I pride myself on eating economically yet somewhat healthfully. It occurred to me that one of the dishes I prepare regularly is very cost-efficient: pea soup, which I prepare by cooking two packages of dried split peas, with the bone of a ham hock (which is cheap enough, $1.09 on sale, enough meat to satisfy me for at least a week), and a few onions, plus spices. Makes a couple of dozen bowlfuls of soup for no more than five bucks worth of ingredients.
What’s yours?
Pizza Pizza. I can get a 14 inch pepperoni pie for $5 from Little Ceasars. At 2200 calories that will make two or three meals.
Pasta. It’s the main ingredient of many of my dishes, and I can get them as cheap as € 0.39 per 500 g of Spaghetti and maybe € 0.59-0.89 for Fusilli or Tagliatelle. Make sauce of vegetables, garlic, onions, maybe mushrooms, some cream and/or tomato paste, and you’ve got three or four portions of a cheap good meal.
Pulled pork. I wait until pork loins are BOGO, then I buy one. They’re already cheap, at half-off they’re practically giving them away.
I take the loin home and slice individual little roasts that I then vacuum seal and put in the freezer. When I want one, I set up my sous vide @165F and let it sit for a day or two.
This time of year, I’m big into grilled zucchini. They’re very inexpensive and the lump charcoal to cook them probably costs more.
Mmmm, zucchini. I grate them, squeeze out some liquid, add egg, flour/breadcrumbs, spices, and air fry fritters.
I’ve had those pan fried but never air fried and I’ve also never attempted myself. I also like chunks of zucchini in a red sauce (carrots, too).
For grilling zucchini, I like to cut them into pretty thick planks* (eighth to quarter inch thick) and wet with olive oil. Then, a few lines of toasted sesame oil with salt, pepper, onion powder and maybe a scant pinch of oregano. Slide them around to distribute the seasonings and grill over a hot fire but quickly.
*I’ve also tried zucchini ribbons, made using a peeler. Those are also good but cook really fast and aren’t worth the extra hassle of cooking 100 ribbons instead of 20 planks.
Microwave whole grain rice, with soy sauce.
It’s seasonal. And as far as possible it’s home grown - so really cheap.
Over the winter there’s a lot of pumpkin soup on the menu. I cut up the last one a week ago - lots for the freezer and a big batch of soup.
From late spring it’ll be homegrown salad for lunches. Fresh garden vegetables over the summer and into the fall, with Charlotte potatoes for carbs - I hope to get at least 30 - 40 kg yield for an outlay of little more than $5.
Frozen homegrown veg over the winter - mostly pumpkin, squash, beans and zucchini.
Cheap bread? Homemade sourdough all year round.
j
Probably lentils. Not much more than a dollar for a one pound sack, plus some spices, maybe 25cents of garlic, a few cents of oil to fry the cumin seeds at the end, and the application of water and time. Lots of calories, lots of protein, and a very satisfying meal.
Onions. I buy a big bag of them, and use lots of them in every savory dish I make.
Eggs.
Beans
I was hoping to see a recipe or two, or just how the beans or eggs or onions got used. I tend to eat the same dishes for long stretches, but sometimes I let one or two dishes I like slip my mind for too long.
I like lentils prepared as soup with carrots and onions, but what’s even better, and the dish we have most weeks, is Madhur Jaffrey’s recipe in “An Invitation to Indian Cooking”. That’s a great resource for cheap tasty food. The same book has a delicious recipe for moong dahl (dry mung beans) and for a cauliflower-lentil stew, and a fabulous fried potato dish, and a really stellar recipe for canned chick peas, none of which are very expensive to make. And they all taste different.
(It has pricey foods that are hard to prepare, too. But it’s a great resource for cheap food.)
It’s probably not the very cheapest thing one could make, but it’s a great way to use up odds and ends that might otherwise go to waste, so in that sense it’s cheap:
I recently realized that cooked quinoa makes a fabulous anything-goes salad. Start with either 1/2 cup quinoa and 1 cup water (that gives 2-3 servings) or twice that much (to feed 4 with some leftovers). Boil the quinoa, turn the heat way down and cover and cook for ten minutes. Turn off the heat and let it sit while you prep your other ingredients:
You could do more or less the same as above except with pasta.
A kilo of pumpkin
A liter of stock
An onion
A clove of garlic
A teaspoon of mild chilli powder
Salt to taste
Olive oil
Roast the rough-chopped pumpkin in a little oil for an hour - until the tips of some chunks just start to blacken. Let’s say 180 Celsius.
20 mins into the roasting add the chopped onion.
30 mins into the roasting add the chopped garlic.
Once ever so slightly blackened (see above), add to the stock and chilli and simmer for 20 mins (until soft).
Whizz with a whizzer.
Salt to taste.
Six hearty lunches right there.
j
ETA - I forgot the first part of the recipe:
Germinate your pumpkin seed using multi-purpose compost and enough water to keep it damp…
I initially was going to mention eggs, but we pamper our hens. We’ve paid $$$ for surgery when necessary, since they’re pets as well as egg producers.
I am convinced that if it were a survival situation and you wanted the most calories for the cheapest price and could only purchase it at a restaurant Little Ceaser’s is the most bang for the buck.
I had some gastrointestinal issues awhile back and needed fiber so I began eating a cup and a half of black beans for breakfast every morning. It’s filling without bothering a morning queasy stomach and so years later I still microwave a bowl with a little salt and on the side a glass of orange juice which brings my daily morning routine to around 60 cents or less.