Hello.
My microwave died in spectacular fashion today. It was the lifeblood of my kitchen. I’ve had it so long I’ve forgotten how to cook without one. And I can’t afford to buy a new one. I was going to post in eatcheapandhealthy but that place looks as dead as my microwave. I don’t know what I’m going to do.
Jamie Oliver often went on about cheap recipes… that required 30 ingredients and a bunch of equipment I don’t have. These are not helpful. I need recipes that are cheap to shop for, cheap on electricity usage, easy to prepare with limited equipment, and it would be a bonus if they are healthy and tasty. I know I’m being picky, but I don’t have much to work with.
I figured this would be the community to ask because to cook well, you need to know stuff that a bad cook wouldn’t know. I hope I can get a few useful ideas. Thanks.
I would recommend checking out: https://www.budgetbytes.com/
Lots of straightforward recipes, and they all have price breakdowns for the ingredients, cost per dish and cost per serving. There is even a category for meals under $10. You do have to keep in mind those are the local prices for the blog author and I’ve found it can vary for my region, but it is still a helpful guideline.
I’ve been looking for a site like this for years! There are are a lot of cooking sites that claim to be cHeAp aNd eAsY and they’re not. This looks really useful. As you say, not every detail will suit me and I’ll have to be resourceful, but it’s a very useful guide. Cheers!
Wow! I’ve never run across this site. Even if not on a budget, it has some great ideas and it’s presented really well. Great find - thanks!
Do you have a kettle? Either electric or stovetop. There are plenty of just add hot boiling water foods our there for when you are too tired to really cook. Ramen, oatmeal, freeze dried soups. I’m not much of a cook, but I love my kettle.
I love making easy upgraded Ramen especially for lunch. Dry noodles, various Asian style sauces with whatever vegetable I have on hand? Pour some boiling water over it and you got a great lunch or dinner.
Yes I have an electric kettle. That’s a good point about super basic things when you’re too tired. My shopping list grows ever bigger! Cheers!
electric kettles are the bomb. outside of food I use it to clear drains and have perfect hot water for the carpet cleaner.
tasty
Being tasty is mostly a matter of spices. Apart from your dead microwave, what do you have in your kitchen?
I have a stove, frypan, saucepan, toaster, cutlery, crockery… and not much else.
What would be a good standard set of spices for starting? As for herbs, I like basil and dill. And I’m growing parsley, carrots and potatoes.
Pepper, salt, chilli. You can also use stock cubes as spices.
In general, I’d ask what sorts of flavours you like.As far as spices go, I like everything except the really pungent ones (like turmeric). I might try growing some fresh chillis. Cheers.
For a few quid you can pick up a slow cooker in a charity shop - make sure the bowl is not chipped and give it a thorough clean.
Dead cheap to run.
Charity shops here don’t accept electrical goods, because people were donating dangerous things like what my microwave was until very recently. I love stews so I’ll keep an eye out and maybe I’ll get lucky somehow. Cheers.
Have you got any local community sale type places? Things like gumtree, nextdoor, craigs list or facebook might be worth checking. I can vouch for the idea of a slow cooker. I’m pretty sure you could chuck in an old shoe, some random herbs, some root veg and a few hours later have enough tasty food to serve a small army.
I’ll pass on the old shoe idea 😂 I know what you mean. It’s hard to screw up a slow cooker stew. I don’t use any of those sites but I’ll have a little sniff around and see what I can find.
Bugger. That’s unfortunate.
This is 100% the answer. If you’re looking for cheap and easy, a slow cooker is the way to go. Throw shit into a pot. Set it on low before you leave for work. When you get back from work, you’ll have a perfectly done meal that will likely last for the next two or three days at least.
Stir fry is one of my big go-tos. All you need is a pan and spatula or tongs, whatever veg you have on hand, oil, salt. You can mix in seasonings but honestly if cooked well I don’t find it to be that necessary. Fried rice or rice stuff is in a similar vein. Cook whatever random stuff you have around, remove from the pan, start frying the rice, throw in an egg, add it all back into the pan briefly.
Street tacos are baller and you can put all kinds of things in them and make them work with just about any dietary restrictions. I prefer to go heavy handed with the seasoning but you can make it work with only a couple spices. Best with two pans, one to heat up the tortillas. Making pico de gallo is good knife skill practice and extra can the thrown on nachos directly or quickly turned into salsa.
All the soup and then some seriously there are so many great soup recipes and tricks. I love egg drop because it can be as simple as broth and an egg, though usually I put in some frozen veg and thicken with corn starch. If you eat meat and have these in your area, you can grab one of those hot held roast chickens for cheap. Lazily process it, throw all the bones and whatever is stuck to them into a pot and make a quick and cheap stock. Plus now there is a bunch of chicken laying around ready to be a chicken noodle or chicken tortilla soup.
If your stove has an oven: Ratatouille is surprisingly easy to make, costs basically nothing, and can be done in an oven or a slow cooker. Jalapeno poppers can also be weirdly cheap and easy to make. Really anything where a main component is a veg and you put it in the oven. Roast broccoli only needs oil and salt to come out great.
I like to make savory oatmeal and have pre-measured containers for breakfast prep. Oats, salt, pepper, brewers yeast. Just add water. I mix in cream cheese and put a fried egg on top. It’s cheap and filling and you can really push what you’re adding to them and at worse still come out with something okay enough.
I hope these are the kinds of things you’re looking for and they get some ideas going. If you have questions about anything or need inspiration let me know! I’ve been living with a chef for a lot of years and have a decent bit of knowledge I can share
The stir-fry thing sounds good. It will give me a break from rice!
I’ve been frying stuff in margarine because it’s cheaper, and the vast array of cooking oils confuse me. I read one oil is used for one particular type of frying, and another for a different type of cooking, etc. Is there a cheap cooking oil that’s OK to use for frying lots of different things?
The default cooking oil is usually rapeseed oil aka canola. Has no taste and has a high smoke point.
Oh that’s one of the cheaper ones! No taste is good - I’ve eaten stuff cooked in peanut oil and it makes everything taste like hot peanut butter. Canola oil is on the shopping list! Cheers!
Refined peanut oils can remove the peanut smell/taste. But yeah canola oil is your friend
I just use generic vegetable oil for everything. It’s just a mix of different kinds of vegetable oils like soy and canola.
Awesome. Cheers.
If anyone is interested in stir frying correctly you should read The Wok which goes over the technique and recipes. The short summary is high heat and short time and make sure everything is prepared ahead of time.
I made a quick vegetable stir dry last week with broccoli, mushrooms and beans (the only three vegetables in the fridge). The entire thing was 10 minutes on the pan from frying the mushrooms for 1 minute before adding the broccoli and beans and cooking for 30 seconds. I added salt along the way and finished with cooking wine and soy sauce for a sauce for 1 minute. Everything then sat in the wok off the heat for 5 minutes while I cleaned and plated. The vegetables were cooked but still had a snap and it was delicious. When used correctly its the perfect pan for everything
Depending on the wok construction sometimes they work really poorly with electric stoves, getting super hot right at the bottom and not so much on the sides. Generally though they are quite versatile. One of my favorite tricks is using one to fry an egg to keep the yolk centered
Don’t anything nonstick. Pretty much ever. I got a nice carbon steel one for my birthday that I love. Our nonstick works okay on our electric stove but the carbon steel gives much better flavor.
Nonstick has two very specific use cases: Eggs and cheese. If you’re ever cooking either one of those, nonstick is often the best option. But for pretty much anything else, cast iron or carbon steel will be a better bet.
Boil pasta and drain.
Add tuna/sausage/vegetables (sweetcorn/cucumber/carrots work, pineapple if you are daring)
Add sauce, BBQ, Mayo, sweet chilli
Add cheese to taste.
Pick a combination that sounds good.
Tuna, mayo, sweetcorn
Sausage, cherry tomatoes, BBQ sauce
Eat enjoy. Got me through many tight times.
Your message came up as “Boil pasta and drain” so I didn’t reply. Now I see you weren’t suggesting I eat plain boiled pasta!
There’s a Polish pasta dish that uses strawberries, pineapple doesn’t sound too crazy.
Thanks!
No problem, hope you get things sorted. The formatting sometimes goes screwy posting on mobile so I try to space things out.
I’m intrigued by pasta and and strawberries, gonna have to do some research now
First off, I’m really sorry. There are a lot of things you can do just using a hob and one or two pans. One of my recent go-to meals involves frying up some vegetables (courgette/zucchini, peppers, some sweet potato etc), flavouring with some spices (cumin, dried chili) and herbs (thyme, basil) and then stiring that into some rice that’s been cooked in a saucepan with the lid on.
Add some egg and stir the rice through the vegetables in the frying pan if you want to make it egg-fried rice.
That sounds much tastier (and healthier) than my efforts cooking rice. Basil and rice made me think of tinned tomatoes - imo basil and tomato go together like orchestral strings and piano. No idea what a hob is, I’ll have to google. Thanks for the suggestion!
Oh sorry, a hob is a stove!
Sander Katz has a book called “The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved” which holds up the microwave as the prime example of what is wrong with modern eating.
I suggest looking into cooking with cast iron skillets. There are tons of great and simple foods you can make with couple of inexpensive cast iron pans. There used to be a cast iron cookery subreddit. There may be one here, I haven’t looked yet.
Another essential is a good wok. (cast iron or otherwise) Basically you throw a bunch of semi-random stuff and some sauce iron seasoning in a wok and heat it up. The variations are endless, quick, and often tasty once you get the hang of it.
suggest looking into cooking with cast iron skillets. There are tons of great and simple foods you can make with couple of inexpensive cast iron pans.
I have several cast iron pans, and I cook with them regularly. That being said, cast iron is more expensive, more time consuming, and requires more skill to cook with than a set of cheap non-stick.
Just like with most higher quality tools, there’s just a steeper learning curve to cast iron than what I think op is really looking for.
The same is kinda true for cooking with a wok, unless you have a pretty high output gas range, a wok isn’t really going to function as intended. Woks need to be heated enough to where you are basically flash frying your ingredients. If not the oil just soaks into your food, making everything soggy with oil.
I think you may be underestimating your abilities in the kitchen, and maybe overestimating op’s. Though i think that’s fairly common nowadays. I find that most people under 40 are either very proficient or very lost in the kitchen, not a lot in-between.
I don’t know a single person who owns a microwave. My parents had one in the 90’s, but used it like twice. I honestly don’t even see the point, except when you like microwave food that comes in a plastic container, which again, i don’t know who would ever be willing to eat. The only thing i ever heard was to warm things up, and even then, good job on saving a minute.
Microwaves are very efficient at heating food. Much more so than an oven or hob. They may not win awards for making things taste great but they’re incredibly useful when trying to cook with a limited budget.
In my opinion, one does not cook with a microwave.
It’s useful for heating things that tolerate how it works.
I use it to re-heat leftovers, or to defrost things. Maybe to heat some water (for small volumes it’s far faster than a stove).
About the only thing I can think of “cooking” in a microwave is oatmeal. But that’s essentially just boiling water (even for traditional oats).
Just dropping in to thank everyone for the ideas, encouragement etc, and a bit of an update.
I bought some onions and added them to my edible-but-not-very-tasty rice, and fried them together, and it tastes a million times better. I have pasta and tuna as backups, and will keep referring back to this thread every time I shop. The positivity in the thread also got me to clean my fridge, which was absolutely filthy (I don’t even know how it got like that) to mark the beginning of new kitchen habits. The fridge is still depressingly bare, but it’s clean and that makes it less depressing haha. It’s nice having more bench space where the microwave was… it almost looks like a kitchen now.
Thanks again! 👍
I recommend a rice cooker, they are fairly cheap and very handy. Rice is really cheap in bulk and neutral enough to work with almost any dish. With a cooker you can make quick low effort carbs (filling) to accompany whatever else you have at hand. Dump it in a pan with some veggies, heat and stir. Perhaps add an egg or two, seasoning of course. A quite healthy and cheap meal, which is also very easy to make and can be adjusted to your tastes no problem.
Yeah I used the microwave mainly for rice. It exploded today as I was trying to cook rice. I cooked it on stovetop, it turned out not too bad. I got really sick of rice because it never tasted any good. I guess that’s about herbs and spices and stuff. I will see if I can find an affordable rice cooker. Thanks for the suggestion.
The secret to cooking good rice is to soak it in water (even 5 minutes will do) and then rinse it to remove the excess starch. Then add fresh water and cook it. Don’t take the lid off the pan so the steam cooks it properly. A rice cooker will simplify this process but all you really need is a pan with a lid.
The secret to cooking good rice is to soak it in water (even 5 minutes will do) and then rinse it to remove the excess starch. Then add fresh water and cook it.
I’ve heard that and tried it once. I couldn’t taste the difference. I’ll try it again. I cooked rice in a saucepan today and it was ok so I’ll try the rinsing method again once I’ve finished my current batch of rice. Cheers.
You could also try if you like it better with some butter, just add a little after it’s finished. It’s not for me, but I know other people like it :)
I’ve been adding margarine and yes, butter would be much better. Butter chicken curry! 😲
You can also saute an onion before adding the rice and water, and add a bullion cube, to improve the flavor.
Is a bullion cube a stock cube?
My unpopular cooking opinion is that a rice cooker is not nearly as critical as many people make it out to be. Making it on the stovetop (or in the oven) results in perfectly acceptable rice especially if you are on a budget and could use that money for other equpment. I eat a fair amount of rice and my rice cooker was the last of the small appliances I bought.
I agree. I used one for the microwave, but I think saucepan on stove (or hob) is just as easy as a rice cooker. But I’m no authority on the subject.
What kind of rice are you using? Can’t go wrong with jasmine rice.
I use white rice. I don’t like rice that tastes perfume-y.
Rice cookers are a waste of space and money, plus they’re largely a unitasker. For that money I could add to my general kitchen utensil collection that could be used for many things.
While I don’t fully agree with Alton Brown’s “no unitaskers in kitchen”, it’s a great starting point, especially for new cooks with few tools. Today I tolerate a few unitaskers because I already have a full complement of general purpose tools.
I can make rice in one of my pots in the same time a rice cooker takes - there’s no magic bullet, rice takes the time it takes. And for a new cook, learning to pay attention instead of offloading to a tool makes for great practice.
Simply put water and rice in a pan, turn on the heat, and set a timer. Of course, I had to figure out the heat and time, but that only took watching it a couple times.
I made some last night, while the rest of dinner was in the oven - because I saw the recipe had a 45 minute oven time, I knew that would be the perfect time to make the rice. Easy-peasy.
Check out your local thrift store. They normally have microwaves on the cheap.
The ones here don’t accept electrical appliances, because they’re not able to vouch for their safety (for example, if it spazzes out like my microwave did).
My household makes pasta ala pomodoro once a week which is delicious and cheap. You cook whatever pasta you want al dente (still a little hard). While that’s happening you cook tomatoes in a pan with salt until it’s mostly sauce. Add in a ladle or two of the pasta water and cook the pasta down in the sauce. Add fresh basil at the end with pepper and cheese (we use burrata).
It takes almost 30 minutes and it’s cheap. You can use fresh romas which we usually do but canned san marzanos as well. With this as a base you can add anything you want to your sauce to change it up.
Better than mac and cheese! Thanks.
I love fancying up basic meals like Kraft Mac and cheese. We sometimes throw in leftover cooked sausage in with it and broccoli which I blanched in the pasta water. Cook them all down in the same liquids as the package to make fancy Mac and cheese.
Ooh broccoli mac and cheese! Capsicum and onion would work too, maybe. Cheers!
Yeah. Really anything can be added. I love using pre-made bases as the backbone of a meal. We fancy up a Rice Pilaf mix every couple of weeks by throwing in sausage (we use a lot of sausage), mushrooms and any green vegetable into the mix. The meat and mushrooms are cooked and then let simmer with the rice. The green vegetables either go in for the last few minutes if its broccoli, green beans or anything that needs a little steaming. If its baby spinach or something very delicate we just mix it just before serving. Its an easy add on, fairly healthy and delicious.
I’ve been eating a lot of sausages lately too, they’re the cheapest source of (reasonably decent) meat I can find. Sometimes I braise sausages in a tin of tomatoes, and sprinkle with basil and curry powder. It’s a really satisfying meal for how cheap it is. But it’s always good to have ideas on how to change it up.
We open up sausage links often and break it up to get different textures. We usually cook a whole pound at a time and use half for each meal. We have been doing stuffed peppers using rice as a base filling it with tomatoes, onions, sausage or anything else we have. Its pretty much the only meat we purchase regularly.
Thanks for the idea!
Get a big bag of basmati or jasmin rice and get a rice cooker. Where I live a bag of jasmin rice is 36 euro for 18 kilo. You can eat rice with omelettes, wok chicken, shrimp and vegggies or what not, next day make fried rice.
Tons of video’s on youtube with people sharing their home made rice dishes.
Edit: A wise man once said “red beans and rice, I could eat a plate twice”
OP, lots of great advice here.
The biggest take away is that once you have the skills, you can work with any tools. Better tools just make it easier. Work on learning how to cook, it sounds like you have some basic cookware that can probably work for many things.
For example, I have extensive cookware, in cast iron and stainless. A few inexpensive non-stick aluminum too. I’ve had anodized aluminum.
They all cook a little different, but I could probably make most of my 300+ recipes in any of them (stuff with rubber handles can’t go in the oven). It would just take a little re-thinking to work around how each pan/pot works.
I can brown on non-stick, and even develop fond (which is tricky).
As other have said, your best bang-for-the-buck will be inexpensive sets or cast iron. Keep in mind that inexpensive non-stick is trickier to work with (mostly because the pans are thin, so controlling heat is harder), and they wear out faster than better cookware. I’ve replaced quite a few over the years.
After decades of cooking and trying the “latest fad”, I lean heavily toward stainless, but only a few brands. There’s a lot of crap stainless out there, selling cheap… And in this case you get what you pay for.
These folks did some good research on stainless, and explain the difference more concisely than I can. Their research comports with a lot of other reviews and docs I’ve read over the years - I’ve even cooked with some of these brands, like the Cuisinart (which I own), the Tramontina (which I’ve gifted), and also a brand not listed - Heston (which is quite expensive, but really nice). My experience is they all cooked the same, which is to say they heat surprisingly quickly, hold heat well (similar to cast iron, though not as much thermal mass), make browning a snap, and require surprisingly lower burner settings than even good anodized aluminum.
Plus stainless is a breeze to clean - a quick deglaze and everything comes right out. I’d even argue it can run through the dishwasher (though it may dull a little, it’ll cook the same).
To come full circle, look for easy, one-dish recipes as a great place to start.
I think both America’s Test Kitchen/Cooks Country and Good Eats are great places to start to learn how to cook. ATK/Cooks Country has a bunch of recipes, and they design them to be simpler than what you’d find in something like The Joy of Cooking, while explaining how they changed a recipe or process. Good Eats is great for learning how’s and why’s, what’s going on when doing certain things - Alton is big on visualizing the chemistry and process of cooking.
One downside to no microwave for a single person is reheating leftovers becomes more challenging. Lots of dishes, especially casserole/stews, etc, reheat very readily in a microwave. Which reduces your cooking effort - you can make a pot of stuff, throw it in the fridge and have it for dinner tomorrow too. I do this, even freezing portions so I can have it next week (so I don’t get bored eating the same thing 3 days in a row).
Edit: find an inexpensive 4 quart pot to add to your collection. It’s a very useful size - great for boiling water for pasta, potatoes, etc.
I survived on fruit growing in my neighborhood and a potato a day for a while. I was extremely broke. During this time, I walked between two grocery stores logging prices for basics between the two and buying the cheaper items to stretch my budget. I know what it means to be desperate to make it work on low or no funds. Keep your head up cause life can improve. I wish you the best.
Russet potatoes are filling and cheap. They can be seasoned for flavor with whatever you might have. Pour oil over one and sprinkle whatever seasoning you have, wrap it in aluminum foil and bake for 63 minutes at 425°. Or do the cheaper version without spices and aluminum foil. It’s still a large portion of food.
Noodles are cheap. I have an adequate budget now, but I still eat noodles for breakfast almost every day (M-F) cause I like them and they’re easy. Distinguish between rice noodles and pasta noodles (wheat). They aren’t the same and probably provide different nutrients. Eggs are also fairly cheap (except when they weren’t) and can be cooked a bunch of ways. Rice is cheap, though a westener’s diet might find it bland over time. Beans are supposed to be a top protein source. If you eat red meat, probably look for hamburger and find ways to work that in.
Good luck!
Yes I get fruit from trees in the neighborhood when I can. When it’s fruit season, it saves quite a bit of money.
