What meals do you cook when very low on money?
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When I was in college, it was a lot of yogurt, cereal, pasta, and subway. Those $5 subways were 2 meals for me.
However, as an adult, I just made a cabbage salad. I highly recommend recipes from budgetbytes. They try to use cheap but nutritious ingredients whether fresh, frozen, or canned
wrote last edited by [email protected]That looks so good! I always forget cabbage for some reason, but you definitely get your money's worth.
I used a head of green cabbage few years ago to make baked cabbage wraps with lentils as the meat substitute. They fell apart, but still tasted really good.
Uncooked red cabbage leaves makes a pretty good tortilla/bread replacement. Also sauteing shredded red cabbage with red onion then mixing in some goat cheese and sriracha is a really delicious and easy to make side dish.
The most expensive thing is the goat cheese, but be fairly cheap depending on where you buy it. You can also just skip it if necessary bc red cabbage and red onion by itself is still really good.
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Seems like I need to educate myself on lentils and dry beans. Any EASY recipes welcome!
budgetbytes.com great cheap recipes their older stuff was a bit more budget conscious. But you can sort by ingredient and find good bean and lentil recipes.
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An Italian home cooking staple is pasta with butter and sage. Just melt the butter with the sage and gently fry while boiling the pasta
Yes my statement was probably a bit too broad. I meant any pasta with a sauce you generally don't want butter (or oil) on, as it causes the sauce to stick less to the pasta. Which is the whole point of having the sauce in the first place.
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You have luckily never been that poor
I actually have. A can of tomatoes is (or at least was back then) cheaper than a pack of pasta, and can also last for more than 1 or even 2 servings. If I add (just) butter to the pasta, I'm making it worse because I'm one of the seemingly 5 people on earth who don't like butter.
But my comment was meant for pasta with (any) sauce, see my other reply.
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I actually have. A can of tomatoes is (or at least was back then) cheaper than a pack of pasta, and can also last for more than 1 or even 2 servings. If I add (just) butter to the pasta, I'm making it worse because I'm one of the seemingly 5 people on earth who don't like butter.
But my comment was meant for pasta with (any) sauce, see my other reply.
Well you do you then. It was pasta + butter, not anything else.
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Things are way better now! I was getting pretty depressed, and struggled with suicidal ideation. Had a plan, and a redundant backup plan in case the first one didn't turn out to be fatal, but then randomly decided to try an extreme change in lifestyle so I enlisted into the Air Force on kind of a whim. Was always opposed to military cuz of the whole killing innocent people thing... figured if they put me that kind of position I'd just refuse (gave absolutely zero fucks back then) or worse case I'd just go back to plan A and kill myself instead.
Didn't have to find out though: got lucky and they made me a medic (surgical tech specifically). And hugely: access to actual healthcare, to include mental!
Got the fuck out as soon as my enlistment was up, and I've been working as a civilian surgical tech ever since, which has me up to $24/hr. Actually not broke anymore, which still feels kinda weird. Using my GI Bill to go to nursing school right now, so soonish I'll looking at another income bump, but I'm already making enough to at least eat healthy... you don't realize how shitty you just always feel at baseline when your diet consists of carbs and whatever you can find on the clearance rack.
I see a lot of my classmates with that with that same kind of "aw fuck" expression on their face when they see the price tag on the hospital cafeteria food at our clinical rotations, so I've been pretty quick to buy their meal and tell em to pay it forward when they're a 'rich' nurse lol.
But yeah, it sucks absolute balls to be poor. I will never let myself forget what that's like.
Thanks for the history and glad you're on a good track! Good luck you seems to be a sincerely good person!
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Life of Boris has a funny (and actually useful) series on budget cooking if you're into that. Great watch imo
Subscribed. Cheers.
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West African peanut stew but you'd need a place to get a huge bag of berebere spice.
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This post did not contain any content.wrote last edited by [email protected]
I braise a whole bag of onions and use it the base for a big pot of Turkish-ish red lentil soup. This then gets portioned into 10 or so meals and frozen so it lasts till i have money again.
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In a beat boxing tone:
Beans 'n rice (repeat as many times as needed).
Also do pasta with tomato sauce a lot, add whatever I have or what I can find on sale (mostly lentils, beans, frozen vegetables (kinds that have protein)).
I've always loved lentils but I've kinda rediscovered them lately, it's crazy how good they are in every way. Cheap, somehow always makes more food than you think, easy to cook and extremely versatile, makes you feel full with less and keeps you going for longer. Truly a superfood IMO.
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The carbs have a place in a healthy diet. Nothing wrong with rice or noodles. The Ramen if it's instant is crap though
I would hope most people reading this would know already, but pasta, ramen, rice, even oatmeal, on their own are not nutritionally adequate to keep you going.
You've got to include vegetables and protein - pulses usually being the best bang for your buck.
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Fun fact FTW! Check out epazote for not only doing away with the pre-soak, but most of the renowned GI effects, too.
A little goes a long way, (IIRC, ~ ½T for a 4-5gal pot) and it's essentially dried grass. Get it from your local mercado/bodega for dirt cheap, change your life. 🥳TIL, thanks
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As a side note, it's a good investment to buy a pressure cooker at least for the beans since it cuts the cooking time to about 10 minutes (and this is assuming you've soaked the beans for at least 12H).
Pressure cookers will also cut down the cooking time of things that need longer cooking to not be too hard to chew, such as cheap pieces of beef.
Also consider chickpeas along with beans and lentils since you can cook them in the same way and they're the same kind of thing (pulses).
wrote last edited by [email protected]If you didn't soak your beans, you can still do them in a pressure cooker. It'll just take about an hour. It lets you make a somewhat last minute decision to have beans whenever you want.
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Ramen with frozen vegetables mixed in.
Bean tacos.
Some kind of dish using chicken thighs as you can buy the thighs for cheap.
If ground beef is cheap, cottage pie.
Various pasta dishes
Ramen with frozen vegetables mixed in.
I like to add soy protein chunks (TVP) in my instant noodles too. They're one of the cheapest sources of protein and do not need any extra work as long as you get the small ones. Just dump it in with the hot soup and wait for it to rehydrate.
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Agreed! Pulses in general allow for a healthy and affordable diet.
I'm not a proponent of rice mainly for the way it gets produced (lots of water needed and methane emitted in the process) and the fact it's a hyperaccumulator of arsenic. About all these things I don't need to worry when picking pulses.
But each to their own and some variety rarely is a bad idea.How much of a concern is arsenic? A lot of Asian cultures have rice with every meal and they have some of the healthiest people on the planet.
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Herb water? As in tea? Never heard of this
Its probably some kind of herb tea
I put herbs like oregano into the noodle water before even adding salt. Mostly i use some ready made mix -
How much of a concern is arsenic? A lot of Asian cultures have rice with every meal and they have some of the healthiest people on the planet.
Dunno. What I can say is that it's not no concern.
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/05/15/health/arsenic-cadmium-rice-wellness
Add the methane production and use of water to the equation and beans or pulses in general look quite a bit better in terms of environmental or individual health.
And last but not least rice contains very little protein whereas pulses are rich in protein.
But because pulses typically are low on some protein like methionine and cysteine, grain is a indeed a good addition to a diet based on pulses.
Yet I'd pick oats over rice for that part. -
In a beat boxing tone:
Beans 'n rice (repeat as many times as needed).
Also do pasta with tomato sauce a lot, add whatever I have or what I can find on sale (mostly lentils, beans, frozen vegetables (kinds that have protein)).
I've always loved lentils but I've kinda rediscovered them lately, it's crazy how good they are in every way. Cheap, somehow always makes more food than you think, easy to cook and extremely versatile, makes you feel full with less and keeps you going for longer. Truly a superfood IMO.
Beans, rice, potatoes - the holy trinity.
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Beans, rice, potatoes - the holy trinity.
Adds nicely to the beatboxing too
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So far wasnt in the situation, buuut:
Cheap and easy spaghetti salad:
A big bowl
1 piece of garlic, finely chopped or sliced
2-3 big tomatoes or appeopiate amount of smaller tomatoes, small pieces
Basil, finely chopped
Spices (rosemary, Oregano, etc. for other pizza and pasta appropriate spices)
Olive oil, a healthy amount. The ingredients should be moderately covered in a small pool of oil (dont drown it.)
Pepper and chili flakes as much as you like
Let it rest for >60min. But you can be impatient and eat it earlier)
Salt to taste (should be a bit saltier than you like)Cook as much spaghetti as you like.
Remove from water and add to the bowl with the oil mix.
Mix all ingredients hntil everything is covered.Enjoy
