I’m trying to eat at home more and keep costs down, but I’m honestly burnt out on meals that taste depressing. Looking for low-effort, low-cost food ideas that are actually enjoyable and don’t require a ton of prep, specialty ingredients, or cooking skills. Bonus points if it’s filling and something you don’t get sick of after two days lol. What are your go-to cheap meals?
What’s your go-to cheap meal when you don’t feel like cooking?
byu/No-Advisor9852 inFrugal
Posted by No-Advisor9852
48 Comments
Toast. Sometimes with peanut butter, sometimes with butter.
Mac and cheese/pasta. Nothing beats a good “fuck it pasta”
Upgrade ramen. Boil whatever leftover meat and/or veggies you have in the house. Then add ramen packet. Throw an egg in there if you’re feeling fancy. Satisfying every time
Canned refried beans, onions, cheese. Roll in tortilla and nuke for about 15 seconds.
Tortillas wraps & bread sandwiches you can freeze, and warm up
Cook rice with canned vegetables and canned/pouched meat, and it’ll be filling.
And ramen, cooking them, draining the broth and cooking with eggs & vegetables.
Eggs.
Baked potato.
Spaghetti and jarred sauce.
I really like rice a roni with a Sunnyside egg on top
Cumin-spiced black beans and diced potatoes with salsa on corn tortillas heated up on the griddle. Sometimes I add cheese, sometimes eggs, sometimes fajita veggies. But the base of black beans, potatoes, salsa, and tortillas is super cheap and filling.
Pasta, tomato sauce and add Kalamata olives
Not the healthiest, but ramen. Then I add veggies to it. Easy meal
Scrambled eggs and toast or a can of bean and bacon soup with bread and butter.
Chicken breasts – season, 30 mins in oven.
Can shred and use in wraps, sandwiches, tacos, dips, add to noodles/casserole, soups, etc.
Rice.
Big bag of frozen veggies.
Pasta al limone. Super simple, takes 15 minutes, and is absolutely delicious.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2MfxX0N7dQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2MfxX0N7dQ)
Bean and bacon soup with angel hair spagetti.
Baked potatoes
Peanut butter sandwich on toasted whole wheat bread with honey. Good source of protein, honey helps add a bit of sweetness, and the bread is healthier than white.
It’s not filling enough for dinner, but it makes a good lunch or snack, and usually lasts me through the end of the workday.
Shredded chicken mixed with a bag of shredded cheese, some ranch, and chipotle hot sauce. mix it up good, spread it on a tortilla and it makes an easy quesadilla. you can add black beans too for more filling fiber.
you could also put this on some tortilla chips and toss it under the broiler for a minute or 2 for sheet pan nachos.
-Lazy grilled cheese (toast bread in toaster, place cheese on top microwave) and tomato soup
-rice and beans and tomato paste and chili powder
-egg and ham sandwich, fry an egg plop on toast with lunch meat ham and cheese
Cereal 🥣
I love the smoked pulled (fully cooked)chicken you buy at Trader Joe’s in the refrigerated section. It’s a ton of chicken! I use it to make tacos and quesadillas. I bet it would be pretty good in a tortilla soup too.
I’ve been having microwaved “baked” potatoes with a side of scrambled eggs for breakfast most days this past week, very tasty, minimal spoons required.
Wash potato, put it into a small microwave safe bowl, stab with fork, smear some oil on it, cover with damp paper towel and throw it in the microwave for 3 minutes, turn it over, 3 more minutes.
While that’s going, mix and cook your scrambled eggs.
I like my potato with a slice of butter, some salt and pepper.
Hot pockets. $2 for a meal is cheap considering most people spend $2 for just an afternoon pop.
I also have a sandwiche maker that toasted & heats up the sandwich. I’ll do hot ham & cheese, or pizza sandwichs. Pizza sauce, cheese and some type of meat with a hot sauce. It’s great and cheap!
Pastina is good.
2 cups bone broth (or other stock)
1/2 – 1 cup of tiny pasta, I like the pictured pasta below
2 Tbsp cold butter
1 Egg
1/8-1/2 cup Microplaned Parmesan or similar hard cheese (optional
Beat egg and very fine cheese together
Toast Pasta in dry pan until fragrant
Pour bone broth in and boil/simmer until almost fully absorbed (5-15 minutes)
Take off heat, whisk in butter until melted
Whisk in egg and cheese mixture
Serve with Smoked Paprika, or cracked pepper.
It is filling and surprisingly delicious. If you use high quality bone broth it is also quite high in protein.
https://preview.redd.it/fckqj31dl09g1.jpeg?width=428&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3a4a9775af117eadeb807bdaec7f3db75ac6f582
I eat bread. I’m Jewish so I really like Challah. It’s very easy to pull off and snack on. I also like eating cheese from a block. And Sabra Hummus. I take whatever- bread, broccoli, carrot, celery, pepper, doesn’t matter- dip and eat.
I eat lox straight from the wrapper for protein. Sometimes canned food- chickpeas, black beans, tuna, straight from the can with a bit of olive oil or mayo depending.
No cook meals for me LOL.
Also a jar of pickles is handy I guess. Or any pickled food- artichoke, peppers, peaches.
There’s jarred apple sauce that’s ok.
I also have Goya crackers cuz why not. And peanuts.
I tried packs of raisins but it doesn’t really do it for me. Mixed nuts with m and ms is nice. Or just the pistachio version.
Dried apricot or banana is good too.
Seaweed snacks.
Pringles xD
And fruit smoothies.
Pretzels.
Yogurt.
Granola.
rice and an egg. cook up some rice, instant rice is fine, while it’s hot crack an egg into it and stir. I’ll add Everything Bagel seasoning and/or soy sauce. Eat.
Pasta with a little butter salt and pepper and parm. I heard someone call it a struggle meal, but I always just saw it as Italian.
Sardines in olive oil with a little apple cider & saltines crackers
Pancakes
Cheap ramen soup.
Ground beef (or turkey to be less expensive) with shredded potatoes and gochujang (Korean chili paste). Amazon has gochujang and Aldi has the other 2
Pbj
Rice, I make in bulk, cool, then freeze flattened out in a freezer bag so it’s easy to just snap off a portion and easy to reheat
OR
Ramen
Add a fried egg made in the air fryer in a silicone baking cup, handsfree and easy
any sort of meat be it from leftovers, deli meat, spam, canned sardines, etc
Drizzle with chili oil
Nom!
baked potato
Costco French fries (best frozen French fries I’ve had) and their lightly breaded chicken nuggets. They are well known for being a Chick-fil-A clone. I add some roasted broccoli to pretend to be healthy.
Canned soup. If I’m feeling wild I’ll make a grilled cheese
Or just good old cheese and crackers
Eggs and toast
Get a rice maker! Changes your life for $15. Usually at the thrift store too for less.
Sheet pan stuff. Kielbasa, onions, tomatoes, mushrooms, bell pepper. Whatever you want. Eat with rice. Or you could add potatoes and forgo the rice.
Get a big thing of ground beef. One night make tacos, one night meatloaf and mashed potatoes and corn. Then any left over I make like a taco bowl with rice and sautéed peppers and onions.
Just try to use all the ingredients if you can and go to the store more often rather than letting things expire.
Cheapest frozen pizzas, and throw extra mozerella on then half way through
Scrambled eggs on toast
Cereal. Toast.
Oatmeal. Add a big spoon of peanut butter and frozen berries and you’re good to go.
I brown some chicken sausage then dump a good amount of frozen hash browns with peppers and onions in the pan. Season to taste, add a little cheese after turning off the stove and voila.
PB&J
Easy dinner for 2:
Sautee onions and vegetables if I have some ($2 🇨🇦).
I usually have a jar of sundried tomatoes in oil. Slice and add a handful of those too ($0.50). A couple of minced garlic cloves never hurts ($.25). Add a handful of frozen peas ($0.25) at the end and bring them to temperature.
Boil a package of gnocchi ($3 🇨🇦)
Drain
Add a scoop of pesto (we buy a big jar at Costco – add maybe $1 worth) and sauteed vegetables to the gnocchi.
Add a handful of spinach ($0.25). Stir it in to wilt it.
Serve with grated cheese if you have some ($1).
For $1 more, I would chop and add a couple of slices of fried bacon and use the bacon grease to sautee the vegetables.
Simpler version for when chopping is not in the cards:
Boil gnocchi.
Drain.
Add pesto, peas, spinach and sundried tomatoes (if you got the precut ones). Cook for 2m on med-low.
So that’s dinner for two for under $5cdn per person.
Quesadillas. Can be as simple as melt cheese. But I usually add a little canned chicken and pull out the salsa.
Stir fried ramen. Adding frozen vegetables. Green onions. Sesame seeds and fried egg
this is a really weird one, but if we’re doing fast food:
the McDonald’s app in the Burger King app have the most insane deals on it.
You can get a fry, any size, for about a dollar at each. McDonald’s, sometimes you can get a fry of any size for free if you buy anything else.
But anyways, what I used to do, I used to go to Burger King on Whopper Wednesday, and I would get a whopper for like two or three dollars, and then I would go to McDonald’s with the app, which was close by, and get a one dollar big fry.
So it was like a four dollar meal lol. It was my little treat when I was broke ❤️