I’m sad that this is worth mentioning. But if you are dealing with hunger amid threats to SNAP benefits, rice and beans are very cheap per meal and can be bought in bulk. Here’s some tricks I’ve learned:
If you get dried beans, make sure you follow the directions to pre-soak them. Canned beans are easier to prepare, just dump in near the end of cooking to heat them up. Dried lentils don’t need to be pre-soaked, but I prefer to cook them separately and drain the water they boil in.
Brown rice, barley, or other whole grains have much more protein than white rice and I find them more filling. Whole grains take longer to cook than white grains.
Frying diced onions in the pot before adding the grains and water is an easy way to kick the flavor up a notch. Use a generous amount of cooking oil (light olive oil is healthiest) for cost effective calories and help making the meal more filling.
Big carrots or celery in bulk are pretty cheap too. I like to dice carrots by partially cutting length wise into quarters, but leave the small end intact to keep the carrot together to make it easier to dice down the side. Add them to the same pot as the grains after the grains start to soften. Beets are also great; skin and cube then boil separately until soft. Change up your veggie to get a mix of vitamins
Get some bulk garlic powder, hot sauce, paprika, cumin, crushed red pepper, black pepper, etc. Season and salt the pot to taste.
You’ll only need 1-2 pots and a cutting knife/board for veggies.
I recommend Harvard’s Nutrition Source for science-based nutrition information and they have some recipes too
Edit: discussing big changes in diet with a primary care doctor or registered dietician is generally a good idea.
Probiotic supplements may help with gas.
As a bonus this sort of meal has a very small environmental footprint.
My kids call me “bean lady” for my love of beans. They are a perfect food.
Red beans and rice (red beans cooked with small chopped veg, long grain white rice)
Pinto beans on brown rice, with tahini.
Pinto beans on brown rice, with chili paste.
Pinto beans refried with breakfast.
Lentil dal with coconut milk and spinach (or lately with Hong Tsoi because it grows here, spinach is too fussy. )
Garbanzo bean soup with potatoes and chorizo.
Ful mudamas with pita and feta cheese and scallions
Channa masala so spicy, with chopped onion and mixed pickle, on white basmati
Red lentils and greens on sourdough toast. East with knife and fork.
Brothy enormous white beans cooked in veg broth but with a Parmesan rind or a bone.
I really truly love beans.
Red beans and rice didn’t miss her!
As a vegan, this has been my main meal because I’m pretty lazy (usually wrapped in a tortilla with guacamole, but I also eat it plain)
The gas issues are only a problem for a few days / weeks until your gut biome adjusts !
Yes, I think it’s a sign that your diet lacks fiber and your gut is now adjusting to the heightened fiber-intake.
Good post. Will try it out.
fuck the rice, nice mixed bean salad with olive oil, some salt and pepper, that shit will fill you and make you fart like crazy.
That’s fine in the short term. Whole grains have essential amino acids that beans lack
well i don’t only eat that so of course im not eating beans 24/7
Dried lentils don’t need to be pre-soaked, but I prefer to cook them separately and drain the water they boil in.
Pre-soaking lentils (and pouring the water away) makes them easier to digest, in particular it makes them bloat you less.
https://farmhouseguide.com/benefits-of-soaking-lentils/
An exception are dehulled lentils, like red lentils. They don’t need pre-soaking and are quicker to cook, too. I often throw red lentils into the cooking water with my noodles or rice, just to add some protein into the meal.
Skip the olive oil. If you’re buying it on a beans and rice budget, its gonna be fake olive oil anyway. Just use corn/canola/veg oil.
1kg dry beans soaked and 150g of most types of curry paste makes for a great meal. I’m currently eating red lentils and vindaloo paste with cabbage cooked in with it.
Soak lentils overnight, then rinse and whisk to clean them off before use.
Bean stew is one of the most delicious things you can cook whether you can afford more or not. Here’s my recipe. Everything but the beans, onions, carrots, paprika, oil and salt is optional and mainly improves the taste profile. Works with almost any kind of bean. Can be done with dried beans too but you gotta handle softening them up first.
Bean stew/soup v4.1
- 3x beans cans - 540ml
- 2x onion heads
- 2x carrots
- 2tbsp paprika, 1tbsp smoked paprika
- cooking oil
- 1/2 tsp salt (or less) and 1/2tsp of MSG
- 2x chicken or beef cubes
- marinara/tomato puree/diced tomatoes/vinegar/some other acid
- Add beans with some water in a pot. Use OG bean water too.
- Chop onions and carrots in small pieces.
- Fry onions and carrots in a pan with oil.
- Once fry is done, add all the paprika and stir for 10-20s then pour into the pot, let it boil once.
- Add the beef/chicken cubes.
- Add spearmint, lots.
- Add some more oil if needed. Olive is great.
- Add 3-4tbsp marinara, diced tomatoes or balsamic vinegar.
- Add 1/2 tsp salt (or less) and 1/2tsp of MSG.
- Test for salt, it might be good enough.
Eat it with some bread or by itself. It goes well with any type of hot pepper too.
You’ve kind of made a variety of chili. All you’d really have to do to transform it, is add chili powder and cumin. Everybody thinks chili powder is what makes chili, but that only gives it the heat. Cumin is the real flavor of chili. Add both too taste, and it’s delicious.
BTW, a cheap meat to add to chili is ground pork. You can usually find it in one pound rolls near the breakfast sausage. It tends to be significantly cheaper than beef, and sometimes even chicken. It’s really cheap at Aldi. Add it to the beef to economically fill out the meat in your chili.
Spearmint!?
Lentils are another good legume. Look up a daal recipe for any lentil you find, and basmati rice
How do you make the cheaper brown ones not super bitter?
I’ve been making a Lebanese dish. It’s lentils mixed with rice and sautéed onions. Top it off with a dollop of sour cream.
That sounds pretty good
I’m anaphylactic to lentils and peanuts, and less allergic to other legumes too. If I ever became vegetarian or vegan I think I’d starve to death.
I’m not currently requiring budget protein (I’m still poor-ish but not as bad as some) but my bills are about to skyrocket soon (need to upsize apartment, looking at around ~$600 increase per month) so I might need to look at budget options soon.
Edit: TIL soy is a legume lol.
There are some good soy protein options too. Tofu can be cooked a bunch of different ways, and there’s tempeh which is similar but different. One of the lesser knowns is TVP or textured vegetable protein, which is soy, but comes in different forms like mince or chunks (like ground beef). Its pretty cheap (especially in bulk), shelf stable and has good protein.
Soy is also a legume.
TIL lol. Thinking more deeply about that I should have guessed
Basmati is usually quite expensive, no?
Taco seasoning goes great in beans too.
Taco seasoning and chili seasoning are very close to the same thing.
Cumin is the defining flavor of Chili.
Fortified short grain white rice… hit up Costco or Sam’s, or your local Asian market, and you can score a 20 lb bag for like $15 which comes out to literally a few cents per meal. (well… pre-tariffs at least… nowadays idk)
From there, add beans, or eggs, or chicken broth, or literally almost anything else: shit off the clearance wrack, from the food pantry, w/e. If it’s a meat or veggie, it’ll go with rice. In the case of the pantry, if you’re not actually sure what it is, it’ll still probably go with rice. Got a bag of spicy cheetos you forgot to close and now it’s all stale? Don’t throw that shit away, smash it up and throw it in with your next batch of rice - now it’s spicy! (I’ve done it - texture’s a little weird, but otherwise came out better than expected). Rice is ridiculously versatile.
Disregard the hate for white rice being nutritionless junkfood - it is, but when money’s that tight, you don’t give a fuck. The fortified rice mitigates that a bit, and in my experience is usually cheaper. It’s a starting point: add what you can to make it less shit; and even if it’s a meal of just straight rice, that’s still better than an empty stomach.
To each their own. Brown rice comes in 20lbs bags too. The biggest benefit in my opinion is brown rice keeps me feeling fuller longer.
totally agree on chicken broth adding that extra something
Your basic rice jazzes up well, too. Scoop of soup stock, scoop of turmeric, scoop of cumin, can of peas, cook it all together in the instant pot or rice cooker. Soy sauce and a raw egg, whip it together.
Cooked plain rice freezes well too. I cook a big batch and use a small bowl to split it into individual portions. I wrap those in a little plastic wrap, and freeze it. ~2 mins in the microwave (reusing the wrap as a cover for the bowl) and I’ve got almost-as-good-as-fresh rice.
Careful with reheating rice. If you immediately freeze it or throw it in the fridge right after cooking you’ll (probably) be fine but cooked rice that has been sitting at room temperature for a couple hours can become a breeding ground for bacteria.
https://rightasrain.uwmedicine.org/body/food/leftover-rice-bacillus-cereus-food-poisoning
Yes, and to be clear, a huge part of the risk is that even after heated, the bacteria will die but leave behind toxins that will make you very sick. This Chubbyemu video (a doctor that makes videos covering odd, scary, or “interesting” medical cases) is about the same bacteria and the resulting death from it. While death seems to be pretty rare, it will still make you very sick.
Yeah, it’s not a great idea to leave it out for hours and hours; I usually portion and freeze a half hour or so after cooking – it’s usually cooled off enough that I can handle it by then.
Rice is way cheaper.
What is this po ta toes of which you speak?
Frozen peas are great for that too. Goes with a lot of different dishes. just throw in a handful, or make a side-dish.
Brown rice, barley, or other whole grains have much more protein than white rice
White rice is pretty much pre-diabetic junk food that’s been stripped of most of its fibre and nutrients. I’d recommend always replacing with something like the above, or my favorite, steel-cut oats.
If you get dried beans, make sure you follow the directions to pre-soak them.
When cooking from dried, some baking soda in the heating process can greatly speed things up. The use of a potato masher here and there can also speed up the softening of the beans, and makes it easier to tell how far along they are.
Get some bulk garlic powder, paprika, cumin, crushed red pepper, black pepper, etc. Season and salt the pot to taste.
Don’t forget MSG, which boosts up the savory / umami taste. It’s cheap, you don’t need a lot, and there is no such thing as an MSG allergy. (altho very occasionally people can have sensitivity)
or my favorite, steel-cut oats.
If we’re talking about cheap meals steel-cut oats have almost excluded themselves these days. I used to be able to buy organic SCO in bulk for about $1.45/lbs. These days I can’t find any SCO for less than $3.50/lbs and that conventional, not organic.
Where are you getting cheap SCO these days?
Everything is more expensive now. Still though, $3.50/lb of dried oats is a good amount of food. Sure, there are cheaper options, but if you skip one fast food meal or something then you could buy 2-3 lbs, which is quite a lot when you add water. Not exactly “struggle meal” perfection, but still frugal.
Nowhere. It’s always been fairly pricey, at least for me.
So to summarise-- that was just me stating my personal pref, not recommending them to anyone as ‘cheap meal food.’ That said, it’s possible that rolled oats are a better, cheap alt to rice. They tend to turn out too mushy for me, but may indeed retain much of their fibre and nutrients…
If you prefer white rice to brown but actually want some nutrients I highly recommend trying out basmati rice - it’s relatively easy and inexpensive to get in bulk and I almost never eat any other type of rice anymore
Well… once I switched to SCO, I stopped eating rice and never looked back. It’s all-around healthier than any type of rice, last I checked. Plus, I greatly prefer the flavor, no offense intended.
Basmati does have quite a pleasant aroma, in any case!
Do you mix SCO with beans? Or in a curry?
It works great any time you might think of having rice, either as a side or in a meal.
I would say this, tho-- it can get a bit slimy (like oatmeal), so you might want to rinse it after cooking.
