No Stupid Questions

Onion. It's cheap, nutritious, acts as a low-key anti bacterial solution, can be served in a multitude of ways, or eaten raw.

Subscribe for more onion facts. 🧅

Well, something being delicious is subjective, but if we assume a "general acceptance" of most delicious foods, potatoes could fit easily. They can be cooked in all kinds of ways, are very nutritious and, again, pretty much everyone says they're delicious.

So… Are you just unaware of fruits, vegetables, and legumes, haha? In my opinion there’s a huge amount of food that fits all three categories. One of the best example of cheap, delicious, healthy, and easy is beans and rice, spiced up however you like.

potato

You already mentioned them, but I'm a huge fan of lentils. They go with so much stuff and you can combine them with a variety of spices. Give me any leftover ingredients and some lentils, and I'll cook up something delicious. I can and will eat lentil soup for days.

They are also a pretty solid crop, they can grow in a variety of climates, require little water and are good for the soil.

Lentils.

Ah yes, a food that you can eat for three days without pooping while you stay in a tent?

...Do we have a community yet for sharing cheap, healthy food recipes? I'd say cooking, but I don't want to get into all the back & forth over what counts as cooking/baking/frying/etc.

Maybe /c/cheaphealthymeals? Or maybe cheapgoodmeals would be better? 🤔

Whatever the case, I think it'd be a solid idea for a community for exchanging recipes and tips!

I eat tofu like four days a week and it is the best thing ever.

Vegetable soup. I know it sounds boring but you’d be surprised at just how nice vegetables in water with salt can taste.

https://youtu.be/21ofoREnXbM

Curiously, peanuts 🥜.

100 gr of peanuts have almost all the fatty acids that you need in a day, with almost half the minimum calorie intake required and half the protein you need. They are satiating, VERY easy to grow, and even used as a way to replenish the soil with nutrients in crop rotation.

If you ask me what was the mana taken through the dessert, I'd say most likely peanuts.

Carrots. Same as potatoes. Boil em, mash em, stick em in a stew. Someone already mentioned onions, same idea.

I know your edit says you were thinking about dishes, and I think carrots can be their own dish with very little preparation. I like to bake mine on a sheet for half hour or so at 425f, and they are wonderful on their own. Also so low-calorie you can eat a practically infinite amount of them without spoiling a diet!

Chick pea curry.

https://youtu.be/iKMI1xkU_oo

The one thing missing from the trinity is "effort". For instance, you could make any Dal, which would fit the trinity, but takes a lot of time. There are books with hundreds of Dal recipes that all taste different and work, too. And this is just one example. Less than a dollar a meal if made in bulk with rice.

And then there is mc Donald's and similar chains. They managed to avoid all three of those things

egg

I make a curry of: tofu, green lentils, pearl barley, pearl cous cous, pumpkin, potato, onions, and whatever else is in the vege drawer of the fridge. Then I cook it in a laksa paste with coconut milk. it's delicious and keeps in the fridge for at least a week with no meat.

Oatmeal with bananas, cinnamon, soy milk(unsweetened), flaxseed and sugar + extra fruits according to preference.

I eat it everyday for breakfast and I never get tired of the flavor. Sometimes I even get a bit greedy and eat it more than once. It's very filling, healthy, and cheap.

When I was in college, I had the rule of not buying anything that is >$1.50 per pound. This is what I was reduced to (prices may be different now due to inflation and geo area):

1. Apples, oranges, grapes, strawberries when they are on sale
2. Milk, yogurt
3. Pork shoulder, chicken quarters, thighs, drumsticks
4. ground pork, ground beef
5. Carrots, broccoli, potatoes, cabbage (you'll be surprised at how good thinly sliced cabbages taste in a sandwich)

Hi everyone, this post inspired me to make a community about this topic! https://lemmy.world/c/cheaphealthyfood

Eggs

I was looking at similar requirements for my daily lunch during the workday. I live in London so you're paying between £5 and £10 per day even for just a sandwich-based lunch. I needed a packed lunch that was cheap, tasty, healthy and additionally: filling, easy/quick to prepare and low carb. So that's a big ask.

I settled on a kind of custom Greek salad. One cucumber, some red onion, pickled beetroot all diced up, olive oil (or cold-pressed rapeseed oil) and some feta cheese. Sometimes I add chickpeas and coriander.

It's perfect, I've been eating it for years now.

Well chicken maybe as it is the most cheap meat. And it is subjective, but something like chicken soup (if cooked at home) can be relativly cheap and really delicious.

Also, just thought about it - fruits and berries also easily break this trinity

Yes - generally beans are both healthy (33% protein, 33% fiber, 33% carbs), cheap (dried or in cans), and can be pretty tasty, even out of cans, but if not with eggs, as part of a soup (tomatoes + grain + spices + veggies).

Roasted brussel sprouts with butter and parmesan cheese

Whole grain pasta.

Thanks for this prompt. Reading this thread was the first time I felt like I was on reddit since I've joined this instance. I laughed and learned.

lentils

Mushrooms!!

The thing with mushrooms is that they can get pretty expensive in stores, especially if you're looking for a specific kind of mushroom. They can also be very easy to forage though, which does make them free! This is different from growing them in a private garden (which is something you can do with most produce, and requires time and resources). DELICIOUS AND HEALTHY OH YEAH BABY!!

Fruit is definitely the best answer though.

Also, beans!

Homemade Popcorn!

Fried grasshoppers

Taste is subjective. I don't like more than half of the things listed so far.

It depends where you live (I'm in Bangkok, so grocery choices are quite limited).

I love Oats. I got massively back into them again this year... now I buy around 3kg every month (instant oats).

It's only this year, really, that I discovered that oats are still really good and creamy when not made with milk... and it's really easy to boil a single cup of water to dump on a cup of oats for a perfect breakfast (left standing for a minute - done... no need to 'microwave' oats).

Also, cheap staples include: carrots, potato, broccoli, spinach...

Frozen strawberries are dirt cheap here too.

Breakfast 1:

• Instant Oats (1 cup, 1/4 tsp salt, 3tsp sugar, 3 tsp creamer)
• pulsed to powder in the blender with a cup of boiling water poured over.
• Blend 100ml milk with 3 strawberries and mix that in. The beauty of this is (as my son does NOT like stodgy/thick porridge) I can add an extra 100ml of milk to his breakfast, and it becomes a liquid smoothie.

Breakfast 2:

• Weetbix are not too cheap, but ONE biscuit mixed with ONE cup of oats is a massive breakfast - and tastes of Weetbix... and is ridiculously cheap in comparison.

Breakfast 3

• Oats work great with eggs...
• 1 cup oats, some salt, some cumin (maybe a teaspoon)
• 2/3 cup boiling water (soak a minute)
• 2 duck eggs mixed in
• butter up the frying pan and dump it in there, cover and cook gently for 3 minutes, flip and give them another 3 minutes.

DIsgusting poopy one

• 2 teaspoons of cocoa powder mixed with 4 teaspoons of non-dairy creamer + 1 cup oats
• pulse to powder, add a cup of hot water.

That's choccie heaven right there.

The biggest problem with this is subjective metrics.

"Healthy" depends a lot on both what your needs are and the rest of your diet, there's no one-size-fits-all.

"Delicious" is even more subjective.

'Cheap' at least is fairly objective, but even so different qualities, different locations, or different seasons can change prices drastically, and that's before you get into the fact that what really matters is the more-subjective 'cheap to someone of your means.'