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Best cheap meals that can be made for ~1-2$ my contributions french toast grilled cheese enhanced ramen oatmeal w butter bacon and eggs

>>9469 Pretty much anything if you do gardening ;) https://lainchan.org/%CE%94/res/6551.html#q6551 Fasting recipes look to be fairly cheap, if you don't mind eating bread, rice and chickpeas for the rest of your days. https://based.cooking/tags/fasting/ If you have some bros get together and pool your food funds to get nicer meals. Also, if you're serious about eating cheaply you should be buying in bulk. Potatoes in big sacks should be the bulk of your diet alongside a variety of vegetables and the cheapest meat you can get your hands on. make sure to get cheaper meat such as firmer stewing joints and organs such as liver, or even parts that would otherwise be thrown away such as heart or the head and trotters of a pig to make brawn. These might even be free. Make sure to take full advantage of wild plants including roots, leaves, mushrooms, fruits, berries etc. and preserve them properly. If you can go out and get enough spring greens to make stir-fried veg and you have rice in bulk, your meal is practically free. If you don't have the space to garden, you're lying. Do guerilla gardening or garden on a neighbour's land in exchange for a cut of the crops. Take advantage of the ultra-compact potato growing boxes and store potatoes in clamps to keep them for longer through the year. https://www.prints-online.com/p/164/clamping-potatoes-14368236.jpg.webp In general if you want to live cheaply your best option is to focus on being self-sufficient at least in terms of housing, food and water. From there, you have practically no living costs. https://www.amazon.com/New-Complete-Book-Self-Sufficiency-Realists/dp/0241352460/

food prices depend soo much from season to season and region to region (and even day to day and hour to hour) that when you're optimizing this hard I don't think the best advices can always be universal. The same loaf of bread (well, jsut about) might cost a couple dollars in one country, and a few cents in another. And if you come at the right hour to the shop it could very well be free (though a mite stale, if its still available)! Likewise for meat prices, and frankly almost everything that isnt tightly preserved. I think the best advice therefor is to scout about. Bakery in your area ? swing by half an hour or an hour before closing time and very likely they give you whatever you want. Check the grocery stores and keep your eyes on any special deals, especially for meats. Always be watching and comparing stores. Sometimes a store you think of as a little fancy and expensive will have a meat it needs to clear out and will give an ridiculous deal on it, so it pays to keep your eyes open (and let your friends know you're doing this so they'll send you tips if they see things). If you're into that sort of thing, garden/raisechickens/otheranimals/check out relevant dumpsters yadda yadda. What actual meals you make will just be what seems sensible given what you end up getting.

>>9470 How much time/effort/capital does it take to feed myself 2500kcal/day? Also - isn't self-sufficiency kind of a bureaucratic hell?

Check out the dumpsters behind Aldi/small supermarkets. I barely spent money doing that in uni (obv. Exercise discretion in what you eat.) I hear food banks are also a plentiful option, though it might be processed crap. For dishes I just make cassaroles with garlic/onions, butter/olive oil, frozen veg. and frozen fish/meat, and potatoes/oats since I'm living high on the hog these days. When I'm feeling fancy I do a soup with bread, homemade or store bought. The fundamentals: buy commodities (1 sack potatoes), don't pay for processing you can do quickly yoursel (sugar waters) or don't need ("snack foods"), don't pay for capacity to be kept ready for you (fast food/restaurants). If a brand/good makes you feel special, run, you're the mark. If the product isn't made to fill you up and give you nutrition, it's a scam.

>>9473 To be completely and utterly self-sufficient, it would replace your job. If you're willing to sell some produce such as milk and use that money to buy time-expensive items such as grains, you could potentially save a fair bit of time and space. In terms of capital, the big expense is land. Unless you have at least a couple of acres, you can't expect to be self-sufficient with animal produce but in a home you can have chickens and maybe a single goat or micro cow. Costs for gardens are much less than animals as long as they are properly maintained, so if we're talking about building it yourself maybe only a couple hundred dollars to buy tools, seeds and books. Preserving also has setup costs. If you want a greenhouse, they're expensive so consider alternatives such as coldframes and cloches.

>>9473 Another advantage of plants is that if you ignore them for a weekend they won't start to die as easily. In terms of effort, small-scale gardening can be an evening and weekend activity but like I said it can take your job. There are always ways to cut costs from human manure to seed-saving to having dinner groups. For 2500kcal/day, completely by yourself, be prepared to save for or inherit at least 3 or 4 acres of land. Beaurocratic hell? Idk, there won't be anyone coming to check in on you if you're in the middle of nowhere and not selling anything.

If you're in Ingerland, you can buy canned food cheaper than anywhere else in the West. Since Aldi entered the market others are trying to compete by matching their prices. Quality is about the same across the board. Baked beans are about £0.37 per can, mushy peas are £0.33, various types of canned soup are £0.45, off-brand Weetabix is £1.65 per 24 biscuit pack. A 6-pack of crumpets is aout £0.33. If you're a degenerate, you might go for spaghetti hoops at £0.16. Each can is about 400g, enough for one meal if you're fat or two meals if you're not. The obvious problem with such a diet is vitamin deficiency. Vitamin B12 is a particular problem since you can only get it from animal products. Drinking plenty of milk is the best option, since it's a nutritionally perfect food. If you don't have a fridge, a can of evaporated milk is about £0.55. If you're allergic and/or vegan, just get multivitamins from a chemist's or at the same supermarket, where they're often stocked. I'm not a wage slave, I'm just coping with the fact that I'll never get on the property ladder.

Mjadara; a middle-eastern dish made out of brown lentils, rice, onions and olive oil. Put lentils in water and put on the stove and let it boil, the lentils should cook to the point where the lentils are chewable, but not soft or mushy While the lentils cook, fry onion stripes in OLIVE OIL (it's very important to use olive oil). Fry the onion stripes till they are brown. Put the onions on the side (keep them for later), and pour the olive oil you used to fry the onions into the pot with the boiling lentils Add rice to the lentils, the amount should be the same amount of lentils, plus one cup. Add 1-2 tea spoons of salt) Add some of the browned onions to the mix (but not all of them). Keep the rest on the side for later Make sure that the water is covering the mixture but not too much more. If there's too little water, add more, if there's too much, remove some of it Stir and mix Let it come to a boil As soon as it starts to boil, cover the pot and set the heat to very low, let it simmer till all of the water is gone Done. Serve it with a salad of your choice or pickles.

>9481 Follow up on the mjadara post I forgot to mention, you can sprinkle some of the roasted onions on top of the plate when you serve (but this depends on your taste; some people love them while others find them too bitter)

>>9475 Can we talk more about acquiring land? It's an important step that one needs more information about.

>>9501 In the UK you can find landed homes and general land on onthemarket.com; I assume that you can also buy land online in the US If you're considering buying land without a home on it to save money, note that building a home might not be even an option if you can't get planning permission (not to mention the nightmare if you want to connect your home to any part of the grid). When you're buying land, the things I can think to check for off the top of my head are: * local weather (compare it to where you live online) including precipitation, sun hours etc. * if the soil is acid/alkaline * what the soil is composed of (e.g. is it sandy or clay-ey) * natural features such as water, forest, hills, rocks, walls etc. * distance from other people, a village and emergency services * if you can find out, how low a well would have to go to reach water * if it's connected to services, all about that * if the land or buildings are protected in any way and how likely you are to get planning permission Obviously before you buy you will need to go and look around A massive plus is to find land near people you know, and if you can't you should interact with and be nice to your neighbours. You can learn a lot from them. In terms of how much you need, I'd say 1-acre for 50% self-sufficiency and 5 for 95% self-sufficiency for a small family (1 to 3). You start to get diminishing returns the more you get as it becomes not only more effort but also you start having to farm time-inefficient crops such as feed crops for animals.

Eat soba. 1. Boil soba 2. Eat with mentsuyu Buckwheat is good for you. Russians even eat buckwheat as an emergency food.

1 box of saltine crackers contains about 2,000 calories worth of food for a dollar or two.

>>9469 Spaghetti or rice with passata, onions, peppers and tofu/soy/red beans etc. Oatmeal with panut butter, banana, cocoa French fries with ketchup and some fresh or pickled vegetables cooked pearl barley + lentils with some sauce and onion mashed potatoes with carrot, onion and pepper borscht and other soups

>>9469 >smokotastic weren't some aussie schools giving cricket crisps to kids?

Anything canned or frozen. I like to buy burritos from Walmart for like 69 cents for my lunch when I go to work. Not the greatest meal, but it beats paying $3.50 or something for a slice of pizza.

Soup Fruits Veggies Pancakes

>>9526 >In terms of how much you need, I'd say 1-acre for 50% self-sufficiency and 5 for 95% self-sufficiency for a small family this kind of thing is utterly meaningless without further specificity of where the fuarrrk you're living. There are parts of the US with multiple growing seasons and maybe a single frost a year, and parts of the US where it frosts in May. There are parts where it rains practically every day and parts where you go entire months without a single drop. If you're looking at subsistence farming, region is of paramount importance. Different states generally have agriculture departments where you can get maps and look at local climate info. Worth looking into if you're actually trying to do this, especially in a place you're not familiar with. inb4 some wisconsin dairyboy moves to an acre of parched south western desert and learns too late that rivers do not always have water in them.

Shakshuka. Mix cheese and pasta sauce in a pan, crack a couple eggs over it, let it cook, then sprinkle with herbs. Lots of protein. Most of these meals mentioned are low on protein. Natto is hard to buy unless you are in Japan, you will need to buy the starter yourself and make it at home. Lentils and peanut butter are also cheap proteins. Buy raw chicken and raw meats in bulk and freeze.

My go to is usually dollar-tree canned food. Usually 1.25 each, so 2.50 total, ~2.80 w/ taxes. You'd need a source of water too, and a can opener. Water fountains are available in some places if you know where to look, or you can use public bathroom sinks. Some cans have the little clip thing you can open by hand, some don't. You can reuse the cans to store water later. You'll also want utensils, which you can get from the dollar tree too. Or in a pinch you can just use gravity and some shaking to get food out of the can. If you can get your hands on a hot plate and pan, then your options increase tenfold. You'd need power though. Maybe a grill and some charcoals would be a better off-grid option.

Pan bread + hummus. Use a hummus recipe that does not include tahini because that stuff is fuarrrking expensive. May need to improvise to escape the propaganda of Big Tahini. Use citric acid instead of lemon juice. Buy yeast in bulk for the bread. Requires investment in a food processor and a pressure cooker for maximum savings (dry garbanzo beans take such a long time to cook without one the energy costs will be too much and also it's a huge pain, and canned beans are for noobs). You can branch off in lots of different directions with this too. Make the bread by itself. Make roasted or fried chick peas instead of hummus. Make pizza with the dough instead. Top with chopped tomatoes and onions. The basic principle is, buy cheap dry staples such as flour and beans, and learn to cook competently enough to turn them into food.

>>10140 >source of water too some states it is illegal for a restaurant to refuse to give you water. Get a large ish bottle and have them fill it for you, if you have no other means. >reuse the can to store water you ignore the fact that a metal can is also a cooking pot and can be set directly in a fire, no need for charcoal specifically. It might help to have a set of pliers or such a thing to remove it.

There was a Kurt Saxon book about pan fried cornbread and eating tons of soybeans for protein.

>>10141 >Buy yeast in bulk big yeast doesnt want you to know this but yeast is free you can just make sourdough its not hard if you have a permanent/semipermanent residence.

>>10585 Can confirm, just keep in mind that it's taste depends on factors like air quality. Some time ago I used to buy sourdough bread from a place that was near a fairly busy avenue next to a mall, it was indeed sour but ok, your body starts craving it I'm guessing because of vitamins?

>>9469 some cheap ingredients >peanut butter(This is OP) >oats(Pretty OP too) >popcorn >make some oats in water >potatoes(limit consumption) >carrots >onions >celery(helps with getting erections lol) >cheap ass trailmix, get creative >yellow peppers(get them from fast food during peak times) >grow/propagate rosemary through a few cuttings(has to be thin) leave in water for a weeks, let em root and plant some ripoffs to avoid >ramen(has to be cooked/ only 1/2 capacity probably less now) >bread/baked foods(spoils has little nutrition and gives egyptian bod) >butter >chips(bags are 1/3 full) >cereal(just sugar bread with a modicum of nutrition mostly iron) >pasta(has to be cooked and prepared) >milk >cheese >white rice(has to be cooked, at that point just get brown rice) overall meat, bread and dairy are very overrated

>>10605 shouldve added meat, bread and dairy expire fairly fast and are generally bland >>10605 isnt there already an abundance of corn used in pretty much all processed foods(unprocessed food probably have some of same bullshit which is hidden) that arent wheat/bread products?

Eat beans and rice, rice and beans.

>>9469 You can do 1 million and 1 things with potatoes. You can fry them, boil them, mash them, air fry them, roast them, turn them into bread. They are God's gift.

>>10617 Indeed, praised be the potato! Some cheap receipes (less than 2 € per portion where I live) are: '''Potatoes with spinach''': Boil (and peel) three or four potatoes and 100...150 g of spinach (assuming frozen spinach from the store here). If you are feeling wealthy, serve with a fried egg or two. '''Potato soup''': For four two five portions, you will need - 2 kg of floury boiling potatoes - one bundle of soup greens (dunno if that is a thing where you are, but here it is. Check the images in Wikipedia: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suppengr%C3%BCn) - one celery root -two or three onions Peel the ingredients, cut them into large-ish (3-4 cm aacross is fine) cubes and throw them into a pot. Add ca. 1 l of water and let it boil for half an hour. Spice it with a teaspoon or two of salt and plenty of majoram. Take a potato masher and mash it. Done. If you are feeling rich, you can add a sausage and/or bacon. '''Potato pancakes''': Peel three or four floury potatoes and grate them with the coarse cheese grater. Add one egg, a pincher of salt and some majoram. Mix it with a spoon, then put it in a pan and fry. If you feel rich, you can put some grated cheese on top after you flipped the potato pancake.

You picks are unhealthy, but then who am I to judge you I live off of veggies and soy milk.

The solition is the nourishing porridge. It's very simple to make Lainon, here's the recipe and the ingredients to make enough to eat for 3 days. >Mix in a cooking pot and cook for half an hour on a low heat: >250g ECO+ flour (44ct per Kilo, so 11ct for the preparation) >One sachet of ECO+ dehydrated onion soup (40ct with the possibility of cutting it with water, so 20ct) >ECO+ beef paté for dogs (300g) (42ct) (same as human paté, but with less salt). So you'll need to add more salt) >A tin of ECO+ tomato paste (13ct) >1L of water (free if running, otherwise you can get it from a college, swimming pool or neighbour's house) Pasta can be added to the porridge if the budget allows, which I recommend. Picrel

>>10146 most modern cans have plastic inner lining. You could be poisoning yourself if you use them directly on a fire. that aside to minmax nutrition you need to understand digestion. I.E. if you eat carrots you need to eat them with oil (includes butter) because that boosts vit a intake. If you want to get the most value out of your food spread it out through the day and don't eat one big meal.

>>11166 >could poison yourself if you cook directly over a fire could be doing that with teflon linings too, but this is a reasonable concern. Perhaps best to first burn the can thoroughly and then clean it out before cooking.

>>9469 I am planning to meal prep a bunch of burritos and freeze, I will update after I am done

>>9469 take the natural grassfed no soy no vax open range (less than 100 chickens per hectare) raw egg pill also the above but raw steak and raw milk >>10617 POE-TAT-TOES BOIL EM MASH EM STICK EM IN A STEW

>>9469 rather than collecting a set of vile recipes, a good method is to buy the good value things whenever you see or hear about them, giving at least some attention to health and enjoyment, then just use your third eye to invent dishes from what ends up in your fridge

>>11312 BAKE EM FRY EM TURN EM INTO GLUE

Elaborate on 'enhanced ramen', please. Complementing the thread: >fried rice balls

Peanutbutter sanwdiches with fried egg are cheap and fast. Lots of protein and fats. Fried eggrice with some veggies like onions and some soysauce on top is also great a simple dish you can make in bulk for up to 2 days. Visit your local asianstore. They sell a lot of base ingredients in huge packs. I also feel like imported goods they have from asia are also much less affected from the rapid price increase local stores suffer from.

>>11374 To add to this post: Bouillon is a universal seasoning you can add on anything you cook in a pan. It's great.

It's easy and cheap to make food for a few days. Start with bulk food like rice, spaghettit, or potatoes cooked with about a teaspoon of bouillon powder (depending on how salty and tasty you want it), soem black pepper, any other spices you like, and a couple of tablespoons of canola oil. Once that's cooked (nuke abouit twenty minutes), throw on a can of mixed vegetables (liquid and all), a can of tomato sauce, a can of beans, a handful of kale, and some protein in the form of cheese or non-fat dry milk. Mix it up and re-heat it a little bit. Makes a *huge* amount of very nutritious and filling food that tastes great. Candy: Put about five tablespoons of non-fat dry milk in a bowl, add a scant teaspoon of sugar (depending onhow sweet you want it), and about two tablespoons of cocoa powder (like hershey's, but store brand). Mix it all up dry before adding any liquid. Then add about a tablespoon of canola oil and just enough water to make a sort of paste or syrup. Now you can throw in some mixed nuts, raisins, banana, unsweetened cereal, use your imagination. Just mix it up and eat it, no cooking involved.

>>11387 >this post brought to you by big seed oil Best cheap food is rice, chicken, potato and seasonal vegetables. Chicken gizzards are the cheapest meat near me and I love it. More flavor and nutrients than the other cuts.

>>9469 I hate having to cook (and eating also to be honest) for only myself (but enjoy making meals for friends and family but this only happens rarely). Is there any way to make an at-home version of Soylent i.e an easy meal replacement that isn’t gonna give me early onset cancer and brain disease?

>>11391 Well, you need some oil or fat for a good diet. Olive oil is healthier, but it's expensive and I don't care for the taste. YMMV. Any inexpensive oil with lower saturated fat and higher mono/poly-unsturated fat is fine. It's on the label.

Beans, all different kinds of beans they are basically a super food.

As mentioned before: plain old bread. Can be made in a pan easily. Personally I settled on this recipe: - 500g flour - 1 Tablespoon salt - 1 Tablespoon sugar - 1 Packet of dry yeast Mix all together Add 250-300ml of warm water and mix together (1-2 Minutes are enough) - Wait 60 minutes while dough is in a non-cold place - Now you can do whatever you want with the dough. I like to split it in half and fill the bread with all kinds of random stuff: veggies, meat, sweets, ...

Beef and black beans. Or Beef and eggs. Or black beans and eggs. Or any combination of the above. Cooked on a skillet with whatever spices you feel like adding.

>>11405 I dont like the pictures but these look good

Two recipes: Lentils with chorizo/bacon and rosemary Chop the onion coarsely and boil it Add the lentils when they soften Drain and add the thinly sliced chorizo/bacon Add rosemary and mix in Tuna and cauliflower toast Boil the cauliflower and chop finely Chop pickles and garlic Add the canned tuna and mix everything together Spread mayonnaise on toasted bread and top with this mixture

if you've got a rice cooker, making pilaf is about as cheap and easy as it gets. throw in a bunch of rice, chop up and add whatever (root) veggies are in season, a pack of beans, and some bullion/spices. when rice cooker is done, you have dinner for a few days.

>>11416 'pack' sort of seems to imply dried beans, worth mentioning that you can't cook dried beans with rice, they have very different cooking times. Beans need to be boiled for like 4-6 hours depending on the type, or 40-60 minutes in a pressure cooker, rice cooks in 20 minutes.

>>9469 sardines in olive oil, they have skinless and boneless, you can make it fancy if you get some crackers to go with it. over all I think it tastes great with water.

>>11421 yep, sardines in louisiana hot sauce, saltine crackers... basic staple of my-first-apartment lifestyle. Tortilla + shredded chese + canned chicken... drain & sautee the can of chicken with butter/oil, throw in some sliced peppers & onions. Oil/butter a skillet, heat to med/low toss in a tortilla, put some cheeseon it, chicken & veg mixture, then more cheese, another tortilla. Butter/oil pan again when you flip it. Flip tip: slide it off onto a plate, put pan upside down on the plate, then use pot holders and turn the whole thing over. When both sides are golden brown you got a quesadilla.

You can buy tins of sardines in tomato sauce. Open and eat. It would be hard to find a healthier source of protein. Great for hobo-ing or just camping.

Potato Hash Oatmeal and Banana PB sandwich Lentil Soup Pasta and Tomato Sauce Possible fried eggs.

Like other lainons have said already, dry beans are an ideal choice here: they're cheap as all hell, filling, a decent source of protein, and basically foolproof to make at least edible. Here's a recipe for black beans that works well for me: 1. Dice up an onion and a couple poblano peppers (green bell peppers work fine here, too, but I prefer the taste and slight added spiciness of poblanos) 2. Mince a few cloves of garlic. I'd say two to four for this recipe 3. Add the vegetables to a pot along with a pound of dry black beans and at least enough water to cover the ingredients with a few centimeters of depth. Add salt, pepper, and other spices to taste. Today, I used cumin, paprika, a few dashes of smoked paprika, and powdered garlic. Experiment with different combinations to find what you like 4. Bring the pot to a boil, reduce the heat and keep it at a low boil for three or four hours. Make sure to check on it about every 20 minutes or so to stir and check how close the beans are to being done. Add water if you feel like it's boiling off too fast. It'll be done when the beans are at your desired level of softness. These go pretty great on plain white rice as well as on a tortilla. Hell, they're even pretty satisfying on their own. Happy cooking!

>11447 For dry beans, it's usually better to let them sit in cold water for ~6h before cooking them. They will cook much faster that way (40-60min instead of 3-4h).

>>11448 Yeah, but I usually forget to soak my beans overnight. I personally find it easier to just boil them a few hours longer while I do other stuff in the background

>>11375 This stuff in particular is great because it has MSG in it

This might not be $1-2 depending where you live, but it's still pretty cheap and filling, tastes great (imo) and makes a lot of food: 1. Chop 2 onions depending how large. 2. Add those to a pot with some water or oil. 3. Cook it together with 2 tablespoons of curry powder until the onions are caramelized to your liking. 4. Throw in 1 can of coconut milk and 1 can of crushed tomatoes. 5. Add 2 cans of chickpeas (or any bean really, it doesn't have to be canned either, you can use dry). 6. Add 1 dl of peanut butter. 7. Add a vegetable bullion cube. 8. Let this simmer for a while until all the flavors have mixed etc. 9. Serve with some rice or rice alternative as well as some lime juice ontop. Enjoy.

>>11453 Oh also obviously add salt as needed when serving (or earlier but I like salting to taste after it's done)

Depends a lot on where you live, but don't sleep on canned (or even better, if you fot the time, dried) legumes. Very nutritious, can mix and match with anything and -at least here, central europe- extremely cheap. also long expiry date is a big bonus. personally, my go-to is lentils. I usually have some spices around, and make lentil based soups, experimenting with different herbs and spices and throwing in whatever leftover i have. also beans/lentils on toast. as an extra, ethnic stores here have like 5kg white/brow basmati rice for dirt cheap.

>>11321 Seconded. Buy good value / nutrition / decent tasting food and mix and match. Sure, sometimes you'll fck up, but you'll get better at cooking and develop more intuition about what tastes good with what

Pastas, stir fry and ramen are some of the cheapest things you can go for. My personal favorite cheap meal is a mixture of canned chicken, pesto sauce, ricotta cheese and your crackers of choice, mashed together and spread onto a tortilla. It's great for batch cooking and it preserves reasonably well; you can expect it to last 3-5 days in the fridge. I occasionally put fresh mushrooms in it to make it more filling. Some people may opt for other more stir fry-like veggies, but I try to keep it simple.

bro sometimes when lucky i get potato for under 1 euro/kg, you just need to use it wisely

Bean salad. Cut up some tomato, onion, lettuce (or any green leafy vegetable), cheese, and put it in a bowl. Mix a little mayonnaise and oil (or water) and mix it in. Top it with a little salt and pepper. Open a can of black beans or whatever beans you like, optionally heat them, and add them to the bowl. Eat with a slice of whole grain bread and a cup of hot tea or coffee. Simple, fast, easy, cheap, and highly nutritious.

>>9469 Drink oil while your at it

I call it blended nutrient fuel! I simply cut any cheap meat potatoes vegetables and whatever seasoning comes to mind into pieces somewhat smaller than my largest toe! Into the pot they go with plenty of water, Then, with an immersion blender, I create enough food smoothie for the week to sustain me! You need not worry about specific ingredients, only ensure a certain amount is animal flesh, and a certain amount vegitables, and a certain amount potatoes if you so wish. 'foods' are branding to make you overpay. Eat cooked ingredients without joy or sorrow

It's not $1 but I calced 1 corned beef sandwich to being $2 last time I made it. It was a batch of 8 sandwiches for $16, and the ingredients weren't cheapo either. I got the grocery brand corned beef and some rye bread and mustard and sauerkraut. You do end up with mustard and sauerkraut left over, plus butter if you toast your bread. The calculation I did was based on the portion I used, but if you end up throwing away the mustard or sauerkraut or butter then of course it will have been more expensive.

not a meal but you can invest in canned fish in bulk for affordable measl

>>12152 Yeah, canned Atlantic mackerel is cheap and one of the healthiest things you can eat. Low mercury, too. I like to fry some potatoes and onions in a healthy oil like sunflower, canola, whatever, and then add the can of mackerel for a few minutes. Damn good eating. Canned salmon is good, too, but it's more expensive.

>>12138 i need to know if you refrigerate it or keep it warm on the stove

Vegetable bean tomato noodle meat soup. Get some spaghetti, canned mixed vegetable, canned beans, canned tomato sauce, cooked meat, onions, bouillon powder (or just salt), pepper, garlic powder, whatever spices you like, and healthy oil. Get a big, huge Pyrex bowl that will still fit inside your microwave. Break up the spaghetti into the bowl. Add in the seasonings, spices, bouillon powder, some oil, enough water to just cover the spaghetti. Chop up the onion and add it, too. Nuke it all for about 20 minutes until the spaghetti is soft. Open up the canned vegetables, tomato sauce, beans, and meat, and pour it all on, juice and all. Throw on some greens if you want. Mix it all up well. It should still be really hot, but if it isn't just nuke it a couple more minutes. Imma tell you sumpin'. This is some damn good eatin'. And it'll last you a few meals. You want to leave something out or add something in? Go aheas. It'll still taste good. Too spicy/salty? Just add some water and heat it back up. It's pretty damn hard to mess this up. And it'll keep you healthy, too. You could live on this stuff for the rest of your life. Have some nice whole grain bread with it, too. Or crackers, whatever.

Same guy... Btw, can't afford meat? Just use cheese. It'll cook right in with the spaghetti and it tastes great, too. I make it with sharp cheddar sometimes. Yum!

>>12208 >Just use cheese As if I would wasn't lactose enough from these modified cows

>>12209 cheese is a lot easier on your kind than milk is so its worth a try before you kill yourself

any good addons for specifically canned lentils? tried olive oil salt and pepper and it was good but that was when i had reliable access to an oven/stove/microwave a few years back don't remember the quantities i used anymore don't have regular access to a fridge either

Cook up ground beef add baked beans mixed in, doesnt matter if the tomato based or molasses based kind either works to your tastes. I sometimes add a little salt but not necessary. Easy, tastes good, filling, reheats fine so you can make several meal portions in one go. I used to add canned beef to my ramen noodles until I no longer had a source and canned pork is a lot less appealing but canned chicken is alright. These days I add dried seaweed snacks instead. They are moderately pricey unless you buy in bulk though in which they are pretty cheap especially if you dont use up a full package at once. This gives you an iodine source and extra umami flavor and texture. Once added to the broth they return to their original texture absorbing the moisture. I discovered Swiss cheese is very resistant to growing mould. I only rarely see it grow mould so it lasts much longer if properly sealed and stored making it usually safe to buy months worth in one go unlike something like cheddar.

>>12228 canned lentils are the weirdest thing I've ever heard of get canned tuna or some other meat and keep your lentils dry

>>12232 >when i had reliable access to an oven/stove/microwave

>potato, egg and vegetable >potato, chicken breast (if eggs ends up being expensive in your region) and vegetable >potato, sausage (if chicken breast end up being expensive in your region) and vegetable >diy pickles and sauerkraut >water Change seasoning between meals to avoid mental breakdown.

>getting mental breakdown from eating the same thing yeah maybe if you have adhd or are bluepilled and think there's somehow something wrong with eating the same thing every day

>>12233 ok then just get canned tuna/meat or something canned lentils are the weirdest thing Ive heard of and if you must have canned lentils then eat them with your canned tuna or meat or something can cook lentils over your camping fire too

I tried canned lentils exactly once, and they tasted so bad I never bought another can. I love regular lentils, though. With the right seasoning they taste a little like meat. I also love tuna salad, but I stopped buying tuna because of the high mercury content. I already have enough brain damage, thanks. Canned sardines, mackerel, or salmon are way healthier. Whatever your situation, you need a few basic foods to stay healthy: 1. just calories: spaghetti or rice. spaghetti cooks faster and tastes better imo. 2. vitamins and minerals: canned mixed vegetables, canned spinach, canned tomato sauce, fresh fruit, and whole grain cold cereal like cheerios or raisin bran will provide all you need. 3. high quality protein: if you don't have refrigeration or cooking access, you can use non-fat dry milk for cereal or added to soups/stews or coffee. Or you can use canned fish or meat. Eggs will last a surprsingly loing time without refrigeration. Canned beans and peas have a lot of pretein, too. 4. healthy oil: olive oil is the best. if you don't like it or can't afford it, canola oil is the poor man's alternative. If you ate nothing but these foods, you would have a good , cheap, convenient (but boring) diet. Nothing preventing you from spicing it up with other foods, though.

>>9469 This is really complex topic actually, because only protein makes hunger go away, and usually cooked. For example I could eat the cottage cheese with a greek yoghurt, massive amount, like 500g+ in total with heavy protein load, but I start feeling hungry in about 2 hours. And if I eat 3-4 boiled eggs with bread or sauce I feel pretty good for at least 3-4 hours. Anyway, complex meals is the way to go, when you have something like bento, or soup and main dish after with a salad. This way you experience really good amount of different nutrients, being well-fed for hours. The best in terms prep time/price/nutrients for me: Salad - any type of cheap greens that you could find, canned greens, anything. In my area the beetroots are dirt cheap, something like 0.3USD/kg, same as the cabbage and carrots. It's not the best salad that you can have, but you are already can make something from it. Cole-slow salad is the cabbage with the carrots plus some mustard, mayo and vinegar. So, for one day you make boiled beetroot, for the other you make coleslaw for something like 100g-200g per portion will cost you less than 0.1USD Add to it any cream-soup, but without fancy a lot of cream and cheese and other pricy stuff. Just some onions+garlic+carrots, that you fry a bit. The boil in the pot veggies like pumpkin, broccoli, spinach or mushroom. Better buy and dry mushrooms, or freeze, when they are cheap, at the end of the summer. And after that you blend it all together and you already have something. In my region of living we eat any soup with the bread, so it's really good to add few pieces. Second type of soups that I really liked is egg-drop soup, easy to make, very cheap and nutritious. Portion of soup usually cost me something like 0.3-0.7USD For the main dish I use some prepped meat of any kind, actually it's about 150-200 grams of meat and side dish that's 200-300 grams after cooking like potato or 80-100 dry grain of any kind. Usually it costs a bit more, because of the meat, but you need it, so anywhere from 1 to 2 USD. In the end of it all we have complex meal for something like a 1.5-3 USD. Talking in Recipes only: Shakshuka Cream Soups Drop-Egg Soups Cole-Slaw Salad Beetroot Salad Grain/wheat Side-dishes English Breakfast Bolognese Dumplings of any kind Burrito (Any wrap up) Fish Soup from Can

>>12273 In addition would like to say, best list of ingredients: 1. All cheapest veggies in your area. Less than 0.5 USD for kilo. Buy them, prep them, weight and put in freezer for later use 2. Eggs is the best for the nutrients that you gonna get 3. Dumplings of any kind is cost-effective, delicious and fast cooking thing. I can find them in my area as cheap as 2USD/kg for okay quality meat. 4. Milk is the great one, I don't have problems with lactose, for me it's kinda strange that somebody have it. In soft pack I can find it in my area for 0.6USD/litre. 5. Bread, in my area I can find it for 0.4USD for pack of ten slices. 6. Grains of any kind, dry beans, peas and other, starting as cheap as 0.3USD/kg for semolina ending like 8USD/kg for black premium rice. I usually choose something for 1USD/1kg. So, if you buy this on 20USD you will be good for some time, basically a week, but I would suggest to add some protein isolate for amino-acids coverage and meat.

Scrambled eggs is my goto. 4 eggs, add cream, salt+pepp, whisk lightly in a bowl but not too much. Heat pan, use butter as lube, throw mix in pan. Fold it over and whatnot until it's cooked just enough, serve and eat quick. It can make a surprisingly large portion and is fairly filling.

Holy fuarrrk, I found the mother-lode of information on cheap nutrition. Unlike most "good, cheap foods" sites that give semi-useful, disorganized information like cost per weight and nutrition per serving, etc, this site breaks it down directly into a list of foods sorted by nutrition per dollar. https://efficiencyiseverything.com/food-nutrition-per-dollar/ They even have a downloadable spreadsheet of the data.

>>12303 I mean, if you really must live like a peasant than a diet oriented around flour would do the job. But if you have a bit more money there are better ways to be "cost-effective".

>>12303 old news, i remember first seeing that website about 10 years ago he has a decent page on lentils if anylain hasn't made them before, but most of the recipes were just an extra ingredient and for an alleged engineer he's vague about quantities

>>9554 >eat buckwheat as an emergency food Pseudocereal experiments :) >>9469 Microwaved mug with 2 eggs mixed with buckwheat or rice. The problem is, you have to microwave it twice or thrice. Kasha is also a good food to try: milk + basic boiled salted buckwheat

>>9469 What are these things at the bottom of the triangle (Servo Group)?

>>9481 turkish lentil soup 1 onion 5 carrots 3 potatoes 5 cloves garlic 1 lb red lentils 2 tsp salt 1/2 tsp black pepper 1/2 tsp cumin 1/2 tsp turmeric 2 bay leaves 3 quarts chicken broth (or 3 quarts water + 3 tbsp better than bouillon) 2 tbsp tomato paste chili oil: 2 tbsp butter 1 tsp paprika 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes garnish: 2 tbsp fresh chopped mint 1 lemon, juice of sautee onions in olive oil; add carrots, potatoes, lentils & spices; add garlic, sautee until fragrant; add chicken broth (or water & soup base), tomato paste & bay leaves, bring to a boil; simmer for 1 hour; remove bay leaves, blend soup with stick blender; melt butter in separate saucepan, stir in paprika & cayenne, sautee; add chili oil to soup; add mint & lemon juice to soup.

>>9480 >B12 About that, some algae (among which nori and chlorella; spirulina is more dubious) have B12. I've been looking for cheap sources and am currently testing algae intended for horses, which already paid for themselves as a natural source of iodine at £7 / kilo. Needs rinsing to remove sand.

>>13595 >cheap source of b-12 The drugstore sells 60 pills of 250mcg each (many times the rdi) for about 2.1 dollars. I don't see the point of trying to get it from horse feed, boyo.

Ramen and grilled cheese is not bad

>enhanced ramen honestly... you can do a lot of good with soykafty noodles. a good meal can consist of cheap everything (think: wilted veggies on discount) tossed into a pot with some lentils, maybe meat, and some spice, and cooked well into a nice soup. make "too much", and freeze a bunch for the future. get cheap bread (yesterday's loaf) for a nice dipping material rich in carbs.

Sausage and Beans: - Buy the cheapest pork sausages you can find - Buy the cheapest tin of baked beans you can find - Fry 8 sausages in a pan or cook them in an air fryer if you swing that way - When they're cooked cut em up into pieces - Heat up the beans and pour over the sausages - Costs ~€1 - If you're a big spender fry an onion with the sausage and sprinkle cheese on top

>>13629 > If you're a big spender fry an onion with the sausage and sprinkle cheese on top Which cheese? I have quite an array of cheeses to choose from here. By the way, happy birthday+1 day, site!

++ rep enhanced ramen!! Huge fan of taking a mild/medium pack and chopping up some chilli, spring onions, whatever other fuarrrk ass vegetable I can find in the fridge. Slapping in the seasoning + my own mix (cayenne, cajun, ginger, cinnamon, star anise or fennel seed (any spice recs?)) and letting it boil for a sec to cook the veggies, dropping in the noodles for like 4-5 minutes et voila, enhanced noodles!! Fit for human consumption!

>>13630 I use shredded cheddar, but any cheese works really. Whatever you have on hand.

the dumpster giveth, i have for many years struggled to reliably nourish my body on the pittance i periodically from the state receive for my disability. i would vacillate between undernourishing myself while saving up, and then for a little while eating well. this cycle had been present in my life for years. then a friend introduced me to the local grocery store dumpster. many grocery stores throw out so much perfectly good foodstuff! some of it is misshapen. some has an aesthetic blemish. some is perfectly good, but in a bundle where one small part of the bundle has gone bad. one orange in a sack is rotten, so nobody will buy that sack, so the store throws it out. one stalk of celery in a bundle is brown mush, so nobody will buy that bundle, so the store throws it out. lotsa stuff is "expired" according to the label, but really it's still good. so. much. good. stuff. my meals have gone from barely minimum subsistence to decadent luxurious-feeling feasts. my physical and spiritual health is stronger than ever before, except maybe when i was a little child. in the winter, i even managed to stock up on perfectly good meats. been eating them for months now and have not gotten sick once. obviously i smell each piece of meat and in general take in all the sense data that i can about it to discern whether it's gone bad. so like, be careful, don't be stupid about it. sometimes they throw out actually bad stuff, so like you still have to watch out. you still have to clean everything up after you take it. and you have to watch out for sabotaged food---yes, some of the grocery store workers are so fuarrrked in the head that they will poison the food they throw out, such as by pouring bleach onto it. vile behaviour. i do not understand why anyone would do such a thing, and yet i've heard of it happening. and of course, sometimes a grocery store worker will come out and try to make trouble for you. they might tell you to leave, or call the cops on you. really don't understand why, but they do it! fuarrrkers. oh yeah and it might be technically stealing, depending on how the laws work where you are. so yeah. stay safe out there. protect yourself. don't get caught. and most importantly of all, eat well! and the dumpster taketh away

>>13668 also, dumpster eggs. basically always good. again don't be stupid, but like if it's not leaking it's probably still good. i got like 300 eggs one time. and i see eggs like every other time. only reason i don't take eggs whenever i see 'em is my fridge space is limited and i'm lowkey sick of eggs. it's really easy protein. just bring 'em back home and wash 'em and hardboil 'em. and like use all your senses to check whether they've gone bad

>>9469 I've been living off french toast recently but one thing i've been doing a lot is making bread. Baking bread is sort of time consuming and hard to master but there's some specific types of bread that are easy to learn how to make and are insanely cheap when it comes to ingredients. For example naan bread is easy you just need flour, oil, salt, milk and yeast and you can make a buttload of some schway ass naan. I like to make a batch of dough, cut it into balls and keep em in the fridge ready to roll flat and pan fry. A basic sourdough is really really easy to make and you don't even need yeast- you can make the starter yourself and if it's good you can keep it going forever by adding a spoonful of sugar and flour to it twice a week. And considering you can get a 5 pound bag of flour for ~3$- and each bag makes around 10 loaves of bread it may as well be free. There's a reason peasants used to live off bread. A good way to make bread into a meal is to make french toast- cause if you put fruit on it that's carbs: from the bread and sugar protein: from the egg fat: from the egg and butter minerals and vitamins: from the fruit (I like mixed frozen berries, usually in a smoothie) For around 15$ you can have a solid breakfast for a week. 4$ for bread 5$ for butter 3$ for eggs 1$ for sugar 2$ for milk

>>9469 >>11368 for a moment I thought lain talks about real ramen, which was weird in the OP context as it is not made under $2, then I realized this is cup ramen / instant noodles

>>13669 >eggs >fridge 1. Freezer. 2. Mayo or similar 3. Learn a technique to clean eggs quickly 4. Boil 20 eggs in one go, clean them with a tool, wrap them in pressed bread or some rice OR 1.Cook lots of rice. 2. Cook omlette with rice aka "omuraiso" if you have a pan large enough. 3. Store ready-for-microwave *omuraiso* in tupperware-like cheap boxes.

hotdogs. you can get everything for a basic hotdog for $10. costing about $1.50 each.