Must've been nice. I grew up with my dad always buying the skirt steaks because they were delicious and overlooked. Basically skirt and flank were the only cuts we ever ate. Now both are pushing 15/lb at the very least
Yes! This is my "in my day" example. I remember buying those when I first got my own place, for $1.99/lb. It was cheaper than ground beef sometimes. I still like them, but refuse to pay more than I do for ribeye...
Yes! And round steak was 1.19! I throw either of them in the crockpot in various ways and let them simmer away all day. They’re literally falling apart tender by dinner.
Now hot dogs and bologna are over 4 bucks a pack- used to be able to dig 79 cents out of the car seats the day before payday and at least have hot dogs. 😭
Yes my family used those cuts for our cookouts every summer weekend. No way my family could do that now. Where I live it’s 11/lb which it’s still insane.
The poultry vendor for the restaurant i was a chef at in mid 80's used to give me cases of chicken wings 20lb cases to use to make stock... it was before the buffalo wings craze took off.. and if i had to buy wings back then i paid 17 cents a pound
We ate so much pork belly as a kid. My family is Hungarian so they would find all sorts of ways to use it. I assume it was super cheap in the 80s because my family was not well off
As a Vietnamese person, fuck rich people/hipsters
Oxtail is the most important bone for us when making pho and now it's clapping my cheeks at the register when I grew up getting that shit for like $3 when my mom sent me to the store to pick it up.
I throw a couple cups dry beans in, salt pepper Cajun seasoning, filling about halfway with water, set pressure cook for 35, and come back in about an hour and a half.
I soak then freeze. I cook in an old fashioned crockpot. Was told the soak/freeze step is required to modify the starches so they are digestible.
Does cooking straight from dry in the instapot do this, too?
Crazy thing is it kind of is. All the bougie fruits and whatever but the zones where people live longest are literally just the places where they eat legumes
Sardinia! When they make minestrone they just use whatever they have growing in the garden. A lot of complex carbs, sourdough bread, whole grains and lean proteins.
When I'm lazy I add about 2oz of cream cheese to a 28oz ish can of refried beans to eliminate that can taste. Or even a couple tbsp of milk if I don't have any cream cheese.
The more you fart, the better you feel, so let's have beans at every meal!
Or, the way I learned it:
Beans, beans, the musical fruit. The more you eat, the more you toot.
The more you toot, the better you feel, so let's have beans at every meal!
(Thanks, Grandpa. Miss you.)
Shit, add a bag of frozen bell pepper and onion while you're at it. Mushrooms (canned is fine) goes great with it too. Mash up some zucchini? Tomato sauces can hold a lot of veggies
Oh yeah! I think you can fit two medium size zucchini in. I tend to grate them and cook them before I add mushrooms. Removing a lot of moisture and giving some good hearty flavors.
I make spaghetti like this all the time. Whole grain spaghetti and that is a complete meal.
I asked for cheeseburger hamburger helper for my birthday dinner one year! My husband doesn't like it (and calls it my favorite white trash meal) so we never have it, but it's so good!
And then you go to the Masters golf tournament in Augusta and their food prices are [soooo cheap](https://www.golfdigest.com/story/concession-prices-augusta-national-masters-2023/amp) compared to F1 food prices.
Oh that was a hoot. I took my mother to Italy for a trip, we stayed 3 days in Rome, took the train to Venice and stayed there 3 days.
In Saint Mark's Plaza, there's a famous cafe called Caffe Florian (sp?) that is the oldest continuously operating coffee shop in Europe. It opened around 1713. Goethe, Dickens and other famous writers have hung out there. Dickens wrote *A Tale of Two Cities* over one winter at one table there. The place is also a regular restaurant that serves Italian dishes starting at around US$13. But I guess the restaurant has gotten fed up with people coming in for just coffee.
My mother and I sat down outside the cafe, I ordered a black coffee and she ordered tea. When the bill came, I just looked: sixty Euros. I just laughed and said to myself, "What the hell, I'm on vacation."
I can vouch for this one. Koreans have a gift for making poverty foods into deluxe meals. My favorite is army stew (budaejigae) where you basically throw hot dogs and spam into canned soup, spice the hell out of it, and throw in whatever vegetables you have handy. It tastes divine.
I was going to say kimchi. I just made a months supply for under $30, and I can eat it with just steamed rice and a fried egg. Homemade kimchi is so good I never get sick of it
Red beans and rice with andouillle sausage. I one time fed 25 guests for about $1.50 a serving. [https://www.simplyhappyfoodie.com/instant-pot-red-beans-rice-sausage/](https://www.simplyhappyfoodie.com/instant-pot-red-beans-rice-sausage/) this is a good one, but I skip the bacon and just replace with another oil (one less thing to purchase.)
Hey, if any rich people wanting to LARP as poor people are currently reading this thread, I'd be happy to take a couple bucks off you so you can live the fantasy for real!
I think this overestimates how representative of the general population Reddit is. Then again, I may in turn be overestimating the intelligence of grocery store CEOs/market research types.
Are you my little brother? He is the only person I have known to do this. He would grab the fresh loaf of bread and run off. We would have to track him down and negotiate a bread return. He actually hid on the roof one day and we thought he was lost with the bread! Most of the time it would end one of us in tears. My poor Mom!
Especially because you can add whatever you want!
The other day I made one with split green peas, cabbage, and chickpeas in the middle. But literally any leftovers would work.
Side note: cutting up chicken nuggets is excellent in quesadillas
Eggs have risen in price dramatically where I live ….i love eggs and we would do breakfast for dinner as a cheap meal but then egg prices rose. They are very flux in price here.
I like both cheap and expensive eggs. An egg can be added to improve almost any dish. They can be had for under a dollar. You can raise your own. It's the dollar for dollar champ across all price ranges.
I hate that there's a hundreds of variations of eggs. It was good for you then bad for you then good for you. XL Jumbo Free Range Grain Fed Wagyu Chicken eggs...
Much cheaper if you get a whole pack at Costco. Tuna, too. Super good deals... I avoid buying Spam at a regular grocery store unless it's a flavored kind I can't get in the Costco pack.
Plain oatmeal heavily salted and peppered with cheese on top, then some cooked peppers and red onion with chopped bacon/sausage and a fried egg to top it off. Hot sauce of your choosing. Best breakfast ever and obviously super filling haha
tostadas. super cheap and easy to prep and make, not to mention the possibilities are endless with whatever you might have. basic is just tostada with beans, lettuce, cheese and salsa. wanna get freaky? add some chicken or carnitas on top. add crema or cotija cheese. a fried egg??? salsa verde all over that shit
Tostadas are our go to summer meal. We buy the ready made tostadas instead of frying or baking them, then usually top with something that doesn’t require heating. Chicken, tuna, or seafood salad. Beans. Tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, cilantro, avocado, and shrimp.
LPT, if you’ve got kids, spread a layer of sour cream on the tostada before adding anything that will tumble off easily. It will help hold it in place. You can mix taco seasoning into the sour cream for extra flavor, too.
Agreed! If you go to ethnic stores ( middle eastern * halal markets*, Pakistani, Indian, African) you can find bags of Farina for cheap and it's the same things as that $ 5 box of cream of wheat but cheaper and you get more of it.
Harina negrita is the Spanish version of it and imo it tastes better than the one with the white person on it? It tastes a little more like coffee without the bitterness
I was raving about tomato and mayo sandwiches several summers ago and my partner was, "Yeah, whatever." No interest. Then I made her one with a ripe tomato from our garden, homemade mayo, and homemade anadama bread. That was lunch on Saturday afternoon with a cold beer. She was a convert instantly.
Absolutely. I've always loved them. Mom grew up eating tomato sandwiches straight out of the garden so when she was in the hospital I made her one on homemade bread with lots of mayo and salt/pepper and brought it to her. Brought tears to her eyes. Those tomato sandwiches have a place in our family..
Good one. Not yet a rich man food trend but I can see that get fancified like avocado on toast pretty easily, with special aoilis substituting for the mayo and the bread cut into shapes like English tea sandwiches
Any seafood will likely become more expensive as China practices bad fishing practices. The rest of the world isn't perfect either, but China goes way out of its borders and uses the worst, most destructive fishing methods. No wonder they're out of fish in their part of the south China Sea
Red beans and rice. I take 3-4 cups of rice each time I make it. Season the water before boiling the rice and it’s flavorful when it boils down - I use a celery salt and Cajun seasoning from the dollar store and it’s fantastic. I use canned beans and drain them before incorporating after about a 5min stovetop cook. And then stick a few andouille sausages in an air fryer at 380 degrees for 11 minutes, cut up into slivers, and add. Sometimes I put sriracha on top, other times I eat it plain. It’s fantastic and only costs about $5-6 for a few days worth of dinner/lunch.
Boxed foods like mac and cheese or rice a roni. They are meh out of box as is, but add some seasonings, a little bit of cheese, butter, tiny bit of veggies or meat-- you can make them really good for only a dollar or two more on top the box item itself. My coworker always think I cooked it from scratch and are confused when I say its boxed food lol.
I do this with pasta Roni and pasta sides.
Instead of just dry seasonings, I do fresh garlic and shallots. Game changing. Garlic and shallots are so cheap
Prepped Rice a Roni plus a pound of lean browned hamburger meat (or browned ground turkey) makes for a fantastic bell pepper casserole. Top generously with your favorite shredded cheese, cover with aluminum foil, bake for about 45 minutes at 350 and it should be good to go.
Hash. It’s incredible how far a potato, an egg, and whatever leftover vegetables or meat you have in the fridge will go if you cube it all and pan fry it. Same goes for stir fry. A can of spam or a cup of rice are one meal for my family, but you mix that shit up with some garlic and onion powder in a pan and suddenly it goes a lot further. Both are super versatile and forgiving too. I’ve made hot dog hash, bologna hash, hash with cut up tortillas instead of potato. You can sub anything in and it works.
For the poor and lazy single folks...
Potatoes... that's my so-cheap-it's-almost-free favorite. Microwave a russet for about 5 minutes, salt pepper and butter. Cheese if you can afford it, but even without it, it is the best cheapest food around imo. Edible skin too, good fiber.
Ramen... as a base noodle you cannot beat it. Stop buying noodles like macaroni, spaghetti, and use ramen noodles, and cut your pasta budge by over half. The seasoning for Ramen is way salty, so I don't recommend using the whole pack just for one pack of noodles. Try other things instead, like coffee creamer, pepper, vegetables, chicken, tuna, etc. The left over seasoning is basically broth as far as I know, full of flavor either way, and usable in any dish you want to turn more savory.
Sandwiches... a loaf of generic bread is about a buck. Combines with tons of other super cheap stuff to make surprisingly delicious and healthy dishes, pick your favorite
* cheese, grilled or as-is.
* toasted with sugar and butter (optional cinnamon)
* peanut butter and/or jelly and/or bananas
* tuna
Chicken (and eggs) and seafood... I'd say carbon concerns will continue to drive up costs for beef and pork, so I'd learn how to enjoy seafood and chicken or other sources of protein.
Pasta is already cheap enough to not make my spaghetti with instant ramen. And actually... Instant ramen is probably not even half a pound of pasta for .50 whereas a pound of spaghetti is like a dollar and some change... I'm pretty sure you're not actually saving money by buying individually wrapped quarter pound bags of noodles and paying more for it than if you just bought a pound of spaghetti and a pound of shells. I'm pretty sure you'd pay more by both volume and calorie count by getting ramen instead.
You're absolutely right, and that's something I realized last year. Ramen feels cheap because the individual price is very low. But the amount and quality of food is also very low. Getting the cheapest bag of pasta is significantly more cost effective, tastes better and is more filling.
Hijacking your comment to say: bone broth is super healthy and should be cheap. During covid the butchers started selling bone instead of giving it away as usual but now things are back to normal. Just ask for bone "to give to the dogs" and then cook it slowly with lots of water and you get a lot of healthy fats for your brain.
Seafood might be expensive if you don't live near the ocean, but there might be some kinds of local fish that are fresh and cheap. Tilapia is my go-to.
Pig foot is also sold at the butcher near me (Asian-owned Hispanic bodega somehow also with a butcher?) and it’s really high in collagen and other good stuff. I get four for ~$2.99 and the resulting broth is so thick I freeze it in ice cube trays and use a single one mixed with water for a 1 person serving of xyz soup and it’s super super flavorful. 4 pig feet = months of broth
Not in (at least some parts of) Europe for at least a few decades. :(
Sardines are cheap fish here, tuna is expensive or pretty expensive.
Even canned - if it's in decent pieces / fillets and of good taste, it's pricey. 210g 10chf/usd/eur for really good one, and 85g 10chf/usd/eur for awesome fillets (not dried out). Ok in Switzerland but in in other two countries I've lived in (Germany and Croatia) you couldn't even get that brand/quality and what you could get was still not affordable and was most expensive canned fish in the shop.
Wild tuna caught in Croatia is said to be flewn directly to Japan because it can be sold for even more. Only good restaurants will even have a chance to buy fresh local tuna and price is then similar to beef fillet steaks.
Caged tuna is a bit less, but still quite expensive in comparison with pork or chicken.
And tuna canned in Croatia isn't from that sea, not even caged one, but imported from somewhere else and of lower quality. Because yeah, majority of people in Croatia can't afford local one. Even people who live on coast, if they don't have fisherman in family, they will have to pay market prices, which granted are somewhat lower than in the rest of the country, but like 30%-50% lower not like several times.
Tuna is definitely 'special occasion' type of fish there, even caged one. Even for above median income folks.
Bizarre. Especially when I tell you that price of many food items is same, half or third as in Switzerland but salaries are 1/7th or lower of swiss salaries. 🤯 And there are bunch of imported items that are more expensive in Croatia than in Switzerland, and difference isn't just from difference in tax. 🤯
But it's sad that people of country that has good produce can't afford them if they live and work in that country. :/
Split pea soup is the best calorie bang for the buck I can make, other than my bread. The only expensive ingredient is the ham hock - last one was $14 for a biggish one, and that made lots of meat for ten quarts of thick, thick soup.
***Please delete this thread after two weeks.***
Pork Belly, but prices are risen gradually.
Shark meat steaks
Beef Hearts
Fried eggplant/pickles/fried green tomatoes (homemade)
Store brand soda, but quickly rising.
Mac & Cheese (homemade)
~~Beef ribs~~
Expensive cuts: Tomahawks have gotten cheaper with more abundance and demand. $65+ at most restaurants. Within the last year, I’ve gotten them as cheap as $15
Pretty much all Pacific Islander food IME. I use whatever fish are affordable, cheap starches like yams, kalo, plantain, and cassava, tons of rice, and cheap seasonings like vinegar, soy sauce, salt, etc. Some fruit (papaya, guava, lilikoi, etc) can get more expensive depending on where you live, but it's hard to get cheaper than bananas.
Island food is made to feed a village on a nothing budget. It plays really well with a huge variety of other cuisines, fills you up, and lots can be made without access to a kitchen. A dish of kelaguen guihan, a scoop of red rice, a quick pickled radish, and a side of gollai ȧppan will have me stuffed for hours and costs a cents per serving.
I don't think people realize that 'island food' exists really, beyond kalua pork or maybe poke (both of which have become super expensive). In reality there are tens of thousands of islands with their own unique food culture, largely unknown to folks without a direct connection to them.
If we’re speculating what will *become* expensive and a rich person’s food?
Chocolate and Brussels sprouts (not together, obviously).
Chocolate will be wildly more expensive in 10 years, and Brussels sprouts are already making their way into fine dining restaurants and as unique sides for upscale steakhouses.
Well as a kid in Europe we ate Cmunda which is basically potato pancakes or like latkes.
Grate potatoes, squeeze the liquid out, add some seasoning (italian, garlic, salt pepper) and couple eggs, tiny bit of flour and fry them up. We'd have it with sour cream and a vegetable soup.
Do you have any good recipes? I noticed that my local grocery store sells them for pretty cheap, I'm always looking for affordable protein to add to my diet.
We need to gatekeep this stuff y'all, notice the OP didn't mention them trying to save money. Keep in mind that OP and other people in this thread might just be trying to cash in on the next trend, making these things unaffordable for the people that rely on them.
Tamales even more 😭 they used to be like $1 each. I understand inflation and the cost of the ingredients have gone up too but the main ingredients are corn dough, water, and salt and the rest most common ones are chicken, salsa, cheese, jalapeños, pork which when bought in bulk isn’t super expensive. Anyways my point is that they’re like $3-5 from street vendors now and most of them skimping out on the chicken or pork even on the cheese sometimes. At restaurants they be $6-8 if you’re at an affordable mom & pop restaurant.p
... Well when chicken thigh are on sale at 1,29 per pound i cut the drumstick from the top and i cook them at 350 with a bbq sauce i make with 2/3 bbq sauce 1/3 ketchup and brown sugar to taste. i brush the sauce on the chicken, put in oven for 45 minutes, flip the drumstick and brush some more sauce on other side, cook for 15 minutes and flip and brush again, cook 15 more minute, remove from oven and let it rest a bit and should be ready. Pretty good. Usually i plate with some fry...
Ho another one. I got some turnip and my brother said he hated turnip. So i put them in a pyrex with a lid that go in oven with some carrots and onion. For the spice i used salt, cumin, paprika, ginger, hot chili flake, vegetal oil, garlic. Stired, put in oven at 350 for 45 minutes, stired and put them back for another 45 minutes, remove from oven and let it rest and it's pretty good side dish.
Avocado and rice. Six avocados for $6, three packs of organic microwaveable rice $6. Two avocados with a pack of rice, $4 meal. This is my dinner most nights during the week. And when I run out, I fast. Now I know my answer to the question “Do you buy groceries or pay your student loans.”
Beans. Soon the rich will call it a superfood.
Maybe they’ll leave oxtail alone when that happens. Used to get that cut for free now they want 17.99 a lb for it.
I used to take home pork belly and lamb shanks cause no one wanted them in a butcher shop in the 90s.
Must've been nice. I grew up with my dad always buying the skirt steaks because they were delicious and overlooked. Basically skirt and flank were the only cuts we ever ate. Now both are pushing 15/lb at the very least
The price is ludicrous right now. It was nice , but it only worked cause my neighbour was Vietnamese, so the pork belly plays git treated well lol
You’ll still get better prices if you go to a Vietnamese market, if you have one!
Yes! This is my "in my day" example. I remember buying those when I first got my own place, for $1.99/lb. It was cheaper than ground beef sometimes. I still like them, but refuse to pay more than I do for ribeye...
I remember when London Broil was $1.99/lb. 😞
Yes! And round steak was 1.19! I throw either of them in the crockpot in various ways and let them simmer away all day. They’re literally falling apart tender by dinner. Now hot dogs and bologna are over 4 bucks a pack- used to be able to dig 79 cents out of the car seats the day before payday and at least have hot dogs. 😭
You're making me hungry 😋
Yes my family used those cuts for our cookouts every summer weekend. No way my family could do that now. Where I live it’s 11/lb which it’s still insane.
I love skirt steak, yet won't buy it because it's too damn expensive. Beef short ribs too.
Raised on flank steak because it was the cheapest. It's more than ribeye at times now.
Believe it or not, chicken wings too
The poultry vendor for the restaurant i was a chef at in mid 80's used to give me cases of chicken wings 20lb cases to use to make stock... it was before the buffalo wings craze took off.. and if i had to buy wings back then i paid 17 cents a pound
Just bought wings for $3.89 a pound… I fucking hate buffalo. I use gochujang.
We ate so much pork belly as a kid. My family is Hungarian so they would find all sorts of ways to use it. I assume it was super cheap in the 80s because my family was not well off
Oxtail is already ridiculous in price at the mad butcher
And they want 20 per beef tongue!
And yet nobody will touch my beef curtains
https://preview.redd.it/tjb1lkrsr0zc1.jpeg?width=770&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0de076084487a61441b48f5b0faaa7cf8cd8148f
hmu
Martha?
Beef heart used to be 1.50 per pound before covid. Now it’s 6.99
I remember I had to ask for oxtails because they didn't put it out. Nobody in New England wanted them
I had oxtail pizza so it’s already happening
As a Vietnamese person, fuck rich people/hipsters Oxtail is the most important bone for us when making pho and now it's clapping my cheeks at the register when I grew up getting that shit for like $3 when my mom sent me to the store to pick it up.
Go to ethnicity specific grocery stores. I still find them for cheap
Especially once I realized I can cook them in instantpot with no soak
Does the instantpot make a difference? We soaked beans for 24 hours, and it somehow was a total failure. I think our water is too hard.
I throw a couple cups dry beans in, salt pepper Cajun seasoning, filling about halfway with water, set pressure cook for 35, and come back in about an hour and a half.
I use bouillon too! Love my instant pot. Got it on sale …. That thing had paid for itself lol!
The age of the beans matters also. Older beans have had more time to dry out and need longer soaking.
Old beans never get soft, so if they have been sitting in the cupboard or on the store shelf, that could be why.
Add baking soda to the soak. Softens them right up.
In addition to the baking soda someone else mentioned, do NOT add salt until after soaking/softening.
Soak them in salt water and then add a pinch of baking soda when you cook them, it makes a huge difference.
This! My instantpot is a game changer for beans!
I soak then freeze. I cook in an old fashioned crockpot. Was told the soak/freeze step is required to modify the starches so they are digestible. Does cooking straight from dry in the instapot do this, too?
Crazy thing is it kind of is. All the bougie fruits and whatever but the zones where people live longest are literally just the places where they eat legumes
Sardinia! When they make minestrone they just use whatever they have growing in the garden. A lot of complex carbs, sourdough bread, whole grains and lean proteins.
Already do, rancho gordo is the name.
My mom subscribes to them! TBF they are amazing and their recipes are good and intsapot with spices are amazing too.
“Guys, wanna know my new side hustle food? BEANS!”
I've got a cow. Trade ya?
"Black beans are for poor people" in many places.
Nooo, my kids current thing to yell in a fit of rage is “eat beans!” Won’t have the same ring to it if beans are for rich people.
Just like the avocados, I would eat them a lot as a little kid in Mexico and in the USA. Now it's considered like gold.
particularly dry beans that you rehydrate.they taste more pure compared to canned beans. no canny taste !
I wish I felt like this, but I love canned beans!
When I'm lazy I add about 2oz of cream cheese to a 28oz ish can of refried beans to eliminate that can taste. Or even a couple tbsp of milk if I don't have any cream cheese.
Beans, beans are good for your heart, the more you eat the more you fart!
The more you fart, the better you feel, so let's have beans at every meal! Or, the way I learned it: Beans, beans, the musical fruit. The more you eat, the more you toot. The more you toot, the better you feel, so let's have beans at every meal! (Thanks, Grandpa. Miss you.)
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Mmm Ill kill the box in one sitting lol
Add a can of sweet corn and a can of peas, and you add nutrition and stretch that an extra 3 meals. My "Feed An Army" recipe is basically that.
Shit, add a bag of frozen bell pepper and onion while you're at it. Mushrooms (canned is fine) goes great with it too. Mash up some zucchini? Tomato sauces can hold a lot of veggies
Mushrooms yes. I forgot to mention that! Zucchini sounds interesting, will need to try that...
Oh yeah! I think you can fit two medium size zucchini in. I tend to grate them and cook them before I add mushrooms. Removing a lot of moisture and giving some good hearty flavors. I make spaghetti like this all the time. Whole grain spaghetti and that is a complete meal.
Cheeseburger Macaroni for me!
I asked for cheeseburger hamburger helper for my birthday dinner one year! My husband doesn't like it (and calls it my favorite white trash meal) so we never have it, but it's so good!
In my early 20s the local grocery store had a sale for basically 50 cents a box and pizza rolls too. I lived on that for months!
A tortilla with butter. $189.99 at F1 next year
And then you go to the Masters golf tournament in Augusta and their food prices are [soooo cheap](https://www.golfdigest.com/story/concession-prices-augusta-national-masters-2023/amp) compared to F1 food prices.
I was looking for sarcasm. Thank you for the link these prices are better than middle of nowhere diners.
Bibimbop.. all cheap ingredients but together is delicious
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I’m sorry… you couldn’t find a coffee place… in Korea?
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Was it because you were in Venice?
Oh that was a hoot. I took my mother to Italy for a trip, we stayed 3 days in Rome, took the train to Venice and stayed there 3 days. In Saint Mark's Plaza, there's a famous cafe called Caffe Florian (sp?) that is the oldest continuously operating coffee shop in Europe. It opened around 1713. Goethe, Dickens and other famous writers have hung out there. Dickens wrote *A Tale of Two Cities* over one winter at one table there. The place is also a regular restaurant that serves Italian dishes starting at around US$13. But I guess the restaurant has gotten fed up with people coming in for just coffee. My mother and I sat down outside the cafe, I ordered a black coffee and she ordered tea. When the bill came, I just looked: sixty Euros. I just laughed and said to myself, "What the hell, I'm on vacation."
I can vouch for this one. Koreans have a gift for making poverty foods into deluxe meals. My favorite is army stew (budaejigae) where you basically throw hot dogs and spam into canned soup, spice the hell out of it, and throw in whatever vegetables you have handy. It tastes divine.
Isn’t that our secretary of transportation?
You're thinking of bulgogi
I got a free Hello Chef box and one of the recipes was bulgogi. It was amazing and super easy.
I was going to say kimchi. I just made a months supply for under $30, and I can eat it with just steamed rice and a fried egg. Homemade kimchi is so good I never get sick of it
Have a recipe? I’ve always wanted to try it
https://www.maangchi.com/recipe/easy-kimchi That's the recipe I use. I know she also has a vegan version!
Maangchi is the GOAT
Red beans and rice with andouillle sausage. I one time fed 25 guests for about $1.50 a serving. [https://www.simplyhappyfoodie.com/instant-pot-red-beans-rice-sausage/](https://www.simplyhappyfoodie.com/instant-pot-red-beans-rice-sausage/) this is a good one, but I skip the bacon and just replace with another oil (one less thing to purchase.)
Wealthy people wanting to LARP as poor watching this thread to see what they can take from us next
That's why I'm not giving up my secrets here.
Hey, if any rich people wanting to LARP as poor people are currently reading this thread, I'd be happy to take a couple bucks off you so you can live the fantasy for real!
Honestly I think that's what half these threads are. Grocery store ceos looking for the next price gouge
I think this overestimates how representative of the general population Reddit is. Then again, I may in turn be overestimating the intelligence of grocery store CEOs/market research types.
Thing is: as they take on new tastes, the previous ones become a bit more affordable again, it all waxes and wanes over time
Yeah, no, that has never happened. Trendiness waxes and wanes, but prices never come down.
Salsa. Not expensive, but done right, amazing.
Easy to make too.
Rolling up a slice of Wonderbread into a dough ball and eatin’ it.
A true man of culture.
Wonder bread with butter, cinnamon, and sugar rolled up and cut into little ghetto cinnarolls. I present: desserts of my childhood.
I dunno why but “little ghetto cinnarolls” made me snort 😂 Not wrong though, shit’s delicious
Yesss! GhettoCinnies! And now they sell cinnamon and sugar in a shaky spice container for $1 so they’re easier than they used to be!
This brings back memories. I’d always turn them into shapes like tiny pyramids and cubes.
I prefer to eat it like cotton candy. Bite off a small piece and feel it almost dissapear as you chew it.
It's not far off from cotton candy...
My dad used to get SO MAD at my sister and I when we did this. “I JUST WENT GROCERY SHOPPING, STOP IT”
Are you my little brother? He is the only person I have known to do this. He would grab the fresh loaf of bread and run off. We would have to track him down and negotiate a bread return. He actually hid on the roof one day and we thought he was lost with the bread! Most of the time it would end one of us in tears. My poor Mom!
Are you a Bluegill or Perch?
Quesadilla
Especially because you can add whatever you want! The other day I made one with split green peas, cabbage, and chickpeas in the middle. But literally any leftovers would work. Side note: cutting up chicken nuggets is excellent in quesadillas
In Mexico City you don’t even need to add cheese
Eggs. Corned beef hash. Toast.
I love corned beef hash but it's not that cheap anymore, unfortunately.
Eggs are already rich people food. Look up what pasture raised eggs cost relative to the industrials versions.
Eggs have risen in price dramatically where I live ….i love eggs and we would do breakfast for dinner as a cheap meal but then egg prices rose. They are very flux in price here.
I like both cheap and expensive eggs. An egg can be added to improve almost any dish. They can be had for under a dollar. You can raise your own. It's the dollar for dollar champ across all price ranges.
I'm getting organic free range 24 packs at Costco for 6.50 tax included. Is this good?
Organic free-range eggs from my local big-chain grocery store are €4.99 for 10 eggs (and they're S/M/L, all mixed up). Your deal sounds great.
I hate that there's a hundreds of variations of eggs. It was good for you then bad for you then good for you. XL Jumbo Free Range Grain Fed Wagyu Chicken eggs...
Buttered noodles.
Mmm yesss do you use Egg noodles? Love those with butter!! I also + shredded cheese + frozen peas + garlic powder too sometimes
Butty nudes.
Grits. Super versatile and filling. I feel like for awhile rich people were starting to eat grits but it seems like the tides are changing.
Oh you mean our *polenta* tartine with foraged chanterelles and balsamic gastrique? It's a steal at $45!
Love grits
Spam and eggs over rice topped with sriracha and furikake
Even spam is expensive nowadays. Now I only buy a can if I’m specifically making something with it
Much cheaper if you get a whole pack at Costco. Tuna, too. Super good deals... I avoid buying Spam at a regular grocery store unless it's a flavored kind I can't get in the Costco pack.
Even the Costco packs are getting a bit craycray. Definitely better than the grocery store for sure, but still rough.
Shhhh...... don't tell them about our Loco Moco.
Spam aint cheap
Oatmeal.
Omg rich people totally are trying to make overnight oats happen.
I was about to argue until I remembered they now have expensive overnight oats packets lol. If the price of oats starts going way up, I will be livid.
For very filling oatmeal I add a spoon full of peanut butter to it every morning. Very good!! Just don’t use crunchy peanut butter!
Plain oatmeal heavily salted and peppered with cheese on top, then some cooked peppers and red onion with chopped bacon/sausage and a fried egg to top it off. Hot sauce of your choosing. Best breakfast ever and obviously super filling haha
tostadas. super cheap and easy to prep and make, not to mention the possibilities are endless with whatever you might have. basic is just tostada with beans, lettuce, cheese and salsa. wanna get freaky? add some chicken or carnitas on top. add crema or cotija cheese. a fried egg??? salsa verde all over that shit
Tostadas are our go to summer meal. We buy the ready made tostadas instead of frying or baking them, then usually top with something that doesn’t require heating. Chicken, tuna, or seafood salad. Beans. Tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, cilantro, avocado, and shrimp. LPT, if you’ve got kids, spread a layer of sour cream on the tostada before adding anything that will tumble off easily. It will help hold it in place. You can mix taco seasoning into the sour cream for extra flavor, too.
Cream of wheat? lol
Agreed! If you go to ethnic stores ( middle eastern * halal markets*, Pakistani, Indian, African) you can find bags of Farina for cheap and it's the same things as that $ 5 box of cream of wheat but cheaper and you get more of it.
Harina negrita is the Spanish version of it and imo it tastes better than the one with the white person on it? It tastes a little more like coffee without the bitterness
I got through college eating it twice a day.
Tomato and mayo sandwich.
I was raving about tomato and mayo sandwiches several summers ago and my partner was, "Yeah, whatever." No interest. Then I made her one with a ripe tomato from our garden, homemade mayo, and homemade anadama bread. That was lunch on Saturday afternoon with a cold beer. She was a convert instantly.
Absolutely. I've always loved them. Mom grew up eating tomato sandwiches straight out of the garden so when she was in the hospital I made her one on homemade bread with lots of mayo and salt/pepper and brought it to her. Brought tears to her eyes. Those tomato sandwiches have a place in our family..
Only two things money can't buy, true love and homegrown tomatoes.
But only with actual garden-grown tomatoes that have been allowed to ripen on the vine. Those pinkish rocks in supermarkets are just faintly tomatoes.
Good one. Not yet a rich man food trend but I can see that get fancified like avocado on toast pretty easily, with special aoilis substituting for the mayo and the bread cut into shapes like English tea sandwiches
Any seafood will likely become more expensive as China practices bad fishing practices. The rest of the world isn't perfect either, but China goes way out of its borders and uses the worst, most destructive fishing methods. No wonder they're out of fish in their part of the south China Sea
There was a missing variable that was/is harming Alaskan and Canadian salmon populations. Guess what it was.
Polenta. It was easy to feed a family with a canister of cornmeal, as long as some tasty sauce was on top of it.
Cinnamon sugar on toast
Red beans and rice. I take 3-4 cups of rice each time I make it. Season the water before boiling the rice and it’s flavorful when it boils down - I use a celery salt and Cajun seasoning from the dollar store and it’s fantastic. I use canned beans and drain them before incorporating after about a 5min stovetop cook. And then stick a few andouille sausages in an air fryer at 380 degrees for 11 minutes, cut up into slivers, and add. Sometimes I put sriracha on top, other times I eat it plain. It’s fantastic and only costs about $5-6 for a few days worth of dinner/lunch.
Boxed foods like mac and cheese or rice a roni. They are meh out of box as is, but add some seasonings, a little bit of cheese, butter, tiny bit of veggies or meat-- you can make them really good for only a dollar or two more on top the box item itself. My coworker always think I cooked it from scratch and are confused when I say its boxed food lol.
I do this with pasta Roni and pasta sides. Instead of just dry seasonings, I do fresh garlic and shallots. Game changing. Garlic and shallots are so cheap
Prepped Rice a Roni plus a pound of lean browned hamburger meat (or browned ground turkey) makes for a fantastic bell pepper casserole. Top generously with your favorite shredded cheese, cover with aluminum foil, bake for about 45 minutes at 350 and it should be good to go.
Hash. It’s incredible how far a potato, an egg, and whatever leftover vegetables or meat you have in the fridge will go if you cube it all and pan fry it. Same goes for stir fry. A can of spam or a cup of rice are one meal for my family, but you mix that shit up with some garlic and onion powder in a pan and suddenly it goes a lot further. Both are super versatile and forgiving too. I’ve made hot dog hash, bologna hash, hash with cut up tortillas instead of potato. You can sub anything in and it works.
For the poor and lazy single folks... Potatoes... that's my so-cheap-it's-almost-free favorite. Microwave a russet for about 5 minutes, salt pepper and butter. Cheese if you can afford it, but even without it, it is the best cheapest food around imo. Edible skin too, good fiber. Ramen... as a base noodle you cannot beat it. Stop buying noodles like macaroni, spaghetti, and use ramen noodles, and cut your pasta budge by over half. The seasoning for Ramen is way salty, so I don't recommend using the whole pack just for one pack of noodles. Try other things instead, like coffee creamer, pepper, vegetables, chicken, tuna, etc. The left over seasoning is basically broth as far as I know, full of flavor either way, and usable in any dish you want to turn more savory. Sandwiches... a loaf of generic bread is about a buck. Combines with tons of other super cheap stuff to make surprisingly delicious and healthy dishes, pick your favorite * cheese, grilled or as-is. * toasted with sugar and butter (optional cinnamon) * peanut butter and/or jelly and/or bananas * tuna Chicken (and eggs) and seafood... I'd say carbon concerns will continue to drive up costs for beef and pork, so I'd learn how to enjoy seafood and chicken or other sources of protein.
Pasta is already cheap enough to not make my spaghetti with instant ramen. And actually... Instant ramen is probably not even half a pound of pasta for .50 whereas a pound of spaghetti is like a dollar and some change... I'm pretty sure you're not actually saving money by buying individually wrapped quarter pound bags of noodles and paying more for it than if you just bought a pound of spaghetti and a pound of shells. I'm pretty sure you'd pay more by both volume and calorie count by getting ramen instead.
You're absolutely right, and that's something I realized last year. Ramen feels cheap because the individual price is very low. But the amount and quality of food is also very low. Getting the cheapest bag of pasta is significantly more cost effective, tastes better and is more filling.
Hijacking your comment to say: bone broth is super healthy and should be cheap. During covid the butchers started selling bone instead of giving it away as usual but now things are back to normal. Just ask for bone "to give to the dogs" and then cook it slowly with lots of water and you get a lot of healthy fats for your brain. Seafood might be expensive if you don't live near the ocean, but there might be some kinds of local fish that are fresh and cheap. Tilapia is my go-to.
Pig foot is also sold at the butcher near me (Asian-owned Hispanic bodega somehow also with a butcher?) and it’s really high in collagen and other good stuff. I get four for ~$2.99 and the resulting broth is so thick I freeze it in ice cube trays and use a single one mixed with water for a 1 person serving of xyz soup and it’s super super flavorful. 4 pig feet = months of broth
They’ve already hit the sandwich market. Grilled cheese or peanut butter sandwiches sell for like $7 on up. “BuT iT’s FaNcy griLLed ChEEse.”
Here in Korea we just crack a raw egg over ramen. Maybe our eggs are extra safe, but I've been doing that for awhile without getting sick.
I’m still mourning wings
Crockpot. Shit in, mouth watering food 8hrs later out. Thing should be called a crackpot.
I've found pork stays cheap, and central and south american recipes turn it into absolute magic. Ropa Vieja is a good example
Ropa vieja is typically made with beef, but I've started making it with pork shoulder because of the cost. It also freezes really well.
[удалено]
Red meat was a luxury in the Renaissance era. The povvos ate fish, eel and eggs
Tuna
Not in (at least some parts of) Europe for at least a few decades. :( Sardines are cheap fish here, tuna is expensive or pretty expensive. Even canned - if it's in decent pieces / fillets and of good taste, it's pricey. 210g 10chf/usd/eur for really good one, and 85g 10chf/usd/eur for awesome fillets (not dried out). Ok in Switzerland but in in other two countries I've lived in (Germany and Croatia) you couldn't even get that brand/quality and what you could get was still not affordable and was most expensive canned fish in the shop. Wild tuna caught in Croatia is said to be flewn directly to Japan because it can be sold for even more. Only good restaurants will even have a chance to buy fresh local tuna and price is then similar to beef fillet steaks. Caged tuna is a bit less, but still quite expensive in comparison with pork or chicken. And tuna canned in Croatia isn't from that sea, not even caged one, but imported from somewhere else and of lower quality. Because yeah, majority of people in Croatia can't afford local one. Even people who live on coast, if they don't have fisherman in family, they will have to pay market prices, which granted are somewhat lower than in the rest of the country, but like 30%-50% lower not like several times. Tuna is definitely 'special occasion' type of fish there, even caged one. Even for above median income folks. Bizarre. Especially when I tell you that price of many food items is same, half or third as in Switzerland but salaries are 1/7th or lower of swiss salaries. 🤯 And there are bunch of imported items that are more expensive in Croatia than in Switzerland, and difference isn't just from difference in tax. 🤯 But it's sad that people of country that has good produce can't afford them if they live and work in that country. :/
Beans. So hot right now.
This seems like an entrepreneurial fishing scheme. Let’s all list things we love eating and wouldn’t mind seeing become unaffordable
Split pea soup is the best calorie bang for the buck I can make, other than my bread. The only expensive ingredient is the ham hock - last one was $14 for a biggish one, and that made lots of meat for ten quarts of thick, thick soup.
Fried bologna never goes mainstream
Crushed ice. For all my fellow low iron folks.
Nice try, Mr. Rockefeller.
Bacon wrapped hot dogs
\*cue eagle screaming in the distance\*
Sonoran dogs are already outrageous
These are $10 a pop in San Francisco
Crappie $12 for a license, take 30 fish home a day, and two fillets per fish, each about 60 fillets total on a good day.
Fried Chicken Gizzards
And chicken livers are good too
As a child they were a treat for us. I haven’t found anyone that cooks them as well as this random gas station my grandparents use to goto.
Sardines with lemon juice, hot sauce, and rice.
Halušky
Psst, there are corporate spies in the thread looking at what they can "inflate" next. Be careful lol.
***Please delete this thread after two weeks.*** Pork Belly, but prices are risen gradually. Shark meat steaks Beef Hearts Fried eggplant/pickles/fried green tomatoes (homemade) Store brand soda, but quickly rising. Mac & Cheese (homemade) ~~Beef ribs~~ Expensive cuts: Tomahawks have gotten cheaper with more abundance and demand. $65+ at most restaurants. Within the last year, I’ve gotten them as cheap as $15
Chickpeas have so much potential if you use them right and so damn cheap.
Pretty much all Pacific Islander food IME. I use whatever fish are affordable, cheap starches like yams, kalo, plantain, and cassava, tons of rice, and cheap seasonings like vinegar, soy sauce, salt, etc. Some fruit (papaya, guava, lilikoi, etc) can get more expensive depending on where you live, but it's hard to get cheaper than bananas. Island food is made to feed a village on a nothing budget. It plays really well with a huge variety of other cuisines, fills you up, and lots can be made without access to a kitchen. A dish of kelaguen guihan, a scoop of red rice, a quick pickled radish, and a side of gollai ȧppan will have me stuffed for hours and costs a cents per serving. I don't think people realize that 'island food' exists really, beyond kalua pork or maybe poke (both of which have become super expensive). In reality there are tens of thousands of islands with their own unique food culture, largely unknown to folks without a direct connection to them.
If we’re speculating what will *become* expensive and a rich person’s food? Chocolate and Brussels sprouts (not together, obviously). Chocolate will be wildly more expensive in 10 years, and Brussels sprouts are already making their way into fine dining restaurants and as unique sides for upscale steakhouses.
Well as a kid in Europe we ate Cmunda which is basically potato pancakes or like latkes. Grate potatoes, squeeze the liquid out, add some seasoning (italian, garlic, salt pepper) and couple eggs, tiny bit of flour and fry them up. We'd have it with sour cream and a vegetable soup.
Chicken hearts. Lots of people turn their noses up to them, but only the ones who haven’t had them
I LOVE chicken hearts. I've been told that aftertaste is the taste of organ meat, and it makes me want to taste more organs.
Do you have any good recipes? I noticed that my local grocery store sells them for pretty cheap, I'm always looking for affordable protein to add to my diet.
Pork butt cooked in a smoker. I can get a big one for about $15 to feed us for many meals. I freeze a bunch and also make broth from the bone.
We need to gatekeep this stuff y'all, notice the OP didn't mention them trying to save money. Keep in mind that OP and other people in this thread might just be trying to cash in on the next trend, making these things unaffordable for the people that rely on them.
Tamales even more 😭 they used to be like $1 each. I understand inflation and the cost of the ingredients have gone up too but the main ingredients are corn dough, water, and salt and the rest most common ones are chicken, salsa, cheese, jalapeños, pork which when bought in bulk isn’t super expensive. Anyways my point is that they’re like $3-5 from street vendors now and most of them skimping out on the chicken or pork even on the cheese sometimes. At restaurants they be $6-8 if you’re at an affordable mom & pop restaurant.p
Squirrel is damn fine and overlooked
Deb Potato. Nothing quite like a pov meal of dehydrated potato haha.
... Well when chicken thigh are on sale at 1,29 per pound i cut the drumstick from the top and i cook them at 350 with a bbq sauce i make with 2/3 bbq sauce 1/3 ketchup and brown sugar to taste. i brush the sauce on the chicken, put in oven for 45 minutes, flip the drumstick and brush some more sauce on other side, cook for 15 minutes and flip and brush again, cook 15 more minute, remove from oven and let it rest a bit and should be ready. Pretty good. Usually i plate with some fry... Ho another one. I got some turnip and my brother said he hated turnip. So i put them in a pyrex with a lid that go in oven with some carrots and onion. For the spice i used salt, cumin, paprika, ginger, hot chili flake, vegetal oil, garlic. Stired, put in oven at 350 for 45 minutes, stired and put them back for another 45 minutes, remove from oven and let it rest and it's pretty good side dish.
Do chicken thighs count? So much cheaper and flavorful than breast meat.
Avocado and rice. Six avocados for $6, three packs of organic microwaveable rice $6. Two avocados with a pack of rice, $4 meal. This is my dinner most nights during the week. And when I run out, I fast. Now I know my answer to the question “Do you buy groceries or pay your student loans.”
tuna mac! boxed mac n cheese, can of tuna, can of cream of mushroom
Soon everything edible will be a rich person fad, where only the rich can eat.
Big pot of hamburger elbow macaroni and 2 cans of Heinz tomato sauce, makes enough for 2 days usually and I love it lol