Here’s how I ate for years.

Buy lots of dry grains. Brown rice. Quinoa. Wild rice. Barley.

Buy lots of cheap proteins. Canned beans. Whatever chicken is on sale. Tofu.

Always keep potatoes and onions on hand they last a while in the pantry.

Cook the dry grain, with diced onion. Pour beans on top. Hot sauce or whatever spices. Bake potatoes and any bonus protein you want to have.

Get tired of eating this with Sriracha? Use Frank. Or curry powder.

Good and Cheap is a free book with healthy recipes that aim to be cheap. It’s almost 10 years old so it might not quite be under $4/day anymore, but for the most part the ingredients in it are still affordable.

Check out Budget Bytes! She prices out what each meal costs per serving. Some really great some here!

Fry up onions and other root vegetables, some bacon or other meats, garlic and any spices you like that benefit from frying. Limit oils and fats to as low levels as you can here, especially animal fats. This is the ‘dry and crunchy’ component, just don’t burn the ingredients, probably don’t add any salt here yet.

In a different pot, reduce some chicken or vegetable stock, add tinned beans, tinned tomatoes + tomato paste, chopped non-root or frozen vegetables, herbs and non-fry spices, maybe wine or a little roux. Bring to temperature for 10 mins. This is the ‘wet’ component, just don’t over-stew the bits you still want texture in. Over-stewing can also lower the vitamin content. And definitely don’t add any salt, at least wait until after reducing the stock.

In a separate tiny container, mix fat, sugar, acid, salt and fresh herbs as a “dressing” to get a desired balance of flavours and compensate for the blandness of the two components. This is the “flavour balancing and boosting” component, the quantities vary based on your ingredients. I’m usually a lemon juice, salt and extra virgin olive oil plus anything growing in my herb pots sort of person, it’s a healthier easy combination, but the dressing is where all the “this could be very unhealthy but it is very tasty/addictive” ingredients go. Use the good butters, cheeses, yoghurts and oils for this bit too, because they will be prominent.

So long as you don’t use really fatty meats or too much oil in frying, the dressing is the only part of the meal you need to worry about using too much of, for your health.

This is my staple formula for most things that covers most nutritional balance requirements, cultures and ingredient combinations, and uses 1 pan, 1 pot and 1 small bowl only.

You can skip any ingredients except the ones in the final dressing, and it will be tasty. You can combine it all and eat as a soup or as separate dry and wet components, also tasty. Maybe roast the vegetables and meats instead of frying or stewing them, it doesn’t matter. So long as you get the dressing flavours right for what you like, cook the ingredients properly, and don’t go ridiculous with the herb and spice combinations, it will be tasty. If you have no idea what herb/spice combination to use, just consult with your favourite cuisine for their regular combinations.

Changing the dressing also drastically alters the final flavour, which helps keep it varied and interesting if you cook in bulk like me. Two different dressings can take the same base ingredients from a Greek meal to a Chinese meal.

As long as you include at least 2 different vegetables (minimum 1 green and 1 other-colour), 1 legume (plus any additional required amino sources to make that a complete protein), and be careful with how much dressing you use at the end, the meal will probably be very nutritious and filling. I typically just use whatever is on special or in season at the shops.

Also, if I use a bunch of root vegetables I don’t include a grain, but if I do include a grain I try for whole grains like brown rice, multigrain/wholemeal breads and pastas.

Eggs, and liver: nature’s multivitamin!

Try to always get some whenever you can fit it in your budget

Grain bowl. Mix one or more from each of these categories into a bowl:

1. Some sort of grain (white rice, brown rice, quinoa, barley, buckwheat, farro, etc)
2. Some sort of legume or protein (lentils, beans, peas, chickpeas, tofu, etc)
3. Greens (kale, spinach, lettuce, etc)
4. Other veggies (carrots, beets, onion, peppers, tomatoes, okra, etc)
5. Sauce (salad dressing, hummus, bbq, red pepper sauce, miso dressing sauce)

Most of these ingredients are dirt cheap, and packed with nutrients and fiber and other goodness.

This is more of a broad suggestion, but try to look for a discount grocer in your area. Where I live we have one called Grocery Outlet, they sell a lot of generic and near-expiration products for a bargain. Whenever I go, I’ll find things I like that are around half the price they’d be at a typical grocery store.

Brown rice and beans. Brown rice and vegetables. Spices and sauces help.

I managed to get down to spending roughly £2 a week on food a while ago by only eating egg fried rice, I got pretty much all the nutrients I needed because you can just mix in whatever veg you want but it didn’t have enough calories. If you combine it with other meals though you’d be able to make a filling dinner for dirt cheap.

This article is about a $20 handful of ingredients you can eat for a week. You don’t want to do this every week, but one week a month might help.

https://spoonuniversity.com/recipe/vegan-lunches-for-15-dollars-a-week

2 chicken breasts or 4 thighs, boneless and skinless Olive oil Neutral vinegar Salt Pepper Adobo seasoning (optional) Bay leaf (optional) 1/2 onion 2-4 cloves garlic 2-3 cans beans, any variety but I like to mix up black, red, and kidney. Drain and rinse them. If you make your own, cook them in advance then drain. 2 cups rice 1/2 cup white wine (optional) 4 cups water or low sodium chicken or vegetable broth

I like to make rice, beans, and chicken. Cube some chicken and mix it with some olive oil, neutral vinegar like rice or white wine vinegar, salt, pepper, and adobo seasoning. Let it sit in the fridge for a few hours to overnight.

When it’s ready, remove it from the marinade and brown it in a large deep pan or pot with about 1-2tbsp oil and a bay leaf (enough to hold all the ingredients) with a lid (lid off for now). While it browns dice the onion and garlic

When it’s browned, 5-10m, add the onion. Cook till the inion is softened (another 10m) then add the garlic. Cook for 1m.

Add the wine here if you’re using it. Reduce to about 2tbsp of liquid. Otherwise skip this step.

Add the rice and cook for 30 seconds or so, then add all the liquid and the beans. Cover and cook for 25 minutes. Water should be just barely bubbling, not a roiling or visible boil.

Check it after time - rice should be tender. If not, stir and keep cooking adding water 1/4 cup at a time if needed to keep from burning. Once the rice is cooked through, check for seasoning and it’s done.

Red Lentil Soup:

• 1 palm sized onion - diced (white or red works)
• 2 carrots - diced
• 1 stalk celery - finely chopped, or 1 tsp celery seed if you don’t like the texture of celery
• 3 teaspoons of minced garlic (im just using the pre minced stuff packed in oil)
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 2 teaspoons oregano
• 1 teaspoon basil
• 1 teaspoon thyme
• 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 2 bullion cubes
• 8 cups water
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 cups red split lentils
• 1 can of crushed tomatoes

Dissolve your bullion cubes in some of the water, you want them dissolved before you need the broth.

Sauté onions, carrots, celery/celery seed, and garlic until its ‘sweated’ (the onions should look slightly translucent but not yet browned) medium to high heat, its ok to brown them but you really don’t want them burnt.

add in all spices and sauté an additional minute.

add in the bullion water, the remainder of the non bullion water, bay leaves, lemon juice and stir well ensuring there are no veggie bits stuck to the bottom of the pan.

Add in the can of crushed tomatoes and the lentils.

Bring to a boil while stirring frequently, once its boiling reduce heat to low. Cover and let simmer for 20 minutes with the occasional stir.

to store it, let it cool down, transfer it to containers and store in fridge. The soup takes freezing well.-

Chicken curry. Tasty, nutritional, cheap, fast. Ingredients for one person, note that this scales up nicely:

• skinless, boneless, cubed chicken thigh (freeze skin/bones for homemade stock)
• seasoning of your choice (mine is curry powder, salt, minced garlic, hot pepper sauce, brown sugar)
• some veg oil
• half onion, grated
• 2tbsp tomato paste
• one potato, peeled, diced
• one carrot, peeled, sliced
• water or stock (cold is fine but boiling hot is preferable)
• 1 tsp (teaspoon) cornstarch
• [OPTIONAL] chives, parsley, sesame seeds, whatever garnish you’d like

1. Sprinkle seasoning over chicken thigh cubes. Sear them on high heat until brown outside, using the veg oil. Don’t worry about the inside, they’ll get cooked further.
2. Turn fire to low. Add onion. Let it cook a bit more, stirring often, until transparent. Add a bit of water as needed, you want it to melt down and thicken the sauce.
3. Add tomato paste, potato, carrot, and enough water/stock to cover everything. Test the seasoning, and correct it as necessary. (Note: potatoes absorb salt, so it’ll taste now slightly saltier than the final dish. Take that into account.)
4. Wait until everything is cooked. The carrots and potatoes should take roughly the same time to cook, but if you’re worried about one cooking faster, cut it in slightly larger chunks instead.
5. Use the cornstarch and a bit of water to make a slurry, then add it to the curry while mixing well. The sauce will be initially milky and runny, but as the cornstarch dissolves it’ll become transparent and thicker.
6. [OPTIONAL] garnish!

Serve it alongside some flat bread, white rice, or polenta. I never did the nutrition maths for this recipe but it’s three vegs, a source of protein, and the only fat there is from the meat and the veg oil that you used to brown it, so I’d say that it’s healthy.

Variants: feel free to add cabbage or other vegs if you so desire. I don’t recommend yucca for this one, it has a tendency to either dissolve into the sauce (some recipes exploit it… not this one). You can also swap the chicken thighs with breast, pork, or even some tougher beef cuts. Just take cooking times into account.

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Squashy Soup. Equal amounts zucchini, butternut squash, and yellow squash cut in bite-size chunks. If you have to buy too many zucchini, you can skip the yellow squash, or vice versa, but you need some kind of orange winter squash. Frozen will do. Pour in enough chicken broth (the kind with salt, or water+bouillon will do) to almost fill in all the spaces but not quite cover. Add ¼ tsp sugar per zucchini in case the zucchini are bitter. Bring to a boil, boil 7 minutes, then turn down the heat. With the back of a wooden spoon or a spatula, press the pieces against the sides of the pot to squash them, they will thicken the soup. It can now simmer on low until you’re ready for it.

Put a piece of toast (sourdough is best but what you have) in your bowl, add a handful of grated cheese, (I like colby-jack or cheddar but whatever you have) and ladle squashed squash soup on top.