What meals do you cook when very low on money?
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Rice and beans. Together they make a complete protein so can make up a larger bulk of your diet.
Pork loin, those gigantic big ones, are cheap per pound. Cut it into three for three roasts, freeze the other 2.
Try to get Multivitamins and magnesium. Long term you want those vitamins and minerals. Fish oil too. It seems expensive but it's cheaper than fish itself.
Beans and rice is the real answer here, +1 to this
Lots of meals are cheap but few will also fill you up.
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When I was literal piss-broke, there was a college campus near me with an open food court. Couldn't afford the actual shops selling food there, but in that food court was a condiments station that randomly had one of those electric hot water dispensers for making tea, and styrofoam cups. It also had ketchup packets, saltine crackers, and pepper.
Turns out you can make a pretty passable tomato soup with ketchup and hot water. Bit of pepper and a handful of saltine cracker packets, and I had myself a hot meal for exactly $0.00
With some money to spend, rice is where it's at. Hitch a ride to Costco or Sam's with someone who has a membership, and they have iirc 50 lb bags of that short grain fortified rice for like... $15? That's well over 100 meals worth of rice.
Cook that up with literally almost anything that has some flavor or nutrients - whatever's cheap. Or just eat it straight... bland, but it'll fill you up. Eggs go great with rice.
Fair warning, you'll get fat. Cheap food is NOT usually healthy.
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You do not need to be broke for: noodles made in herb water
Once you try it you may never go back to only salted water -
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Microwaved hotdog
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When I was poor I ate boiled chicken and rice for every dinner. Breakfast was either cereal+milk (you can try ringing up multiple boxes at the self checkout using a "small" box but bag the bigger boxes), or yogurt+granola (I'd steal granola by ringing up bulk granola as cheaper bulk items and ring up the single yogurt cup in a 6 pack and pay <1/6 the actual cost).
Petty theft rings too true. Had a friend that worked at one of those bulk ingredient shops who'd regularly just take home like a kilo of rice or flour. They don't check anyway and it hardly affects their bottom line.
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Depends where you’re at. If you’re not too far from forests and meadows, mushrooms, grasshoppers and herbs.
Other than that, rice, noodles. You can add the above things to your rice and noodles.
You can cook your noodles in tomato sauce like spaghetti al‘assassina to get some variety.
Remove wings and legs from grasshoppers before eating, they’re scratchy.
Only eat mushrooms and herbs you’re certain they’re not poisonous.
Beans/legumes can be cheap
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Beans and rice is the real answer here, +1 to this
Lots of meals are cheap but few will also fill you up.
Yeah agreed. Beans/lentils, rice, potatoes and flour make up most of my meals. I rarely eat meat but I do consume dairy and eggs occasionally. If you mix in some cheap vegetables like carrots, celery, onion, ect you can get really far with tasty meals.
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When I was literal piss-broke, there was a college campus near me with an open food court. Couldn't afford the actual shops selling food there, but in that food court was a condiments station that randomly had one of those electric hot water dispensers for making tea, and styrofoam cups. It also had ketchup packets, saltine crackers, and pepper.
Turns out you can make a pretty passable tomato soup with ketchup and hot water. Bit of pepper and a handful of saltine cracker packets, and I had myself a hot meal for exactly $0.00
With some money to spend, rice is where it's at. Hitch a ride to Costco or Sam's with someone who has a membership, and they have iirc 50 lb bags of that short grain fortified rice for like... $15? That's well over 100 meals worth of rice.
Cook that up with literally almost anything that has some flavor or nutrients - whatever's cheap. Or just eat it straight... bland, but it'll fill you up. Eggs go great with rice.
Fair warning, you'll get fat. Cheap food is NOT usually healthy.
Beans shouldn't be much more pricey, give you less worry about arsenic and contain a fair amount more protein than rice.
If affordable, I'd pick beans over rice any day.
Big bags of dried beans it is! -
Rice and beans. Together they make a complete protein so can make up a larger bulk of your diet.
Pork loin, those gigantic big ones, are cheap per pound. Cut it into three for three roasts, freeze the other 2.
Try to get Multivitamins and magnesium. Long term you want those vitamins and minerals. Fish oil too. It seems expensive but it's cheaper than fish itself.
+1 for the beans (or lentils, or just any pulses fwiw), but why the rice?
Pulses contain carbohydrates, but much more protein than rice and as rice is a hyperaccumulator of arsenic and pulses aren't, wouldn't that make a diet centred around pulses healthy while still affordable?
Put some canned tomatoes, vegetables, onions, garlic, spices or whatever else is available and affordable to the beans and you have a nice enough and quite healthy meal. -
Basically pasta.
I don't know where you are, but a 500g pack can be had for significantly under 1€ and is sufficient for multiple meals. Add a similar priced can of tomatoes, onions (optional) and some spices (I assume you have those).
Obviously there are other options for the sauce, many are cheap enough to consider when money is tight.
While pasta might contain calories and some protein, there's a lack of other nutrients.
I advice going for pulses instead of pasta.
Dried pulses have a long shelf-life so they can be bought in bulk to reduce the price per meal. -
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If putting a pizza in the oven qualifies as cooking then that.
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Seems like I need to educate myself on lentils and dry beans. Any EASY recipes welcome!
Soak the dried beans over night and the lentils at least for 2 or 3 hours.
Fry an onion and some cloves of garlic in oil. I prefer olive oil, but take whatever is available.
Add a good amount of canned tomatoes to it - canned tomatoes are typically more affordable than fresh ones while tasting better at the same time due to typically being harvested and processed when being ripe. Also they can be bought in bulk due to the long shelf-life.
Put some spices in: pepper, cumin, oregano, thyme, cardamom go well with it, or whatever you like. If the fancier spices are too expensive, just pepper does quite well.
Finally add whatever vegetables are available and affordable: bell peppers, carrots, mushrooms, green squash, whatever you can get and like.
If you can get some minced meat, put it in the pot/pan before you add the canned tomatoes. The same goes for sausages: slice the sausages and roast them gently; it improves the taste.
More affordable than minced meat (potentially healthier than sausages) and a good source of protein (next to the pulses, which contain a nice amount of protein already) would be eggs.
Crack one, two, three eggs into the pan, put a lid on and let it cook for around 10 minutes. The result is close to eggs Benedict
Have fun and hang in there! -
This post did not contain any content.wrote last edited by [email protected]
oats with whey
2 cans of beans with oil and spices (or chickpeas)
pasta with oil and frozen veggies
(pasta always whole grain ofc)
pasta with canned fishthese are my go to meals. However i cook them because im lazy and these are all very healthy, chep, and easy to make
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When I was literal piss-broke, there was a college campus near me with an open food court. Couldn't afford the actual shops selling food there, but in that food court was a condiments station that randomly had one of those electric hot water dispensers for making tea, and styrofoam cups. It also had ketchup packets, saltine crackers, and pepper.
Turns out you can make a pretty passable tomato soup with ketchup and hot water. Bit of pepper and a handful of saltine cracker packets, and I had myself a hot meal for exactly $0.00
With some money to spend, rice is where it's at. Hitch a ride to Costco or Sam's with someone who has a membership, and they have iirc 50 lb bags of that short grain fortified rice for like... $15? That's well over 100 meals worth of rice.
Cook that up with literally almost anything that has some flavor or nutrients - whatever's cheap. Or just eat it straight... bland, but it'll fill you up. Eggs go great with rice.
Fair warning, you'll get fat. Cheap food is NOT usually healthy.
I hope you're better off now
️ !The rice comment is 100% spot on BTW, you know you're in dire straits when you can't afford rice...
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Basically pasta.
I don't know where you are, but a 500g pack can be had for significantly under 1€ and is sufficient for multiple meals. Add a similar priced can of tomatoes, onions (optional) and some spices (I assume you have those).
Obviously there are other options for the sauce, many are cheap enough to consider when money is tight.
Even a little bit of butter is great! Also teaches you to cook pasta correctly.
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+1 for the beans (or lentils, or just any pulses fwiw), but why the rice?
Pulses contain carbohydrates, but much more protein than rice and as rice is a hyperaccumulator of arsenic and pulses aren't, wouldn't that make a diet centred around pulses healthy while still affordable?
Put some canned tomatoes, vegetables, onions, garlic, spices or whatever else is available and affordable to the beans and you have a nice enough and quite healthy meal.Because even the poor like a bit of change?
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Even a little bit of butter is great! Also teaches you to cook pasta correctly.
If you're doing anything with pasta that involves butter you're doing it wrong, but you do you.
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Because even the poor like a bit of change?
Makes sense. Maybe I'm just trying to be too efficient.
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If you're doing anything with pasta that involves butter you're doing it wrong, but you do you.
You have luckily never been that poor
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You don't actually need to soak them before you cook them.
I've made plenty of bean dishes, starting with completely dry beans. It takes a little longer to cook because they are rehydrating while they cook, but they still come out great.
Part of the reason to soak is for them to release sone long proteins that are hard to digest. You can achieve the same result by carefully removing the foam they produce at the beginning of the cooking (or replace the water completely after 10-15 minutes of boiling)
