What meals do you cook when very low on money?
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Back in my early 20s there were a few things.
- Making beanie weenies were pretty inexpensive
- Ramen is the old standby
- Totino's party pizzas were also cheap calories
- Canned soups, stretched out with cheap crackers
- Peanut butter on celery or toast
No idea if those are still cost effective, but two or three of those could be stretched out over a week for under $10 at the time. I still eat all of those things at least every few years for some hits of nostalgia, even the cheap ass pizza.
wrote last edited by [email protected]This is all processed food that's not only more expensive than just cooking something but also horribly unhealthy. Loaded with sodium.
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Rice, potatoes, beans, and lentils are all solid low cost choices.
Yup. Buy dry beans and dry rice -- none of that precooked stuff. Buy fresh potatoes tho. If you can afford it, I'd also get a bag of onions, maybe carrots, and some spices that do NOT contain salt. You can also buy salt, but it is way cheaper per-gram to get salt and other spices on their own. Note that brown rice has more vitamin content than white rice (thiamine deficiency), but most white rice is enriched to compensate.
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Falafel: dried chickpeas with garlic & parsley fried in oil. Very high calorie/cost, because the chickpeas are basically oil sponges, and it's hard to beat vegetable oil on calories/cost. $1.50 for 1000 calories.
Kimchi fried rice: Kimchi, rice, couple of fried eggs for protein. $2.10 for 1000 calories. Make your own kimchi even cheaper.
Chili noodles: cheap, store-brand spaghetti with chili oil-soy sauce dressing. Don't sub ramen for pasta - that stuff's expensive. $2.50/1000 cal. Make your own chili oil for extra savings.
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Rice and beans is the staple pretty much everywhere else.
Don't buy ultra processed Mac and cheese or frozen pizza. It's nutritionally bad for you, and won't keep you full for long.
Start with rice and beans and canned sauce. Cheap, easy, and good for you.
You can obviously add chicken/tofu/protein, or try to start making sauces yourself. But always keep the rice and beans as a base. Every meal you eat, rice and beans. They're cheap as hell and close to what we evolved to eat.
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This is all processed food that's not only more expensive than just cooking something but also horribly unhealthy. Loaded with sodium.
Assuming someone asking how to eat when poor has access to fresh ingredients and the time/means to prepare them
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I started eating a lot of chickpeas recently. Buy them dried, boil them for a couple minutes them let them soak in the water for a few hours. Then either roast them in the oven or if I'm lazy, toss them in the microwave for like 5 minutes, then add some seasoning. I snack on them between meals, or also toss them into things like soup or curry.
Also if you want a different take on ramen, boil them until they are al dente, drain the water and then stir fry with some cheap veggies or whatever.
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Sweet potatoes. Alternately, potatoes, carrots and green beans stewed together with cornbread or rice. If you can afford it, chicken, pork, or turkey for flavor and protein. It need not be expensive cuts, necks or tails will do.
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This is all processed food that's not only more expensive than just cooking something but also horribly unhealthy. Loaded with sodium.
wrote last edited by [email protected]When I was really low on money I had one small saucepan, one pan, a spatula, and a few dishes and silverware. No soup pot, no mixing bowels, or any other prep stuff. No spices or other ways to make flavorful food.
Cheap processed food is more affordable in the short term than spending money on stuff that will make cooking cheaper in the long run. I'm not saying it was the best choice, just answering the question of what I did make.
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try to opt for dried beans over canned if u have time canned beans are expensive these days. lentils especially red lentils cook pretty fast from dry, whereas white beans or black beans take longer but if u can cook a whole bag it should last u ab a week. u can season w season salt or bouillon or some cheap spice mix so u dont have to buy a bunch of individual spices.
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Rice, potatoes, beans, and lentils are all solid low cost choices.
I mix lentils and rice with sautéed onions and I have a meal for a couple days. Add a dollop of sour cream.
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I have to admit that I do not do beans nearly as much as I should. I think it is because canned beans are not nearly the deal money-wise as dried beans are ... and I am not good at letting beans soak without forgetting them and ruining them.
I'm not sure they're quite ruined if over soaked. Cooking time will be greatly diminished. I've left beans soaking for 24 hours because I forgot, they turned out fine.
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This post did not contain any content.wrote last edited by [email protected]
Boil some red lentils, add carrots when they're half done. Then some coconut cream and a stock cube. Fry up some onion and garlic with cumin and coriander powder, then chuck that in too. Eat with rice. Add some sambal.
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Hopefully you like Indian food, because there are loads of lentil dishes that are super cheap. Dal Makhani plus some basmati rice (and if you’re ambitious, make some naan from scratch). Basically lentils, a few spices, an onion, some garlic and ginger, and rice.
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You can fancy up top ramen by putting some sliced onion, basil, egg etc in it.
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I have to admit that I do not do beans nearly as much as I should. I think it is because canned beans are not nearly the deal money-wise as dried beans are ... and I am not good at letting beans soak without forgetting them and ruining them.
Do a quick soak (bring to a boil, turn off heat, cover, let sit for an hour) and use a timer.
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Assuming someone asking how to eat when poor has access to fresh ingredients and the time/means to prepare them
Rice and beans are available pretty much everywhere. Granted it might be farther than a corner store but it keeps so it is worth it even in a food desert.
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This post did not contain any content.wrote last edited by [email protected]
My ultimate struggle meal:
In 1 pot:
- Rice (the good one from a sack, forget about minute rice)
- Carrots, sliced
- Whatever is cheapest between Sweet potato, Pumpkin or Eggplant at the time, cut into cubes.
- Thai Curry paste & Soy sauce
- Salt
- Cook 15 minutes
- Put into a tortilla with mayonnaise
Fast, really cheap, and has the important bonus that the only dish to clean is the 1 pot. When struggling, I also don't feel like doing a lot of housework.
Sadly, I can never remember the best ratios, so the mayonnaise is rather mandatory as it can save a rather bland filling. Sometimes, I splurge and use guacamole instead, sometimes I also put in mini-spring rolls from the same shop I buy the rice and curry.
With my "recipe" out of the way, the important thing is to find some ingredients that have a low price for lot's of weight, and then choose a recipe that's like 90% cheap ingredients by weight. (Remember that some ingredients take on a lot of water, rice taking on twice it's volume for example, so they're cheaper than the price tag implies). I personally look for food that's under 3€/kg. The other 10% of the meal can be way more expensive (curry paste in my recipe), but, because you only use so little of it, as a whole it's still cheap.
Probably the absolute cheapest meal are homemade hash browns, potatoes are ridiculously cheap, with apples being the cheapest fruit where I live. Next cheapest vegetable around here are carrots.
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Nothing against the other suggestions, but pretty much anything you can buy that is "ready to eat" (canned soup) or "easy to make" (Kraft dinner), even if it is already cheap, would still be cheaper to make yourself from scratch. Cooking, in bulk, is your friend.
Two cartons of soup broth $1.77 CDN/946ml each, half a bag of frozen veggies $2.57/500g, boom you have 5 soup meals for <$1 per meal. A cup of flour to make dumplings in that soup and make it more appealing. Compare that to a canned soup which seems to be up in price lately, between 1.50 - 3.00, and you're laughing, and eating a lot less salt.
I haven't figured out exactly the cost of making bread (I play with the recipe and how many loaves), but I am absolutely certain it costs less and tastes better than the cheapest bullshit bread you can get at a store. So less than $2 for a loaf, and it actually smells and tastes like bread and doesn't dissolve in your mouth like cotton candy. No bullshit preservatives.
Pasta with pasta sauce, ez and cheap af, filling. <$1 per meal.
Things that are more difficult imo are meat and cheese due to the cost. I like to buy frozen logs of ground beef which isn't that appealing on it's own, but is passable in chili and shepherd's pie.
Cheese can go a long way especially if you shred it for pizza (and you already have flour and pasta sauce from above.)Speaking of shepherd's pie, potatoes are cheap and versatile. One tube of ground beef with a layer of frozen veg and mashed taters on top, again <$1 per meal.
Not to mention rice which is maybe the ultimate value-for-money food when you just need something in your stomach. Foodies will crucify me, but I love to eat it with margerine (way cheaper than butter) and salt and pepper. There's so much more you can do with it, though. Good for bulking up soups too.
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When I was really low on money I had one small saucepan, one pan, a spatula, and a few dishes and silverware. No soup pot, no mixing bowels, or any other prep stuff. No spices or other ways to make flavorful food.
Cheap processed food is more affordable in the short term than spending money on stuff that will make cooking cheaper in the long run. I'm not saying it was the best choice, just answering the question of what I did make.
Crock pots are relatively cheap and often available second hand, so are larger pots. I have been poor and know exactly how hard it is to feed myself with little to no money left after bills. Buying junk is not cheaper, it doesn't actually sustain you.
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Falafel: dried chickpeas with garlic & parsley fried in oil. Very high calorie/cost, because the chickpeas are basically oil sponges, and it's hard to beat vegetable oil on calories/cost. $1.50 for 1000 calories.
Kimchi fried rice: Kimchi, rice, couple of fried eggs for protein. $2.10 for 1000 calories. Make your own kimchi even cheaper.
Chili noodles: cheap, store-brand spaghetti with chili oil-soy sauce dressing. Don't sub ramen for pasta - that stuff's expensive. $2.50/1000 cal. Make your own chili oil for extra savings.
To add to this, buying from specific ethnicity markets tends to be cheaper. If you have nearby Chinese/Eastern, any middle eastern, Mexican/Latin American stores, you can find a lot of really cheap staples to make.
