What nutritious, tasty food do you recommend on a budget?
Beans, peanut butter, oatmeal, and pasta with basic canned tomato sauce are staples in my house. If you invest in a few decent spices, you can make any of that stuff taste amazing.
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Oatmeal and eggs are healthy and cheap
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Depending on how good you are at preparing meat, you can buy it when it’s discounted, cut it into single portions, and freeze them for future meals. They’re good for about six months in the freezer.
I was always terrible at that, and just went vegetarian instead.
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I’d find budget eating very hard. It often seems to consist of using lots of beans/lentils/pulses and dried soya etc none of which I’m very fond of.
I save money by eating the free lunch on weekdays at the mental health drop-in center and only eating one other meal a day after that. Usually I only eat once a day on weekends, usually a high protein food like salmon or cottage cheese. Honestly, in the US it’s cheaper to buy junky, unhealthy foods than foods that are good for you…which is why poor people tend to have higher rates of diabetes and heart disease.
That’s also true in the UK unless you can stomach a pulses and beans type diet. Healthier options other than that are marked up. The food industry could do a lot more to help with the problem.
Oatmeal, rice and chicken, soups (check sodium levels)
Here in the States, it’s easier to find and cheaper to buy junk food.
I eat lots of beans because it’s inexpensive and healthy.
It’s also easy to prepare.
Stores that sell healthy foods like Whole Foods are expensive.
This is a shame.
Trader Joe’s is more reasonable.
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Oatmeal is a good, nutritious food that is cheap. Beans, peanut butter, pasta, marinara sauce, eggs, cottage cheese, rice, soup.
I make cereal out of cooked rice. Just heat up the rice, with a pat of butter, and pour milk and sugar on top. Yummy.
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in a very large soup pot cook
one pound ground turkey with
one diced onion
one stalk of celery plus the heart diced
two cans mixed vegetables
one can corn
one can petite cut tomatoes
one can tomato sauce
one cup rice
10 bullion cubes, either chicken or beef
12 cups water
simmer for 45 minutes
you can use ground beef if you prefer, or no meat, you can leave out tomatoes if you prefer, you can use barley instead of rice or even a handful of pasta and a can of beans to make it minestrone. It’s a great recipe to play around with and everyone loves it. It costs nothing to make and feeds a ton of people. If it’s just for you try halving the recipe or freezing for another day.
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Sort and wash 3 cups pinto beans. Cover them in water and boil for 5 minutes. Let sit for and hour. Rinse beans well. Cover in 3 inches of water and boil for 2 1/2 to 3 hours. Continue cooking beans until they become a thick paste, add salt, pepper, chili powder, red pepper flakes.
In a skillet cook a pound of lean ground beef. Season with salt, pepper, red pepper flakes, chili powder, garlic powder, a diced onion. Add the meat to the beans. Add finely chopped canned jalepeno peppers to your taste. Adjust your seasoning until the filling is delicious.
In a skillet fry corn tortillas, drain on paper towels. Add a scoop of filling to tortilla, fold in half and add shredded cabbage and a dollop of sour cream. Costs nothing to make, tastes like a million bucks.
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Cook a couple cups of parboiled rice. Always use parboiled it cooks without getting sticky and it’s lower on the glycemic index which means you won’t be hungry again in an hour. Anyway while the rice is cooking in a skillet saute some pork tenderloin, set aside, in same pan saute some diced bell peppers and onions till crisp/tender, set aside, in same pan cook some scrambled eggs. When the rice is done add everything together and serve with a little soy sauce (I actually like mine with kethchup) It’s cheap and saves well for the next days meal.
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I have a recipe for Chili that you can freeze and eat for a long time off of. This takes a large soup pot to do.
2lbs ground chuck. Brown in a pot then drain the grease with a colander. Rinse the beef under hot water. Gets rid of a lot of fat.
Add beef back to pot.
Add 2 packages of McCormic chili seasoning
Add 1 64 oz bottle of V8
Add one medium diced green pepper and 1 diced sweet onion.
Bring all of it to a light boil and cook it all until the pepper and onion are soft. Turn off the heat and add stuff below.
Add 3 cans Bush’s kidney beans -drained them
Add 3 cans Bush’s red beans with chili sause -do not drain use the sauce
Add 3 cans Bush’s black beans with chili sauce -do not drain use the sauce
Add 1 large can of diced tomatoes -do not drain use the sauce
Add 1 table spoon sugar. Sugar neutralizes the acidity of tomatoes and V8. Less heartburn.
Warm it up and it’s good to go. Don’t bring the pan to a boil because the peppers and onions will start cooking again they’ll turn to mush.
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