Saw more than a few people posting about how to save money on food and thought I'd give some lost cost options I rely on with a really small budget. First off, disclaimer for all you vegans or low/no carb folks: You have to spend more money. Just the way it is, you get less energy out of all vegetables and no carbs. Farming revolutionized us as a species by letting us grow all these carb heavy foods and build massive populations instead of being small roving tribes.
The basics!
Pasta, Potatoes, Rice. Carb heavy and they will fill you up. They're all also pretty boring on their own. The main idea here is to fill up on the cheap carbs for next to nothing. Pasta is about a dollar a pound, Potatoes you can get 10 lbs for 3-5 bucks, and Rice is 20 bucks for about 30-50 lbs.
You can prepare them all in hundreds of different manners and there's endless variations on extras. Sauces, meats, veggies, so so many options. I'll list some of my favorite cheap ways later.
Bread. It's cheap, delicious, and filling. Revolutions have started because of no cheap bread being available. Also so many options to spice it up.
Eggs. Good source of protein and good animal fats without being expensive and also with tons of ways to cook them. Great chefs will compete to try and cook eggs in different ways to see who can make the most interesting and tasty ones.
Now a few more specific things I've found that are great:
Cheese Powders. Basically its the dehydrated cheese you'd find in a mac and cheese package but you can get pounds of it for very cheap. All you need is a half pound of pasta, a couple tablespoons of the cheese powder and half a stick of butter. Voila, mac and cheese. Firehouse Pantry is where I get it, you can get it for less than 7 bucks a pound and even less when you buy more. http://ift.tt/2nwfg7z
They've also got parmesan cheese for a bit more, but with some milk, sour cream, cream cheese, and some spices you can make some pretty amazing Alfredo sauce.
Ramen Noodles: A staple most people know about but hate and get bored of it. Two things. First, don't get the cup style. They're three times as expensive and only really useful if you can only microwave it and have no way to boil water. Second, you can really change the game by adding extra ingredients. Pop in an egg to the boiling water and don't stir it. The egg will parboil and depending on the temperature will come out in all sorts of interesting ways. Another good option is lunchmeat. Just tear it into little strips or chop it up and toss it in. It can cook in the water and adds some depth. Finally of course, veggies. Chop up some chives, carrots, onions, just make it small.
Pasta/Potatoes/Rice - Continued
Spaghetti sauce is super cheap, always a good standby. You can also just throw butter or olive oil in as a good base.
Some cheap options for meats. None of these are the healthiest options, but they're just fine in moderation. Ground beef is the basic option most people go for. Other good cheap options are polish sausage and pre-prepared meatballs. Costco's kirkland brand is amazing, you can get 6lbs for 15 bucks. For polish sausages if you slice them up and fry them on a skillet you can get them to a nice crispy and flavorful state instead of the usually sort of rubbery taste from boiling or whatnot like a hotdog.
Veggies. Like the others, there's infinite options and when you have more money you can buy higher quality stuff, but on a budget, here's my go to choices. Onions; super cheap and if you slice them up and grill them in a bit of olive oil they're sweet and delicious. Same with bell peppers(red, green, orange, etc), but a bit pricier.
Some prep tips.
Stir Fry Noodles. You don't have to buy special stir fry noodles. You can use even cheap spaghetti noodles and get a similar result. Simply boil like normal but drain the water early when they're al-dente or even a bit sooner. Then in about a tablespoon of oil in a pan, fry them up with soy sauce(or yoshidas).
Potato Scrambles. Takes some work, dicing up the potatoes into small cubes or strips, but fry/grill them up in a pan with some oil and you've got a delicious potato base. Add eggs, meats, veggies, or even use them with paste or rice to mix things up.
April 03, 2017 at 09:45AM
