Eating Well on a Budget: Easy & Affordable Recipes
Easy Edition: Eating Well Without Emptying Your Wallet
Table of Contents
Introduction
Recipe 1: The “End-of-the-Week” Stir Fry
Recipe 2: One-Pot Lentil Comfort Bowl
Recipe 3: Lazy Tomato Egg Skillet
Recipe 4: Budget Chicken & Rice Done Right
Recipe 5: The 10-Minute Peanut Noodle Fix
Conclusion
Introduction
Money. A word that somehow manages to sneak into every decision we make: what we wear, where we go, and most painfully, what we eat. Eating well has been marketed as a luxury. Organic this, imported that, superfoods with names you can’t pronounce. Somewhere along the way, we were convinced that healthy, satisfying meals require a high budget and even higher effort.
How did it come to this? Eating well was supposed to be a basic necessity and not a luxury. Do you want to eat food with real substance? Hand over your monthly salary- no, the entirety of it. Fortunately, humans are nothing if not adaptable. And millions of people suffer from this problem, thus millions of solutions to it. I am here to present a few of those to you all.
Recipe 1: The “Lazy” Breakfast
This is perhaps the best and easiest meal I can make(though if that’s because my cooking skills are lacking or if I am merely biased, I am unsure).
In a bowl, add ¼ cup of oats(or however much you feel comfortable eating. This recipe is very flexible.) and add 1-2 teaspoons of chia seeds if you have them at home. Add in ½ a cup of milk. After that, mix in honey, sugar, or any kind of sweetener you are partial to. You can leave it at that. Or, if you are feeling indulgent, add a few teaspoons of cocoa powder and a sprinkle of coffee powder. Leave it to sit for a few hours, or overnight.
After that, all you have to do is dig in and enjoy.
Recipe 2: One-Pot Lentil Comfort Bowl
A bowl of warm, steaming lentil is one of the most comforting foods you can include in your diet. Not only is it rich in protein, but it keeps you feeling for longer. And making a bowl of it is ridiculously easy.
Wash ½ a cup of lentils(wash it you heathen) and let it soak for 30 minutes. While you do that, saute a few onions and add in salt and spices as you have available and a small amount of ginger and garlic. Add your drained lentils to the pot and simmer for about 30 minutes until they’re soft and the curry is nice and thick. Stir in spinach for extra flavour. Add the fresh lemon juice and stir for about 10 minutes until the lentil thickens to your liking. Then serve and enjoy!
Recipe 3: Lazy Tomato Egg Skillet
There are days when effort feels like too much. This recipe understands that.
Grab a pan, pour in some canned or fresh tomatoes, add salt and pepper, and let it simmer until it thickens slightly. Crack a couple of eggs directly into the sauce, cover the pan, and let them cook gently.
That’s it.
Eat it with bread, rice, or even on its own. It’s rich, slightly tangy, and feels far more sophisticated than the effort it requires. It’s the kind of meal that tricks you into thinking you have your life together (even if we both know you absolutely do not.)
Recipe 4: Budget Chicken & Rice Done Right
Chicken and rice have a reputation for being boring. That’s only because people stop trying after the basics.
Start by cooking your rice with a bit of salt and, if possible, a piece of garlic or a bay leaf. These will add a unique flavour to it. For the chicken, even the cheapest cuts work. But in my humble opinion, buying a whole one and cutting it up yourself will yield you more meat, for a lesser cost. Season with whatever you have: salt, pepper, turmeric, chili powder, and cook until golden. If you can, add onions to the pan. They carry flavor in a way that feels unfair for how cheap they are. Feel free to throw in any vegetables you have. This is a recipe meant to be experimented with and customized.
Mix it or keep it separate; it doesn’t matter. What matters is that this meal is filling, protein-rich, and far more satisfying than it has any right to be at its price point.
A Few tips?
Healthy eating in these times of economic crisis is a skill, one that takes a few hoops to jump through to get there. But beyond that its a combined test of your planning, prioritising and budgeting skills. Here are a few things that allowed me to get started on this journey.
- Never shop when you are hungry or thirsty.
Even things you’d usually find unappealing will start to look like the next best thing since coffee if you are going to shop hungry. Moreover, you’ll find yourself purchasing more than you need, and over your budget and still leave the store unhappy with your choices.
- Always take stock:
Before you head to the mall, take stock of your freezer and pantry. What’s going to expire and what’s going to be over ripe within a few days. Plan your meals around using them up. This process will also help you avoid duplicate purchases.
- Pick up the ‘imperfect’ vegetables:
This doesn’t mean I am asking you to pick up the ones you suspect of having a rot. There’s a clear difference between those and simple, harmless spots. Learn how to differentiate between them, and for good reason too; the imperfect ones are often cheaper.
- Meal Planning:
Horribly cliche as it is, planning your meals and pre prepping for them(such as, dicing up those onions and storing them in the fridge in an airtight box) will help calm you during the actual process of making the food, furthermore, you will have less of a roadblock to get over when the time comes. Not only that, but taking your time to plan the meals means you can make sure you are eating the necessary amounts of proteins and fibres everyday. Just make sure to keep it simple and within range of your cooking skills(or maybe not, given that within my range, I am able to burn water. How I do that, I have no clue.)
Conclusion
Food doesn’t have to be complicated to be good. And it certainly doesn’t have to drain your bank account to be satisfying. Also, for most of us, the whole concept is warped by social media. Good food is supposed to look pretty, served in fancy dishes and cutleries and made in granite countertop kitchens.
That is not what it should be like. Healthy and good food should comfort you and give you the sense of satisfaction you’ve been chasing for by dipping your hands into the cookie jars and chip packs. At midnight.
A simple bowl of lentils or a cup of tea will heal a small part of your soul during the rain(which most likely was lost during the day, dealing with the capitalistic reality). For such a meal, you won’t need perfect ingredients and rigid recipes. All you need is flexibility and creativity; tinker around with recipes until you find the perfect one. Even if it results in a few extended appointments with the loo.(I sure had my fair share of those when I first started tinkering around.)
