Ask Lemmy

I used to fry a pan of frozen veggies with salt and thyme, but these days I'm often lucky enough to be able to get a lot of rescued food for free.

Rotisserie chicken. Cheapest thing in the store most times, and they're pre-cooked, pre-seasoned, ready to devour

I also lived on chicken nuggets for a while, but I can't recommend those.

Other comments remind me of potatoes! So many simple ways to prepare them. my favorite is microwave baked potato.

Rinse it off, stick holes in it with a fork several times, coat it in oil, salt it, and microwave until you can smash it with your fingers (through a napkin, or use the fork). Then bust it open, add whatever sounds good that's on hand, and eat it up.

If you don't add salt to a baked potato, then it pairs well with most oversalted foods. Like pour a can of baked beans over the opened potato.

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.

Pasta, instant noodles, polenta, rice+tuna, bean guiso or stew whatever you call it. Also whatever vegetables in season and cheap, ie, potatoes, pumpkin.

Frozen Basa fillets are the cheapest unprocessed meat too

Search for guiso recipes if you need to learn what to do with legumes. Beauty of guiso is that the amount of ingredients doesn't matter much and you can always add more of what you like and remove what you don't like. You can add any bits of meat to it like sausages, chorizo, beef, chicken, you name it. You can also add any tubers, onion, or pumpkin if you have any, but if you don't have any of these things you can still cook it.

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.

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.

I often fry whatever vegetables I can find and add a fried egg.

Rice and buckwheat are very cheap (and vegan if you're of that persuasion). If you cook buckwheat, you can add a few tiny bits of sausage in there and you've got a very filling meal.

Oatmeal is great because you buy it in huge bags that last long and you can eat it for breakfast, lunch or dinner. If the budget is not that bad you cook it with milk. If it is you cook it with water (this is called gruel, medieval peasant food). If you're making gruel add a bit of salt to make it more palatable.

An old classic is of course ramen, but the ramen bricks can be made much more filling if you boil them in a pot with a sausage or two (this requires you to have sausage).

If you live in certain tropical areas you can harvest some edible fruits from unfenced land and use this to enrich your diet.

Eating a couple extra hours of sleep for breakfast instead of food is a dubiously healthy but certainly effective way to save some money on weekends.

A pro tip is if your drawer is not very clean your onions will start to sprout and take root. I didn't have to buy onions for about half a year at one point because I just kept cutting off a bit and it kept growing back. I didn't water them or anything, they just did that in my dark dingy cupboard.

My recommendation is to look around your grocery store and see what ingredients are cheapest. That can help to come up with ideas I think.

That being said look up Congri. It's a Cuban dish that's quite tasty and uses very few ingredients.

Rice & Beans

Hashbrowns

Rice & Lentils

Popcorn

Chili butter noodles

Get the rice!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXIr0WHQjNc

You can fancy up top ramen by putting some sliced onion, basil, egg etc in it.

Rice, pasta, hot dogs, oven baked pizza if it's cheap.

Kraft Mac n cheese. You can add all sorts of stuff to it to make it stretch and be somewhat healthier. Frozen riced cauliflower, onions, beans, hot dogs, whatever.

Suddenly salad works well this way too. Add tomato, carrot, bell pepper, etc.

I used to do the same with instant ramen but the sodium level in it is way too high for me to eat anymore.

I used to live off of dollar boxes of pasta from Walmart. It got me through a lot of college. A little butter will up the calories and give you some other nutrients but you'll still need meat or something at some point

Onigiri, or, since I'm Korean, Jumeokbap(주먹밥). Dirt cheap, literally put anything you want.

Ramen

Cheese roll ups. Rice balls.

Try to get sardine, kale, and beets.

Dry pinto beans are cheap (and flavorless). You just need to soak them in water before cooking.

Rice is a carb and nutritionally void, but it will fill you up and keep the cravings away.

A better path is to shift your entire diet away from carbs and toward nutritionally dense, unprocessed foods. But, this takes time, and you probably don't want to start that when you're low on money.

I've been eating a mostly plant-based keto diet for 15 years now. I can easily go two days on just water and be fine, no cravings. The best way to save money on food is to not eat at all. So, rather than eat crappy food just to feel full and stave off carb cravings, eat less food, but more nutritionally dense food. You'll save money and still be healthy.

korean fried rice or if i don't really have money, instant noodles that costs $0.18