tuna or chicken or other, just too expensive.