Rice and soup, any soup, can be simple soups or complex soup, beans and can of tomato all you need some salt. Diced potato soup+ can of tomato. Yellow Lentil soup all you need is salt. Buckwheat soup, Pearl barley you guessed it all you need is salt.

You can add anything to soup, a piece of meat(s), veggies mix other legumes, possibilities are endless

Tater tot casserole.

Lentil stew is great, if you want a hearty meal.

I like to have cubed soup greens in my freezer. I usually freeze them myself.

Then I just throw them in a pot, together with some lentils and vegetable stock powder. Maybe some potatoes as well, if I want it to be more filling.

But there are thousands of proper recipes you can try.

Not particularly cheap but not very expensive either and goes a long way pasta salad

1 family pack of buittoni cheese tortellini Italian sausage (ground or whole) 1 jar pesto Cherry tomatoes Red onion Bell pepper Artichoke hearts (jar, marinated) Feta

Boil pasta, drain

Cook sausage, cut to bit sized if using whole links

Cut veggies to desired bite sizes

Add pasta, sausage veggies and pesto to bowl, mix, salt and pepper to taste

refrigerate, serve chilled with a sprinkle of feta

Tends to make about 8-10 servings for 20-30ish dollars, cooks in less than an hour, makes a full meal, great to pack to work and eat cold

Braise onions, add tomato paste, garlic, spices, stock, and red lentils, boil till thick then dilute to preference when serving.

Serve with a swirl of hot flavoured oil (heat oil, add spices) and plain soy yoghurt, some fresh or dried herbs are nice too.

This works as soup or over rice, and a big pot is cheap to make and it freezes well.

Spice wise, I go either turkish or indian.

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I’m still partial to custom ramen. Just get your favorite ramen, get it boiling and a bit soft, throw an egg or two in there, make some spam, throw that in if you want, and then spice it up however you want. Salty as all hell, though. You need a lot of water to offset it, which is the problem.

Shakshuka.

The only potentially expensive part would be the eggs. The rest is just onion, red bell pepper, garlic, and spices.

And it’s quite possibly the tastiest food on the planet.

Indian food my friend! Loads of pulse based dishes that are not difficult, and very inexpensive. Dal, Channa, Pani Puri, Paneer etc… If it works for 1 billion modest Indians, it will work for you.

Even if you add meat, you can use the cheapest cuts and include the bones for savoury broth making built into the dish.

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Etouffee. Best with crawfish and sausage, but chicken, shrimp, mushrooms, whatever proteins you have work.

Mince two onions, put them in a wok or large pan with 1/2 cup of butter or oil, and keep them moving over medium low heat so they don’t brown. When they start to lose their structure, add 3 staulks of minced celery and keep going. When those lose structure, add 1 and 1/2 minced bell peppers, green and or red. Cut the other half pepper into strips for later. Keep stirring until you’ve got a good slurry.

Now add 2 Tbsp of flour or GF flour, and again, keep it moving, until a nice yellow roux forms.

The hard part is over now. Add a cup of broth, (chicken or shellfish, are best, but vegetable works) stir it up and let it simmer. If you’re using sausage, add them in whole at this point. If chicken, add in strips or chunks.

Now rinse and clean two cups of rice, and set it aside to soak in 3.5 cups of water, or 2.5 water and 1 broth.

Chop up a bunch of parsley, like a cup or more, and 4 garlic cloves. Use Italian parsley, curley is a garnish and doesn’t have enough flavor.

Add half the parsly and garlic and another cup of broth to the pan, and simmer, stirring occasionally. As it reduces, keep adding broth. Your going to end up using about 4 cups total.

Put the rice in a pan and heat until boiling in the water/broth combo. Reduce to the lowest setting and cover.

Take the whole sausages if you added them, and cut them up and put them back in. This is when you would add the shrimp, crawfish, or mushrooms if you use them, as well as the pepper strips from earlier. I like to add some clam juice right here if I didn’t use seafood stock earlier.

It should be a yellow/orange gravy at this point. As the rice finishes, stir the remaining garlic and parsley into the gravy. Give it a minute to mellow the garlic, and you’re done. Put it on the rice, and add a cayenne based hot sauce to bring the heat up.

Green onions and parsley are a solid garnish.

I will often salt the minced vegetables while they wait to be added.

It’s cheap and great, and reheats well… The trade off for pricing is the 2 hours you spend stirring.

Variations:

-add sliced jalapeños at the simmering point.

-no garlic, but add cayenne pepper

-no peppers, but increase celery.

-peel your own crawfish, then bake the shells for 25 minutes, and simmer them in a big pot for a few hours to make your own swamp broth. It starts out smelling terrible, but that leaves and you get an awesome stock to use as the base.

A good stew. Most expensive ingredient will be the osso-buco, or any similar meat-on-the-bone.

You cook the meat, bone and all, till the marrow melts out. Vegetables can be… Anything. One pot can last you a week and it’s a real hearty meal.

Veggie Pasta

1 Red Onion diced 2 Carrots diced 1 Celery diced Fresh Mozzarella 4oz bacon 6oz fusilli pasta (My personal favorite is Dellalo) 1.5c Marinara sauce Parsley for topping

Cook the bacon to desired doneness in a 10 to 12" skillet. Personally, I like it just a bit chewy, rather than crispy.

Drain the bacon on a plate with a paper towel while you cook the veggies.

Cook the veggies until soft and browned. Add sauce and bacon and warm.

While the veggies are cooking, bring a well salted pot of water to a boil and cook the pasta per directions on the package.

Aliquot the pasta onto two plates add fresh mozz into the pasta and spread the sauce evenly between the two plates. Top with parsley.

This makes enough for two people.

Carnitas is pretty inexpensive if you get a pork butt on sale. Slow cook it all day with some spices and then all you really need is some tortillas.

The meat is usually good enough to eat by itself but you can get other things to go on it

Pico Hot sauce Guac

But none of that is strictly necessary.

Total cost for days of food is miniscule

Beans and rice takes many forms, and is generally cheap, and fairly nutritious

I’m a fan of pork butt (or shoulder) in a slow cooker all day (or oven on low) it manages to be pretty cheap per serving, and you can spice it to match any cuisine

Beef is just for special occasions unfortunately

Some fish, like tilapia, can be cheap proteins… I cook mine with lemon and dill

Canned proteins should not be overlooked

Bread is one of those things that is cheaper to buy than make IMO

If only cheese wasn’t so fucking expensive lol

The noble potato, savior of many a meal