I have a feeling that the answer to this might be anything that you can grow from seeds. So, fresh fruits, vegetables, beans, grains, etc. then, like tomatoes or snow peas or apples or wheatberries. The thing is that these all take time to transform from seed to fruit, so if you include time in your constraint space these don't work. But you didn't so here you go :D
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When I was in college, I had the rule of not buying anything that is >$1.50 per pound. This is what I was reduced to (prices may be different now due to inflation and geo area):
- Apples, oranges, grapes, strawberries when they are on sale
- Milk, yogurt
- Pork shoulder, chicken quarters, thighs, drumsticks
- ground pork, ground beef
- Carrots, broccoli, potatoes, cabbage (you'll be surprised at how good thinly sliced cabbages taste in a sandwich)
Sweet potatoes. Very nutritious, very cheap, and taste sweet. Easy to prepare to, you can just boil or bake them for a little while without adding anything and they're great just like that.
Rice, tuna from a packet, and soy sauce - cheap, delicious, healthy, and easy. You wanna get fancy, you can add some sesame oil, furikake, chop up some green onions, whatever you got kicking around.
Sardines are a pretty solid alternative to tuna as well. Depending, they may be cheaper, andnas a bonus they're much more sustainable than tuna.
Yes - generally beans are both healthy (33% protein, 33% fiber, 33% carbs), cheap (dried or in cans), and can be pretty tasty, even out of cans, but if not with eggs, as part of a soup (tomatoes + grain + spices + veggies).
Well, first we need to define what healthy means, because you could die of water intoxication, meaning there is a point where quantity matters.
Are cheese and butter healthy ? Not if it's your only diet, but there are tons of very healthy things in cheese and butter. And of course, the same goes for every thing. So we must have balance in mind when defining an healthy food.
The second is to define what is cheap. In most of European countries, fresh food is relatively cheap, but in other countries they can be super expensive. And there's nothing more healthy than fresh food. So you definitely need fresh food as a base for an healthy balanced meal.
The third is highly subjective.
As for my healthy delicious cheap meal:
Breakfast
One scrambled egg by Gordon Ramsay with a melted slice of cheddar on toast and A fruit salad of one orange, one kiwi and one small apple
Lunch
Spaghettis with fresh garlic, olive oil, fresh basil and tomato wedges
Dinner
Pan-fried chicken fillet with frozen peas and carrot rings
Snack
Any fruit really
potatoes!
Rice and beans, just be a little creative with preparation. Also you can make lots of soups that are cheap and healthy and its super easy to make too.
Try making a bean salad some time! It is cheap, tasty, and healthy.
I just buy a few cans: black, kidney, garbanzo, whatever. Some romaine lettuce, tomato, red onion maybe. Mexify it if you want with some shreddy cheese and sour cream, served with tortillas/doritos (not healthy obv). Or plain with an italian dressing or something.
It's basically impossible to fuck up, you can modify it however you want, it takes like five minutes to throw together, super cheap, totally fits all three categories. Try it some time!
Honestly, I think most food can be found pretty cheap, except for proteins. The best bet I think is chicken drumsticks, but even those will add up. Beans are a cheap protein, but it's about just as carby as it is proteiny.
literally any bagel sandwich, unless the cost of eggs or ham is still rlly high in your area. low effort, immaculate.
Curiously, peanuts 🥜.
100 gr of peanuts have almost all the fatty acids that you need in a day, with almost half the minimum calorie intake required and half the protein you need. They are satiating, VERY easy to grow, and even used as a way to replenish the soil with nutrients in crop rotation.
If you ask me what was the mana taken through the dessert, I'd say most likely peanuts.
Thanks for this prompt. Reading this thread was the first time I felt like I was on reddit since I've joined this instance. I laughed and learned.
Carrots. Same as potatoes. Boil em, mash em, stick em in a stew. Someone already mentioned onions, same idea.
I know your edit says you were thinking about dishes, and I think carrots can be their own dish with very little preparation. I like to bake mine on a sheet for half hour or so at 425f, and they are wonderful on their own. Also so low-calorie you can eat a practically infinite amount of them without spoiling a diet!
Fried soy beans with garlic. Tastes approx like potato chips, about the same price as beans, and decently nutritious. Just don't use too much salt or oil.
I was looking at similar requirements for my daily lunch during the workday. I live in London so you're paying between £5 and £10 per day even for just a sandwich-based lunch. I needed a packed lunch that was cheap, tasty, healthy and additionally: filling, easy/quick to prepare and low carb. So that's a big ask.
I settled on a kind of custom Greek salad. One cucumber, some red onion, pickled beetroot all diced up, olive oil (or cold-pressed rapeseed oil) and some feta cheese. Sometimes I add chickpeas and coriander.
It's perfect, I've been eating it for years now.
Chana masala is pretty delicious and I'm pretty sure it's healthy. I think it's mostly chickpeas and vegetables which are both pretty good for you.
This will be controversial. I'm going with Costco rotisserie chicken. $5. They taste good fresh but bad reheated. I don't eat the skin
I can here to say this.
Chicken is all of these things. I food prep chicken dishes because I need the right amount of protein. It's delicious and it's one of the cheapest types of meat.
IMHO, steamed vegetables are right in the middle of the triangle. I've bought a steam cooker and it's a game changer compared to boiling. It's healthier since less nutrients are lost, preserves so much more taste and texture, there's a timer so you can start the steamer and go do something else. Also makes you use less water. I've still got to try steamed fish but I expect it'll taste great.
on a perhaps relevant note air-fried stuff may also fit the category. like air fried sweet potato chips, delicious even without seasonings!
I have a related one - I'm kinda continously on the lookout for a refreshing (evening) drink especially during hot weather.
So far, I haven't found one that doesn't contain at least one of:
- (added) sugar
- caffeine
- alcohol
Or a combination of those.
On the other end of that scale, I do quite like White Russians. The Dude says hi.
Carbonated mineral water. Yeah there are environmental concerns with bottled water but this stuff breaks up the monotony of just drinking water pretty good without any caffeine, alcohol, or sugar.
It depends where you live (I'm in Bangkok, so grocery choices are quite limited).
I love Oats. I got massively back into them again this year... now I buy around 3kg every month (instant oats).
It's only this year, really, that I discovered that oats are still really good and creamy when not made with milk... and it's really easy to boil a single cup of water to dump on a cup of oats for a perfect breakfast (left standing for a minute - done... no need to 'microwave' oats).
Also, cheap staples include: carrots, potato, broccoli, spinach...
Frozen strawberries are dirt cheap here too.
Breakfast 1:
- Instant Oats (1 cup, 1/4 tsp salt, 3tsp sugar, 3 tsp creamer)
- pulsed to powder in the blender with a cup of boiling water poured over.
- Blend 100ml milk with 3 strawberries and mix that in. The beauty of this is (as my son does NOT like stodgy/thick porridge) I can add an extra 100ml of milk to his breakfast, and it becomes a liquid smoothie.
Breakfast 2:
- Weetbix are not too cheap, but ONE biscuit mixed with ONE cup of oats is a massive breakfast - and tastes of Weetbix... and is ridiculously cheap in comparison.
Breakfast 3
- Oats work great with eggs...
- 1 cup oats, some salt, some cumin (maybe a teaspoon)
- 2/3 cup boiling water (soak a minute)
- 2 duck eggs mixed in
- butter up the frying pan and dump it in there, cover and cook gently for 3 minutes, flip and give them another 3 minutes.
DIsgusting poopy one
- 2 teaspoons of cocoa powder mixed with 4 teaspoons of non-dairy creamer + 1 cup oats
- pulse to powder, add a cup of hot water.
That's choccie heaven right there.
Okra, it's easy to grow. Bugs and squirrels don't seem to bother it. Frozen isn't too expensive