Hi and welcome to the food page! Long story short I was broke for a long time and had to cook at home in order to save money. Even when I was pushing music out, I was also cooking every week. After I got tired of eating bland food all the time, I decided to invest in cook books and kitchen tools while learning to work with the cheapest ingredients I could find. These days I spend way less money on food than ever and eat better than I ever have. I figured I could share some tips that can help others do the same and maybe save them some time in figuring things out.

I wanted to share a few things I’ve picked up over the years. I’ve also switched over to mostly fresh ingredients so this will have that connotation. I started off always buying frozen microwave food but now I feel that fresh food is cheaper and better.

I’ll post about some of the things I come up with every now and then on the recipes page as well. I mostly cook by smell these days, so recipes may be more general than most others. With that said, let’s get started!

First and foremost… RICE was what I started with and it is still one of the easiest, most low effort, low cost ingredients to work with. A 15-pound sack of uncooked brown rice is currently costs about $25 to $30 on Amazon and will last for months. I ate rice just about every day for years. In my case, 2 cups or so of uncooked rice will last for a week. Even now I just throw it in the rice cooker with water and a cube of vegetable bullion and leave it at that.

Then it can be adjusted to whatever else is in the kitchen for the week. One of the easiest is pizza rice – I add tomatoes, mozzarella, and parmesan along with whatever meat I have on hand and maybe some garlic bread.

Also; beans and lentils. If $30 is too much to put down up front, a pack of raw beans goes for about $2 and can also last for a week. I cook beans in the slow cooker overnight for 8 hours on low. Before I had the slow cooker, I cooked them on the stove for 2 hours and had to keep stirring the pot so they wouldn’t burn. Lentils are much quicker; put them in a pot with water, take it up to boiling, turn down the heat and let them simmer for a few minutes until they are ready. Keeping an eye on them and taste testing is key here.

Pasta is also cheap, gives a lot of bang for your buck, and cooks faster, but may not be as healthy. Beans (and chickpeas), pasta (or rice), and lentils can also be combined into a dish called koshari (look it up) that can last all week. The first time I made it, I couldn’t even eat it all in a week!

For meat, learning to work with cheap cuts is key to getting started. This would be things like bone-in chicken thighs, pork chops, and cheaper beef cuts like London broil or skirt steak. Uncooked, unprocessed meats will always be the cheapest from my experience.

Chicken thighs especially are my favorite. Lately, I was buying skinless, boneless because they require less effort, but the skin-on, bone-in ones are cheaper and tastier. The skin is one of the best parts when crisped up right. Eggs are also relatively cheap and versatile, although not very filling without accompaniment.

Prices vary week to week, but the key is to buy whatever is on sale or gives the best value. Learning to work with whatever is available is key in the process. As far as seasoning goes, salt and pepper will work for a lot of things but pre-made seasonings are also great (when they are on sale). On that front, I also recommend getting any (free) store cards that are available to boost discounts. Seeing how much money I saved every week always made me feel great!

Fruits and vegetables are also great to work with, even though I considered them to be too expensive for a long time. I would start with potatoes from a financial standpoint, or onions and garlic from a flavor standpoint. Canned tomatoes are also great; they cost less than two per can and from what I’ve read, are just as good as fresh tomatoes in a lot of situations. Apples and bananas are cheap as well and can be used in a variety of ways (Lemon Ginger Apple Recipe here https://knockvoltage.com/ginger-lemon-apples-recipe/).

Ginger Lemon Apples

Broccoli and spinach (while not that cheap) are also great as they can be prepared with just salt, pepper, and olive oil. Broccoli is even better when burned a little bit to give it some texture.

Finding the right tools is also very important. I’ve slowly built up my collection as time went on but I personally would recommend starting with a rice cooker and then investing saved money into other tools to make cooking easier. This can take it from a hated activity to a tolerable or even enjoyable one. One of the best parts is learning to cook for your own taste buds instead of following every recipe exactly.

Thanks for checking this out! Hopefully it was helpful to anyone in need.

– Knock Voltage