Rice, beans and frozen veggies. Sometimes eggs instead of beans. With the right seasonings, I rarely get tired of these staple items. Pasta as well, especially since I’ve found some pretty sweet deals on some delicious marinara sauces. But I try to keep that to once or twice a month, or if I need some serious comfort food. If I had my way I’d eat it all the time, but my digestive system wouldn’t be very happy with me
Have you had a grilled pb & j? It's where you make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and then fry it in a little butter as if you're making a grilled cheese sandwich. It's not the healthiest thing but it's cheap and it tastes good.
Rice and egg or meat loaf with high fat ground chicken. For sweet food, I usually go with wheat bread with peanut butter jelly and sugar just like the OP does. For fruits, banana is always the cheapest per the amount that you get so I usually stick with banana. I try to get all of the essential nutrients even though I eat on a low budget which is why I prefer wheat bread and brown rice for carbs because they can substitute for vegetables and these days you can find them at the same price as regular white rice and white bread.
Rice stir fried with whatever I have to add to it is always a favorite. Or egg salad sometimes. I also like salmon patties and biscuits with creamed potatoes and something green. Or just the salmon patties and biscuits alone are fine with me. And it's cheap if you get the store brand canned salmon. Tuna casseroles do well also, for cheap; and soups are always a good choice.
I like to make mac and cheese with sausage as the kids love this and don't know that it is a broke meal. Scrambled eggs and hashbrowns, or chicken fettechini are also great choices. I usually have overstock in my pantry so I am good at making up meals based in what I have on hand.
Often I make french fries for the kids when the food is a little low, for myself I really like beans and rice so I have that at least once a week rather I have money or not. Meatless chilli is also a good meal when money is tight.
My go-to broke meal is chips (or fries) and baked beanns. Cheap and filling, although admittedly lacking in the flavor department. Pasta with sauce made from a tin of plum tomatoes, a chopped onion, 2 tbsp of tomato puree and a pinch of mixed herbs is also dirt cheap to make.
I usually just cook pasta dishes or if I'm really broke I usually just stick to food that has a lot of sauce like stews so I could separate it and freeze then eat it throughout the week with a lot of starch for filling up. It isn't really healthy but I just try and exercise more when I do this to offset the effects. I also like doing pasta dishes because those are very easy to extend and usually are very easy to make especially if you buy instant sauces.
Even when I'm not broke I like a simple bowl of pasta with pesto and some vegetables. If I'm in a hurry then ramen noodles with an egg always does the trick. It's quick and easy and is comfort food too. Other simple snacks are slicing a sausage and making a sandwich out of it with relish and an egg too. It's filling and they are foods that I enjoy eating as well.
I always did "pantry cooking," for those times when funds were low. As in, I'd cook anything in the pantry. I had to learn to get a little creative with four kids to feed. The trick was making "broke food" without letting the kids realize we were broke. It's funny, because some of the concoctions I came up with turned into their comfort foods. They still sometimes ask me to make, or how to make, some of those items. One item was homemade "granola bars." These got better over time, but they started as a way to use all the bits at the bottom of the cereal boxes that weren't quite enough for a whole bowl. I'd dump them in a mixing bowl and add oats and the other ingredients from a simple oatmeal cookie recipe. Then, I'd just pour it all into a cake pan, bake, and cut into bars. I always kept a big can of oats and flour on hand.
Chili and fries is also a great broke food. You can purchase a bag of french fries at the grocery store for under $3 and a can of chili for like a dollar. Simply deep fry the fries and spoon cooked chili on top and finish it off with some melted chedder. Really cheap and tasty. I would not recommend homemade fries for this meal as I find they get soggy.
When I am low on funds I usually make pasta. Its so cheap to make. I usually stock up on pasta and the sauce when it goes on sale for .99 and then it takes 10 minutes to make, its perfect.
Yeah, pasta seems to go on sale frequently, so it's a good cheap meal. Rice is pretty handy and cheap as well. Breakfast for dinner is another good choice. A frittata is nice or an omelet. I've even made pancakes for supper. I always keep flour on hand, so that's a good one in a pinch, or some biscuits. You can always add some gravy to make biscuits into more of a meal. I remembered a dish or two my mom used to make as well. She'd take just a handful of ground beef or ground turkey, not much, brown and drain it, and then toss it with either macaroni and cheese or a can of pork and beans.
Eggs and toast for breakfast is already cheap, so that's kind of a no-brainer. But eggs in general are a great bargain, and an excellent way to keep protein in your diet without paying an arm and a leg for meats. Plus there are so many ways you can prepare eggs, it's easy to keep from getting tired of them. Even something simple like some frozen spinach (that's been warmed up and seasoned) along with some cheese and diced tomato for an omelette, or just classic fried egg with some hot sauce drizzled over it, or you can get fancier and make an eggs benedict. Potatoes are also another favorite - they are filling and despite what the carb-fanatics say, are really quite good for you. Even something simple like a baked potato with a few toppings, can be a meal in itself - especially if you pair it with a simple salad or some soup. Pasta, of course, but I try to avoid the boxed pasta meals, and make my sauces fresh as often as possible. Chicken thighs and pork chops or any other cheap cuts of pork are usually what I stick to when it comes to meats. Plus it's easy to stretch these already inexpensive cuts even further with inexpensive veggies, such as onions, cubanelle or green peppers, scallions, tomatoes, and even fresh mushrooms when they are marked down for clearance.
Eggs and sardines. It's funny because we don't usually even have eggs and sardines on the table as our non-broke food. But they are the choices most appropriate to cook when really we have nothing else to show our guests. However, it really depends on what the general theme is. Another one would be potatoes and greens and inexpensive noodles.
I have a few broke foods. I will usually eat these foods when there is nothing else to eat in the house: Banana on toast. Peanut butter and jam sandwich. Tuna mixed with mayo and hot chilli sauce, on crackers. Those are the most common go-to broke foods. My body doesn't really seem to agree with milk anymore though, so where I used to be able to grab a quick filling bowl of cereal whenever desperate, I cannot do that anymore, and I am not about to start having cereal with water.
I usually always keep a bag of potatoes on hand, which I buy when they're on sale, so I can always make some kind of dish from potatoes. Yep, eggs are another good option. @DreekLass, do you like oatmeal? Hot cereal instead of cold can be a good option, and oats are cheap and very filling. You don't have to add milk, if you prefer to avoid it (I like milk on mine). It also has lots of fiber.
Probably instant cup noodles because it is the easiest one to prepare. I also think eggs, bread, and rice would keep me going during my "broke" days.
Vegan Red beans and rice. The most expensive items needed are, well, the red beans and the rice. All of it adds up to about $8 for 6 to 8 servings. A healthy vegan meal for about $1 is pretty hard to beat. Anyway, the recipe isLog In, structured and illustrated way better than I could on the forum.
Whether I am broke or have a fridge full of food my kids always want the same cheap food... Spaghetti O's... I have no idea why. My favorite broke food is Top Ramen I boil it with an egg and cabbage, fry garlic and toss it on top. I also will boil the noodles then throw them in a frying pan with veggies to make a noodle stir fry. We don't eat it often because of the sodium, but my kids could literally eat spaghetti o's for lunch, breakfast and dinner if I let them.
