r/budgetfood

I've been working from home for a while now and my grocery budget got pretty tight, so I had to get serious about what I was actually spending on food. Wanted to share what's been working for me in case it helps anyone in a similar situation.

My weekly staples are rice, dried lentils, canned tomatoes, eggs, oats, frozen spinach, and whatever produce is marked down at my local store. I check the reduced section every time I go in and build meals around what I find. Some weeks I score a ton of stuff, other weeks not much, but it keeps things interesting.

A typical day looks like oatmeal with a banana in the morning, lentil soup or a rice bowl for lunch, and pasta with canned tomatoes and whatever vegetables I have on hand for dinner. Eggs show up constantly because they're cheap and go with basically everything.

I'm spending around $35 to $40 a week and eating pretty well, honestly. The biggest change was cutting out snacks and convenience stuff and just cooking more from scratch.

Would love to know what staples other people rely on to keep costs low. Always looking for new ideas to add to the rotation.

I’m doing a pantry clean-out and I found three cans of beets that I bought like two months ago because they were on sale. I keep thinking, I'll do something fancy with that, but I never do.

Does anyone have a super lazy, "I’m too tired to care way to use these?". I want to stop looking at them and feeling guilty for wasting the money.

I have been mixing 1/2 cup rice, 1/4 red lentils 1/4 cup quinoa and 2 cups water in my rice cooker, with a bit of powdered chicken bullion it works well as rice for many dishes. This increases the fiber and the protein without dramatically changing taste.

I buy my quinoa at Costco so that helps with the cost.

You can drop it and just use rice and the lentils. If doing that I would go with 3/4 cup rice and 1/4 cup red lentils.

Red lentils are less noticeable in this blend so it works for faking out family members. I have used other lentils, but I do think they need to be at least soaked a little while prior to cooking

If you increase the red lentils it does become more solid and less rice like. Because the red lentils can become mushy very quickly.

My food pantry tends to give out rice quite often. I have been getting red lentils at Walmart, or the ethnic stores. I tend to TRY to save a bit so I can take advantage of buying in bulk. I am saving for a Costco run for quinoa.

Editing to add..

I use this instead of noodles for several dishes, chicken in a gravy, I do a zucchini, tomato, onion blend, leftover chili, all things I can serve over a bed of rice/or noodles.

A friend is using it to get fiber into her picky kids

My family and I have been watching beyondfoodmarket on YouTube, and have found inspiration for very cheap, but very healthy meals.

I've been challenging the kids, when we do the weekly food shop, by giving them £1 and letting them choose the ingredients for dinner.

Naturally they've run out of ideas by now.

We generally shop at Aldi (UK). Any ideas or inspiration you could give them?

I've recently bought a whole salmon to chop up into fillets and kept the scraps.

I've already used the head for fishhead soup (which was absolutely delicious) and I'm wondering if I could do the same for the spine?

Should I strain the broth then pick the meat off so I can pick out all the bones?

I've only just started eating meat since being vegetarian and I have no idea what I'm doing!

I was doing a simple calculation today.

Assume:
\- Husband + wife
\- Home-cooked food
\- Around ₹500–600 per day

That works out to roughly:
• ₹18,000/month
• ₹2.16 lakh/year
• Around ₹54 lakh over 25 years (ignoring inflation)

It made me realize something funny (and a little depressing).

We all dream of retiring early, but unless we have enough money just for basic food, we have to keep working.

Not for luxury.
Not for vacations.
Just... to eat.

Am I overestimating the food cost, or is this actually realistic for most Indian families?

However you define “budget”.

I've had to go to the pantry a few times in the last few months and have wound up with an abundance of instant mashed potatoes. At first I was just making them as an easy side but realized I was never going to get through them that way. I googled some uses and it wound up being a fantastic light breading for chicken/fish (when I have it😭🤣) and last night I sauteed up some chicken thigh with a tiny bit of onion and lots of canned corn, simmered it in stock for a bit, and then stirred in the milk, a tiny bit of margarine and the instant mash for a quick delicious corn chowder. Just encouraging people to experiment with it and feel free to share your favorite uses!

What are you guys getting for coffee on a budget? Something that's not expensive but still tastes good. I think coffee can be argued as a food since a lot of people just drink coffee for breakfast.

I went on a freezer/pantry cull and decided to make lunch entirely made of leftovers/scraps. It's so insanely good that I weep, because I'll never be able to recreate it!

All ingredients were the last bits of the jar, end of the bottle, last dusts of the spice, an old garlic clove, a forgotten lime, handful of noodles from a recipe three days ago etc.

Broth:

I had some frozen bones from a rotisserie chicken, with a tiny bit of meat and skin.

Reserved the skin and the meat scraps.

Slow cooker the bones overnight with water to cover, a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar, 1 sage leaf.

When broth was strained and cooled, I put it aside.

Then, in a large pot I fried off:

\- Chicken skin to render down the fat

\- About a tablespoon of chilli crisp

\- Sesame seeds (black and white, about a tablespoon)

Cooked until fragrant, removed and set aside to crisp up as a topping.

To the hot pan with chicken fat, I then fried:

\- Some oil from a jar of shallots

\- Half a stem of celery and leaves finally diced

\- Ends of coriander stems finally diced

\- Leftover spring onion (white to mid green part)

Once cooked down a few minutes, I added (less than 1/2 teaspoon each from the bottom of the jars)

\- Ground Coriander

\- Ground Ginger

\- Chinese five spice

\- Turneric

\- Clove of garlic and about a teaspoon of crushed ginger from the jar

I let the spices cook and then added a few ladles of the chicken broth, the noodles, some of the cooked chopped chicken meat (1/4 cup approx), very finely sliced endy part of a red cabbage, and handful of fresh spinach.

Simmered until hot all the way through.

Put it in a bowl, topped with some coriander leaves, the dark green part of the spring onion, and a squeeze of lime.

Spooned over some of the chilli crisp and sesame topping.

Laid the fried crispy chicken on top to serve. I ate that part before I took the photo lol. It was so good!!

Approx time was 24 hours for broth, 30 minutes to chop and make the rest.

Cost was..... well not much considering it was all "throwaway" odds and ends. Maybe $5 max? It made four large serves!

This recipe more or less requires a blender of some kind, but is a great way to whip up a no-cook, no heat meal (or accompaniment) for a couple of dollars.

No-Cook Budget Borsch

1 398mL can cooked, sliced beets

1 398mL can diced tomatoes

1 C water or broth

Drain the liquid from the beets*. Add to a blender, along with tomato and water/broth, and blend until completely smooth. Taste and adjust seasoning as desired. Serve hot or cold.

*I saved this liquid and mixed it with 45g iced tea powder (or other drink mix powder), about 1 Tbsp apple cider vinegar, then topped it up with enough water to make 2L. Mixed well and refrigerated, this makes a lovely, refreshing beverage, similar to a switchel or an unfermented kvass.

Been lurking around on this page for a while and noticed that the main issue many people bring up when starting to meal prep is getting tired of eating the same thing repeatedly.

As someone who really likes variety in food; my suggestion is to get creative with side dishes. The same entree (let’s use baked chicken for an example) is easier to eat throughout the week of the side dishes are varied. The meal will taste different if you have lightly salted peas vs Brussels sprouts sautéd with garlic.

Many side dishes can be made with leftovers and small amounts of other ingredients. A jar of nearly finished spaghetti sauce can have a 1/4 cup of stock added to it, be heated on the stove for 5-6 minutes on medium; then add the random quarter stalk of celery or leftover onion sauted and thrown into the sauce. After that throw the sauce onto rice or pasta and now you have a new side dish to eat your chicken with.

I frequently buy many of my meats in bulk so I try to change up the textures of my side dishes. Some days I have mostly steam dishes while others feature crispy textures. As to where to find good side dish recipes I have found that many cultural cookbooks have them. (French, Cajun, Indian, Thai, etc.) Hope this helps.

We keep getting told to use Olive oil when we Air fry or pan fry .. so is Costco's Kirkland olive oil a good brand to start with ?