What's cheap to eat?

[+ friendofsheila]

My hours were cut at work and I'm having to cut corners where I can.

 

What dishes do you make that are cheap, cheap, cheap? I'm already doing Creamed ____ Over Toast a lot (usually eggs).

 

(And I mean dishes to cook, not going to Micky D's on Nickel Night.)

[mmk123]

pasta is always good-that is something that will go far - I will bake a few chicken breast and either shred them or slice them up and mix it in with pasta and some veggies

 

chili is also something that is good-you can add lots of stuff to give it a different taste (sometimes I will add mushrooms and eggplant to chunk it up)

 

also, if you are cutting corners, I would suggest avoiding shopping at a grocery store and either going to a warehouse club or to wholesalers that are open to the public to buy produce or meat.

[wisconsinguy]

My hours were cut at work and I'm having to cut corners where I can.

 

What dishes do you make that are cheap, cheap, cheap? I'm already doing Creamed ____ Over Toast a lot (usually eggs).

 

(And I mean dishes to cook, not going to Micky D's on Nickel Night.)

Sorry about the cut in hours. I really like beans. The uncooked kind. I often buy the bag of mixed beans, let them soak in water over night. Cover them with a combo of chicken broth and water. Let them simmer for about an hour to soften them up. I also cut up onions. Two or three, minced garlic-3-4 cloves, and carrots. Again two or three. Put the carrots in about the last 15 min. You can them put more broth in to taste. I use "Better then Bouillon." About a full teaspoon. Great stuff. If you want, you can put in sauteed cut up chicken. Cheap meals, high in protein, and it will help keep you regular!!! It will last you about a week! Rand

[bigvalboy]

I'm with mmk123 on the first two. Those were my first thoughts also. Pasta is not only inexpensive to buy, but can be very nutritious as well. Baking chicken breasts or just adding vegetables is an easy fix.

 

You can also make a big pot of chili, that can last for several days, and you can freeze the chili into individual meals, so popping them into the oven or microwave is very easy.

 

My other suggestions would be to do tuna salad. Finding cans of tuna on sale is routine, and then just adding a few fresh veggies a head of lettace you have a very inexpensive meal.

 

Lastly, using a crock pot to cut on expenses is easy. The advantage is that you can use inexpensive cuts of meat, because cooking them in a crock pot the meat will all be very tender and flavor full. You can make a nice stew, with onions, carrots, celery etc. and throw in a inexpensive cut of meat, and suddenly you have several meals ready to go.

[+ deej]

There's always Bittman's buttered spaghetti.

 

Cook yourself a single serving of spaghetti until just al dente. Drain it and add a tablespoon (in other words a blob) of softened butter and stir until the butter melts and the pasta is coated. Toss with a palmful of grated parmesan.

 

Bonus points for adding a little chopped parsley (or any herb you like, or diced chicken, or...), but it isn't really necessary.

 

It's sort of an Italian mac & cheese. But it's easy, quick, and cheap. And it's surprisingly satisfying.

[tom1980]

I lived on soup and chili in college when I was habitually short on funds. In addition to the other suggestions, I recommend chicken and dumplings. Stew some shredded chicken in broth with vegetables and make dumplings with flour, a little milk, salt, pepper, and garlic. Delicious and very cheap when spread across several meals. Adding rice to soup is also a good idea if you get sick of pasta.

[wearytraveller]

I agree with BVB ... make use of the crockpot, if you don't have one they're relatively inexpensive. Go with potatoes ... full of nutrients etc and add cheap cuts of meat. The crockpot will work wonders. Rice is good way to go too. You can cook it in soup stock as a side and use the left overs to make a fried rice or even throw it in a can of chicken noodle soup.

[Lookin]

I've always loved Tuna Helper, although I throw in an extra can of tuna and a pound of frozen vegetables. When it's on sale I get shredded cheese to sprinkle on top. I get four meals out of it and it costs between two and three dollars a meal if you get everything on sale.

 

I know this is not gourmet food but I also like saving time as much as money. I admire all those who have posted so far and wish I could learn to enjoy cooking fresh for myself every day. Those who do are doing right by themselves nutritionally I think, as well as emotionally, and saving money to boot.

 

In the Bay Area, I'm sure you know, there are lots of inexpensive ethnic places too. I've heard that ingredient costs in a restaurant are about 30% of the price. So you could probably make a burrito at home for a couple bucks. But six bucks will get you a pretty nice one from a taqueria.

 

Good luck with the hours and I hope you will soon be back high on the hog.

 

http://www.martinlawrence.com/deyber/deyber-paintings/0710/high_on_the_hog_II_ordey089510.jpg

[Decatur Guy]

I buy family-sized bags of frozen veggies on sale. I'll microwave those and then mix them in with whole wheat elbow macaroni. It's fast, pretty healthy and pretty cheap.

[rvwnsd]

You've already received some good tips, but I thought a few more would help.

 

 

1. Roasted chicken thighs, thigh/leg combos, or even a whole bird is easy and can be cheap. Remove the skin, brush with olive oil, season with garlic/salt/pepper/rosemary/thyme, put in the crock pot with about a cup of water and cook on high for a few hours. When it is done, you will not only have several meals' worth of chicken, but some savory stock. Skim the fat and freeze the stock. You can use it the next time you make rice.
   
2. Chicken and rice. Put a mixture of one cup rice and a cup and a half of water/stock in a large saucepan and season with salt, pepper, garlic, and a little rosemary and thyme. Start the rice. In the meantime, wash and quarter a package of mushrooms. When the water boils, turn down the heat and let it simmer for about 15 minutes. Don't peek. After 15 minutes, add the mushrooms, stir, and let it simmer for about another 20 minutes. In the meantime, cube some of the leftover chicken. After 20 minutes have elapsed, add the chicken, stir, and let simmer for another 5 minutes.
   
3. Tasty baked chicken: Get 4 boneless chicken breasts or 8 boneless chicken thighs and a lemon. Tear off 4 sheets of aluminum foil big enough to hold 1 breast or 2 thighs. Put a breast (or two thighs) on each sheet of foil and season with salt, pepper, and garlic. Slice the lemon thin and place enough slices on each breast (or two thighs) to cover. Make a pouch and pop into a pre-heated 350 degree oven. Bake for 30 - 45 minutes. You can also take a couple of zucchini, cut in half lengthwise and the cut each half in half again. Put the halves on top of the lemon on top of the chicken before baking.
   
4. Skip the bottled tomato sauce and make your own. It's easy! Remove the seeds from a bell pepper (tip: buy the ones off the day-old rack if your supermarket has one.) and chop. Chop an onion, a peeled carrot, and a couple of stalks celery. You can also add mushrooms, zucchini, or any other vegetable that is on the sale rack. Saute in oil until soft (a few minutes). Add a 28 oz can (or two 15 oz cans) diced tomatoes and a small can of tomato paste. Add dried basil, garlic powder or fresh garlic and thyme. Bring to a boil and simmer on low heat for about 45 minutes. Add some honey or sugar to correct the acidity. In the meantime, make some pasta and enjoy! That recipe will cost you less than a comparable quantity of bottled pasta sauce and it will taste MUCH better.
   
5. Buy some pre-cooked Italian sausage. Slice a link and add to pasta sauce and pasta.
   

[+ purplekow]

If you want cheap, do not get boneless anything, simply debone the meat yourself. While growing up, we had pasta 5 days a week sometimes six and never the same way. Cauliflower boiled over pasta with heated bread crumbs over it. Spaghetti and butter as previously noted. Spaghetti on chick peas. Spaghetti and lentils. Another inexpensive meal, potatoes and eggs, basically that is made as though you are making a potato omelet. A large pot of chicken soup with vegetables. If you make a large enough pot, you can boil some potatoes and some pasta and split the soup in two making one with the potatoes and one with the pasta. I made a large pot of soup and did just that and ate for a week alternating pasta and potatoes which added a bit of variation to the meal.

Do not forget, coupons can make a moderately priced meal more affordable. Lots of 2 for 1 coupons can cut the price of a meal in half.

[jgoo]

Get a whole turkey (or chicken), fresh or frozen, assuming you are fine with both white and dark meat. So much you can do with the meat as leftovers. If you have a grinder, you can make your own ground turkey and use that to make a meatloaf that can be quite tasty (alternatively ground turkey in the stores is usually cheaper, at least around here, than ground meat).

 

And don't forget to use the carcass for soup stock. You should be able to get quite a few meals from it with enough variety so you don't get tired of eating turkey.

 

Finally, remember google is your friend and by searching "budget meals" you can get plenty of ideas. For example: http://www.cookinglight.com/food/everyday-menus/healthy-budget-recipes-00400000056656/page106.html

[+ Charlie]

Bananas are filling, very good for you, don't require any preparation, and cheap (I pay 19 cents for one at Fresh & Easy). I often have one in place of or as part of a breakfast or lunch.

 

The key to saving money, as others have noted, is to buy ingredients rather than prepared or processed food. Just be careful not to overbuy things that you won't use or that will go bad before you have a chance to eat them.

[desertguy1954]

Some wonderful dishes. Will have to try some of them. The pasta ideas are ones that I still use. There is so much you can do. Also, watch the paper for the weekday ads. Ralph's here in PS always has great sales on chicken. I will buy cook it up and with veggies and rice can have good meals for a week. Also, if you have a 99 cent store, they have great deals.

Also, as everyone has said, no prepared foods. It is amazing how much you can save by doing the actual cooking. Key is to watch for those sales and use coupons.

[Epigonos]

Ground meats (beef, pork, turkey or chicken) bought on sale are a good place to start. You can make your own spaghetti sauce or buy one of the bottled brand (some are actually quite good). Go to the “Dollar Store” or the “$.99 Store” and buy re-sealable plastic container. They usually sell three for a dollar. You can then freeze several containers of spaghetti sauce for future use.

 

I usually eat homemade soups for lunch. I just made a large pot of spicy Italian sausage soup. I start with five or six links of hot Italian sausage (removed from the casings), a large chopped onion and lots of sliced fresh garlic. In a large pot I brown all of the above. When the meat and vegetables are browned I then added a multitude of canned vegetables AND their liquid. I actually used fourteen cans including, kidney beans, garbanzo beans, string beans, pinto beans, black beans, stewed tomatoes (2) cans, tomato sauce, mushrooms (2 small cans), peas, corn, two or three cans of beef broth and red wine. While letting the above come to a boil I cleaned and sliced two bunches of fresh spinach and cook a pound of elbow macaroni. When these where ready I threw them into the pot and added dried basil, red pepper flakes to taste and three or four bay leaves. Once all the ingredients had been added I turn off the stove as the soup was ready to go. You won't need to add salt as there is enough in the canned vegetables. I have also, in the past, used shredded green cabbage instead of the spinach. Totally this soup will cost about $15.00 plus, which might sound expensive. HOWEVER, you will end up with 15 to 20 meals which makes it inexpensive.

 

You can also prepare and cook a regular sized lasagna or eggplant parmigiana; cool and cut them into squares, place in Ziploc bags and freeze. A regular recipe of either of these will provide eight to ten dinners.

 

Buy and clean and dry salad greens and seal in a large Ziploc. Handled this way they should last a week or a little more.

 

With any of the above hot dishes and a salad you will have an inexpensive, flavorful, and nutritious meal.

 

Good luck and if I can be any future help PLEASE feel free to private me.

[Steven_Draker]

Just be careful not to overbuy things that you won't use or that will go bad before you have a chance to eat them.

 

That's a valid point. My grandparents who lived and survived World War II thought me not to waste food. That's one of the things they tried to inculcate in me since I was a young child. In our modern western society we throw away up to 40% of the food we produce. It's a shame.

 

"A 2012 study by the Shelton Group lists food waste as the leading cause for “green guilt” among consumers. According to the recent NRDC report, "Wasted: How America Is Losing Up to 40 Percent of Its Food," American families throw out approximately 25 percent of the food and beverages they buy. In his book, American Wasteland, Jonathan Bloom puts the estimated cost of wasted food in an average family of four in U.S. households at $1,365 per year.

 

These estimates are thought to be low partly because they do not factor in food put down a garbage disposal or fed to pets. A U.K. study put the amount of household food loss at 33%.

 

Though there is no one definitive percentage of how much food we waste, we can all agree that Americans waste too much food. Whether it is throwing away rotten food left in the vegetable bin or cooking too much for our guests, we’ve all been guilty at one point or another."

 

source: http://endfoodwastenow.org/index.php/consumer

[+ friendofsheila]

Who knew there were so many people who cook here? Thank you.