Really depends on the situation.

If I’m just feeding myself, I have no issue with going outside and foraging for food. I don’t hunt, but I’m not the type that needs an animal based protein main entree in my meals, so it works/worked for me to collect wild vegetables, fruits, and fungi.

And from there, I eat whatever is cheapest. Grocery store mark-downs and deep-discount sales would guide my decisions. If an acquaintance was giving away food, I’d take it. When the food bank is doing a giveaway and it was close enough for me to visit, I’d go there and take what they had to offer.

At my poorest, when I had no access to a kitchen, peanut butter sandwiches were a mainstay. Tuna sandwiches were next best, but more expensive. At the time, powdered milk was a bit of a luxury, but it definitely helped wash down the peanut butter and was way cheaper by volume than fresh milk.

A lot of stores and restaurants, at least where I live, will have condiment packages out in the open. Don’t go hog wild, but my experience is nobody cares/notices if you grab a few packs of whatever items are out: ketchup, mustard, mayo, honey, hot sauce, soy sauce, salt, and pepper – in moderation – so those can be free to you to use for meal prep.

When I’ve just been broke and/or saving money, my main protein was usually chicken. I’d just buy whatever was cheapest on sale, and try to stock up a bit or get rain checks. Then I could cook that in a crock pot and literally have meals for days. Around Thanksgiving and Christmas, turkey usually goes on deep discount and there are almost always a myriad of programs that just give them away. If you have room in your freezer and a crock pot, then you can be set just from that.

Add in some rice and/or beans/legumes to soak up the flavor when cooking meats.

Eggs were also always a solid choice, pretty versatile because they could be hard boiled, scrambled, fried, mixed into other things like noodles, or used to cook/bake other dishes.

Potatoes were another cheap source of carbohydrates, something that goes on sale often enough that I could usually find a deal, and if properly stored (cool, dark, dry) they can last a long time. Plus, they can go into the slow cooker with some chicken thighs and both ingredients benefit flavor-wise.

So, meals would be whatever combination of those things you can physically obtain. Your meal items don’t have to have a name. If you have potatoes and mix those with scrambled eggs and mix in some wild dandelions, that’s still a meal even if that’s not going to show up in a recipe book. If you boil some noodles and add in some mayo and a pinch of rosemary from a bush you saw down the road, that’s still a meal. Basically, just get creative with what you’ve got.

Chili, chili, chili! No ground beef? No problem! Make a bean chili!

Rice bowls, rice with chickpeas, rice with beans, throw some furikake and kimchi in there and some sriracha mayonaise.

Taters

I eat cheap all the time, but rice and beans is the classic. If you can afford a can of tomatoes and some spices, then you can upgrade this to rajma masala. That’s one of my fav post workout meals. Throw in some alliums, and other vegetables as you can (frozen is often p cheap).

Actually just look up vegan Indian recipes and source ingredients as cheaply as you can. Like dried beans, lentils, chickpeas, and spices — ideally purchased from bulk store — and you’ll be healthy and satisfied for less money than you would believe.

Roasted whole chicken from grocery; where I’m at they’re $5 and you can make sandwiches for days and or make chicken based soup with the leftovers. Also beans and potatoes. So many things you can make with them. Accent them with cheap bulk spices and some herbs grown with a little cheap desktop hydroponic grower, or outside depending on climate.

Pasta and sauce. As long as you have a few basic herbs and spices on hand (garlic powder, Italian seasonings, salt pepper), you can buy a can of crushed tomatoes, and a box of pasta, and you can have several delicious, filling meals for less than 5 bucks total. Spend a little more and toss in ground beef, ground pork, or mushrooms, or a combination of all three.

Aldi has the ingredients for really cheap. You can even buy a pound of ground pork for only about $3. The spices are only about a buck each.

Oats are underrated. Dirt cheap, with calories and nutrients. Super easy and fast to cook. Can be cooked in water or milk. Can be made sweet (e.g. with apple and cinnamon, drop the sugar) or savory (e.g. curry powder, or tomato etc).

And it definitely fills your stomach.

Rice and beans.

Oatmeal

Pasta

Marked down produce

My favorite food when I was poor was something I called bachelor chow.

Cubed and fried spam, a can of baked beans, and some rice. I’d get two or three meals out of it.

A can of lentils. Straight from the can with a spoon.

Lentils, beans, onion, rice. Lentils and beans need to be soaked for a long time before cooking, but they’re DIRT CHEAP, and they are actually super tasty. Just get used to it and you’ll find it’s basically comfort food. You can eat it with anything, but lentils and onion and rice is amazing, especially with some condiments or whatever

I’m grateful I haven’t reached my college level of broke (yet), but with the economy absolutely booming right now under our current leadership, money is very tight. I’m pretty good at figuring out meals with some budget to work with.

Not sure if this only applies to Costco prices right now, but rounding up I got a 4.5lb bag of quinoa ~$13, a 5 pound bag of red beans for $10, and a 5 pound bag of red onions for $6. So a total of ~$29. Depending on how many people you’re feeding you can stretch that several weeks. If you go with rice instead of quinoa it’s cheaper and also still gives you a complete protein when you combine it with beans.

My father in law always said he lived for an entire year in college eating nothing but potatoes. I wouldn’t recommend trying that but I guess it’s an option?

Also recently made a loaf of bread for the first time. All you need is flour, yeast, oil and water (forgot you do also need salt and a small amount of sugar to activate the yeast. I’ve used juice from different fruits (grapes, oranges) as an activator when I didn’t have sugar, but never tried that with bread specifically).

Chickpeas and lentils are very cheap and can be used to make a lot of recipes. Buy some taco seasoning, tortillas, and lentils. Make a giant pot of that, and it will last a while. Lentils are pretty similar in texture to ground beef, so it works pretty well. This may sound weird but lentils are also really good as a meat substitute in spaghetti.

It gets really boring eating the same thing everyday, so I’ve also used this website to make some really good meals: https://www.budgetbytes.com/ They have a ton of options for both meat and vegetarian meals.

This was like 10 years ago, (so shit is definitely more expensive now) but when I was between jobs I had to make $50 for groceries for two last a little over 2 weeks. I went through the recipes on there and found a bunch that sounded good and contained the same core ingredients. Made a list of core and extra ingredients I would need (garlic, ginger, etc) and then went to Walmart and got everything I needed within budget.

The mujaddara was and still is my favorite. I always end up needing to double the water the recipe calls for to cook the lentils and rice. I will also say it is definitely a time consuming recipe compared to the others I tried. Make it on a day when you can set aside enough time to slow cook and caramelize the onions instead of sauteing. That is definitely the key. https://www.budgetbytes.com/mujaddara/

Also keep in mind if you buy something like fresh ginger, onions, or mushrooms, but don’t end up using all of it right away, you can chop it up and freeze it for later so it doesn’t go bad.

I’ve stored chopped frozen ginger by itself in a ziplock bag. It seemed fine to me but apparently you’re supposed to put it in oil and then freeze it. Some people use ice cube trays and make small aliquots of oil and ginger or other herbs.

I’ve been told repeatedly you shouldn’t freeze onion, but when you’re broke and need to make what you have last, whatever. It might lose some flavor and texture, but I always saute onion anyway. If I was trying to eat it raw (or caramelize it later) I could see that being a no.

Mushrooms have to be cooked first before freezing (as far as I know). Chop and saute with olive oil and a little bit of butter or coconut oil (there is something about the extra fat that helps preserve it when frozen). After cooking, spread out on a nonstick surface or sheet of parchment paper, put them in the freezer and then once they’re frozen, move them to an airtight container.

Hotdog

Ramen with frozen vegetables mixed in.

Bean tacos.

Some kind of dish using chicken thighs as you can buy the thighs for cheap.

If ground beef is cheap, cottage pie.

Various pasta dishes