Rice + lentils is the ultimate poverty lifehack. A well-stocked spice drawer (expensive, but lasts a long time) plus those two ingredients can provide like 80% of your food indefinitely. Don’t waste your time or money on ramen
Frozen dumplings. Just throw them in at the start, and by the time it reaches a boil, they’re ready to eat
Edit - I’ll use the cheap maruchan stuff as the noodles for a stir fry in a pinch. Definitely takes a bit more cooking effort than boiling a pot of water though
Quality instant ramen is pretty delicious, but it’s not that cheap or healthy
Get an appropriately sized rice cooker, it’s a super easy and cheap staple food that’s endlessly versatile.
Want Mexican food? Fry up some beans, veg, and/or eggs with cumin or taco seasoning and you’ve got a burrito bowl. Want fried rice? Toss it in too and season it. Want a simple breakfast meal? Fry an egg sunny side up and toss it on top. Feeling lazy or putting off a grocery store run? Pack it together and you get onigiri
You can even turn it into porridge (I’ve never tried it, my friend said it’s good)
Hell, if you live in/near a city that can support at least one east asian/indian/middle eastern store, you often can get a lot of whole spices for cheap. Couple months ago I bought ~5 pounds of various spices for 45 dollars. Then I get the super basics in big containers from big box places. Indian store - 8oz of green cardamom pods is $3.40, black is 4.00, star anise is 4.00, etc. The most expensive one I regularly get is like 1.25 an oz. but, usually, expensive ones are potent and you only need a little at a time. Then I can get, I think its 20oz, containers of things like garlic powder for 8 dollars at walshart.
It REALLY depends on where/how you get them. The tiny McCormick bottles are a ridiculous scam, charging like $6 for a thimbleful. Meanwhile, a lot of health food stores, if you just bring a mid-sized jar (just clean out an old pasta jar or something) you can put a bunch of spice in it for maybe $3 or less.
By ramen do you mean just regular pasta? Cause I’m not familiar with ramen so I had to Google it and you can’t possibly be talking about the ramen I saw there.
This is what I was talking about. $0.25 per package but no nutritional value and full of sodium. It can be dressed up pretty easy or be a cheap meal in a pinch, but it shouldn’t be eaten every day like some (college) kids recommend.
Most of the nice ramen are just the packaging and maybe some freeze dried veg. Get the cheap stuff. You can cut the seasoning packet down if you want to reduce sodium and add diy ingredients to make a far better bowl. egg for protein- carrots, mushrooms, spinach etc for variety. It’s a good quick source of carbs and can be very diverse as far as a meal goes.
I’ve had several fancy ramen packs that were around $7 vs the usual $0.25. I agree they are not worth the price difference if you’re looking for value.
That said, most of them are much better than the cheap ramen packs. They’re worth trying some other time when calories per dollar is not the priority.
The YouTube channel That Dude Can Cook has videos showing other things you can pre-make to add to cheap ramen if time is not an issue. His noodles look way better than anything that just comes from a ramen pack.
They’re talking about something like top ramen, a very low quality dehydrated shadow of real ramen. It’s just a packet of noodles and a bag of seasoning. It’s pure carbs and not very nutritious, but you could get it for like $0.07 a meal (who knows these days though)
There’s also good instant ramen, which ranges from $1-$5ish, and is much closer in taste to the real thing. It’s not super healthy either, but you might get some dehydrated vegetables, meat, and/or oil to go with the spices
Rice + lentils is the ultimate poverty lifehack. A well-stocked spice drawer (expensive, but lasts a long time) plus those two ingredients can provide like 80% of your food indefinitely. Don’t waste your time or money on ramen
Don’t waste time on ramen? Ramen is a good base. Toss in some fresh veg, boiled egg, maybe a bit of meat or tofu.
Pretty quick and easy.
Though, I’m not talking about the maruchan stuff. Even the cheapest Asian ramen gonna be better than that.
You could also put those things in rice instead for much cheaper calorie/dollar. But it can be good to switch it up for sure
Frozen dumplings. Just throw them in at the start, and by the time it reaches a boil, they’re ready to eat
Edit - I’ll use the cheap maruchan stuff as the noodles for a stir fry in a pinch. Definitely takes a bit more cooking effort than boiling a pot of water though
Quality instant ramen is pretty delicious, but it’s not that cheap or healthy
Get an appropriately sized rice cooker, it’s a super easy and cheap staple food that’s endlessly versatile.
Want Mexican food? Fry up some beans, veg, and/or eggs with cumin or taco seasoning and you’ve got a burrito bowl. Want fried rice? Toss it in too and season it. Want a simple breakfast meal? Fry an egg sunny side up and toss it on top. Feeling lazy or putting off a grocery store run? Pack it together and you get onigiri
You can even turn it into porridge (I’ve never tried it, my friend said it’s good)
(Sponsored by The Rice Gang🍚)
If you have an Asian, Mexican, or Indian market where you live, you can usually find spices in bigger packs for lower prices.
Hell, if you live in/near a city that can support at least one east asian/indian/middle eastern store, you often can get a lot of whole spices for cheap. Couple months ago I bought ~5 pounds of various spices for 45 dollars. Then I get the super basics in big containers from big box places. Indian store - 8oz of green cardamom pods is $3.40, black is 4.00, star anise is 4.00, etc. The most expensive one I regularly get is like 1.25 an oz. but, usually, expensive ones are potent and you only need a little at a time. Then I can get, I think its 20oz, containers of things like garlic powder for 8 dollars at walshart.
Spices are expensive, but very easy to shoplift because they are so small.
It REALLY depends on where/how you get them. The tiny McCormick bottles are a ridiculous scam, charging like $6 for a thimbleful. Meanwhile, a lot of health food stores, if you just bring a mid-sized jar (just clean out an old pasta jar or something) you can put a bunch of spice in it for maybe $3 or less.
By ramen do you mean just regular pasta? Cause I’m not familiar with ramen so I had to Google it and you can’t possibly be talking about the ramen I saw there.
Cheap instant ramen, not the nice bowls of ramen.
The stuff that’s $.25 per package.
This is what I was talking about. $0.25 per package but no nutritional value and full of sodium. It can be dressed up pretty easy or be a cheap meal in a pinch, but it shouldn’t be eaten every day like some (college) kids recommend.
I’ve heard one story of a college student getting actual scurvy from a lack of nutrition in their exclusively ramen diet.
There’s the chubbyemu video on ramen
Oh, ok, that makes sense. Those bowls of ramen sure don’t look cheap.
Most of the nice ramen are just the packaging and maybe some freeze dried veg. Get the cheap stuff. You can cut the seasoning packet down if you want to reduce sodium and add diy ingredients to make a far better bowl. egg for protein- carrots, mushrooms, spinach etc for variety. It’s a good quick source of carbs and can be very diverse as far as a meal goes.
I’ve had several fancy ramen packs that were around $7 vs the usual $0.25. I agree they are not worth the price difference if you’re looking for value.
That said, most of them are much better than the cheap ramen packs. They’re worth trying some other time when calories per dollar is not the priority.
The YouTube channel That Dude Can Cook has videos showing other things you can pre-make to add to cheap ramen if time is not an issue. His noodles look way better than anything that just comes from a ramen pack.
They’re talking about something like top ramen, a very low quality dehydrated shadow of real ramen. It’s just a packet of noodles and a bag of seasoning. It’s pure carbs and not very nutritious, but you could get it for like $0.07 a meal (who knows these days though)
There’s also good instant ramen, which ranges from $1-$5ish, and is much closer in taste to the real thing. It’s not super healthy either, but you might get some dehydrated vegetables, meat, and/or oil to go with the spices
Nah Ramen is awesome when used correctly (as an addition, not as a sole source). Rice is better though, healthier too.
… lentils? 80%? What are you smoking
Lentils are great dude. I meant 80% of your food volume, not 80% of your meals, which I do acknowledge is pretty arbitrary