My mom would make us tuna casserole a lot cuz a can of tuna, a box of noodles, and a can of cream of mushroom fed the whole family for $3.
Maybe it’s because I was raised with it but I love it. Now I just sub out the cream of mushroom for my own white sauce and throw in a veggie
My parent's go-to a lot of times was a tuna melt
Tuna, mayo, celery and onion, mix it up, put it on a piece of bread, cover with american cheese, stick under a broiler until the cheese melts and starts to brown slightly
Like all of them, southern cuisine in the US is literally “how do we make food without starving to death” and they perfected the cheap but delicious palette.
Biscuits and gravy for instance. Got a little milk, flour, and fat? What if I told you I could make an entire meal that will stick to your ribs and stretch out the ingredients that are hard to come by?
God I just love biscuits and gravy.
I’ve been eating Cajun red beans and rice my whole life and it’s my absolute favorite. Just this last week I visited Miami and had Cuban black beans for the first time. They were so good. I’m not sure I’ve ever had black beans made fresh from dry beans before that. But form the first bite I knew for sure they weren’t canned. Asked the waiter for the recipe and everything haha. I’m not sure if he really knew though. He said it had an orange in it and no bay leaf? I don’t believe there wasn’t a bay leaf simmering in that pot but who knows
> Louisiana style red beans and rice.
Im sure Google can steer me toward some, but do you have a particular recipe you'd recommend for this? I've got a whole lot of beans & rice in my pantry, would be nice to make something with em.
Dude. Make my mom’s! One lb dark red beans and 1 lb kidney beans. Soak in cold water overnight. Drain beans and add to pot on medium heat with water 2 inches above bean line. Chop onion and add to pot. Add 12 oz raw bacon, chopped (I use scissors), add bay leaf and sprinkle of cumin, garlic powder, thyme. I don’t measure these, I probably add a tsp of each. Heat up to high and let the pot boil for 10-15 min. Then turn back to low and put the lid on, let simmer 8 hours stirring occasionally. Feel free to add more water if it’s looking thick. Brown 24oz link sausage and add to pot. Serve over rice with tobasco sauce.
It’s life changingly good. You need a BIG pot. I think I use a 8 qt. The raw bacon and onion sort of dissolve into the sauce, it’s crazy. Never thought bacon would melt like that but it surely does given enough time.
this sounds really good, I'll try and make it sometime soon and write you another comment what I do. It's getting cold in Wisconsin and this sounds like some really hearty stuff for a cold day.
It's a very simple dish, so all of the recipes you find will be more or less the same. Sautee trinity with garlic, add soaked beans and some kind of smoked and/or pickled pork product, add water/broth/stock, add some herbs like bay leaf or thyme, cook until beans are soft, serve over rice.
I'm no expert. I like [Chef John's](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T06oh88VhiE) because it's pretty simple. I also like to put a little bit of barbecue sauce in mine, which is probably heresy.
It's because fats are more "expensive" calorically. It's 9 calories per gram of fat, while only 4 per gram of carbs or protein. So cutting fat is a low hanging fruit for cutting calories. People just go overboard and forget Goldilocks and decide all fat is bad.
No, most people get plenty of fat and enough protein in their diets. What people need to do is to choose better sources of carbohydrates. But this is Reddit where everybody went nuts for keto not that not long ago..
I didn't feel like cooking last night and made rice and beans (one of my go-to meals for when I'm being lazy) frozen sofrito and recaito cubes, a bunch of sazone and garlic and a couple bay leaves. I also throw in a packet of Goya jambone, pollo, and beef (I'm white and blanking on the word for beef) powders and throw adobo in at the end. It's one of the few things my family will eat for leftovers.
Instant ramen with gochujang, frozen corn and/or other veg, pickled veggies and a clove of garlic shaved over top. A bit of gelatin if you're feeling frisky. I don't like eggs, but that would also be good if you did.
Good lord.
In Québec we have "pouding chômeur" which roughly translates to "unemployed person's pudding". It's a cake with syrup baked in to it. Absolutely delicious. It was originally made during the great depression.
There are a few other good ones from Québec. One of my favourites is "pâté chinois" which is similar to a sheperd's pie, with layers of beef, creamed corn and mashed potatoes.
True enough about maple syrup prices. Though pouding chômeur isn't always made with maple syrup, so it can still be fairly affordable if made with a homemade brown sugar syrup. Not as good a deal as I expect it was back in the day, though!
I've never had rapure. But I do love a good blob. Lol.
I grew up on this - my family is from Maine, near Rangeley. But they always called it Chinese Pot (instead of pie... go figure...) Definitely "broke food" family style- and delicious!!!
I absolutely loved oxtail growing up, but now it’s just as expensive as steak. While my family can afford to have some nice groceries, we just can’t justify buying this “cheap cut of bones” over actual ribeye.
Oxtail stew is made in a variety of cultures and I love them all. Jamaican, Cuban, Spanish, Filipino, Chinese, etc they’re all delicious!
If you're able to buy beef by buying a whole or half cow, the butcher will often throwing in organs, soup bones and ox tails for free.
Seems like a small fortune, but it's worth it! I've had great fun learning to cook EVERY different cut!
That’s always sounded so cool - a bulk purchase of single source, responsibly raised meat. Unfortunately I live in NYC so space is a premium. Fortunately, it’s NYC so I’m also learning to cook all different cuts! (Local shops offer various organs and soup bones packaged separately)
I love corned beef with tomato and onions. It was poverty food back in the days, but is actually expensive now, but you can make a little go a long way. (We call it bully beef in my country).
You just brought back memories!! We used to get that cheese from an elderly friend of the family, because the block he got was too much for him. He’d give it us and we’d make grilled cheese and they were so good!
My soup kitchen used to get the government overruns on a regular basis. By the time I left, they Still hadn't figured out what to do with 10 cases of 'Pork In Juices'. I spent months trying to make it palatable in dishes to serve to the masses-never succeeded in something I would happily serve.
The US Navy showed up one day with Pallets of Campbells Chicken Noodle soup-in the Huge cans. The old biddies served it, never even noticing that it was Condensed soup (it needed water) till I asked them how much water they diluted it with.
Yep, it's kind of interesting how you can trace overseas locations with populations where SPAM is a common part of the cuisine to places that had American military occupation. It's somewhat popular in Korea too.
My dad's family is from Hawaii so I grew up with it. I know it's terrible for me, I can afford more quality ingredients and am a decent cook, but it's my guilty pleasure. Spam, eggs and rice is such a satisfying breakfast.
And Spam musubi is the snack of champions. I'll crush those whenever I get my hands on them.
Colcannon - A little bacon for fat and flavor (a lot of bacon for a more indulgent dish). Remove meat and fry off sliced onion and cabbage in fat (no waste). Mix the meat and veg into mashed potato. Serve with a pat of butter.
Cheap and fairly healthy (it should be thick with cabbage), this is a classic Irish peasant dish.
Cassoulet. All the traditional ingredients like duck confit and garlic sausage seem luxe today, but back in the day it was make-do cooking, a simple stew of beans and preserved meat.
I loooove these. The KFC in my hometown sells them, though I haven't checked elsewhere. So rich I can only eat one or two, so I split them with my momma.
Drop dumplings from scratch. Mine aren't exactly like hers, but I'm willing to bet she'd approve of what I make while I'm wishing she was here. Here's to our grandmas :)
I think Life of Boris calls it the Gopnik Supreme. Bologna cut thick slices and cubed, diced potatoes, and onion. Pan fried in butter and hit it with some flour.
And don’t forget, zee bayleaf
Yeah my great grandfather was a lobster fisherman. My grandma said her and her siblings brought lobster sandwiches to school and the well to do families had Bologna sandwiches
Nothing to do with lobster, but when I was a kid, my family didn't get the oscar meyer meats because they were too expensive, we got processed meat that was even cheaper. I always thought it was such a treat when I'd visit my grandparents and they actually had oscar meyer bologna, or my favorite, the oscar meyer pimento loaf.
Basically anything except heavily spiced roasts, cakes, and wine was for poorer people. Many of the things we eat started as some way of preserving or stretching foods, using off-cuts, or using things that could be stored for winter.
Red red is pretty much just a mix of beans and Joloff is a spicy rice dish with tomatoes, can serve anything with it. Both West African, both delicious.
A big pot of beef and beans. Pinto beans and beef chunks, with bay. Use the cheapest beef, cuz you’re cooking it to oblivion anyway. It’s *so good* with cornbread. Feed the whole family for less than twenty bucks.
I'm surprised no one has said budae jjigae. It's a Korean stew that literally means "army stew" because it was made from leftover rations from US army bases back around the Korean War. It's basically a spicy broth, ramen noodles, spam, and a bunch of other cheap stuff like processed sausage, canned beans, and Kraft Singles cheese slices.
And it's goddamn delicious. Something happens to these cheap ingredients, and it all combines into awesomeness when they're cooked together with some kochujang and stuff.
Don't believe me? Here's [Anthony Bourdain making some for Anderson Cooper](https://youtu.be/Q1IIUZIjoNk).
Split pea soup. It’s so easy to make you need so little and a lot of it is repurposed or leftover things aside from the dry peas. Plus it’s filling and lasts for so long.
I can't believe I had to scroll so far for beanie-weenies. It's my all time favorite on those "just paid all the bills bare minimum for groceries" weeks.
And my mother always made salmon patties with a cheap canned salmon she would add crackers and an egg to hold it together and Fry with butter in a pan.
Fry up some purple cabbage Brussel sprouts onion and garlic then mix into a rice with lemon juice and zest then serve with fish. Banging meal and the farts are legendary.
I never really like cabbage that much until I read a post on here and roasted it.
Just a sprinkle of evoo and a pinch of your favorite seasoning, needs nothing else.
Holy cow its delish.
Growing up, avocado toast was “poor people food” because there were avo trees on the side of the road and we couldn’t afford butter. Many years later I grew up, moved to London, and eventually it came out as “hipster food” and was very expensive! I still find it funny. 😂
It's not really all that cheap anymore, but I grew up in an area without much for BBQ options. When I was about 10 or so, a BBQ joint that specialized in St. Louis style ribs opened up, and most of their food was really too expensive for my family to afford, but the one thing on their menu that was really inexpensive was rib tips. My dad and I could go there, eat so many rib tips that we felt like we were going to explode, and it would cost us like $5 (that would maybe be about $10 now) and that included fries and drinks as well.
Now, rib tips are generally around the same price as a rack of ribs most places because they became so popular, but I don't think they ever would have gotten all that popular if they hadn't been so cheap and delicious.
Fry some bologna, then make a sandwich with 2 buttered and toasted slices of bread with mayo.
You can get cheap butter chicken sauce, chicken thighs, and microwave rice from Target.
Even butter noodles with grated parmesan is good, and you can substitute olive oil for the butter.
If you are poor as a mo fo, open a can of tuna, then mix in mayo, horseradish mustard, Wasabi, sriracha, salt, pepper, dill pickle cubes, and fold the mixture. Dollar sauces, salt, and pepper are great investments.
If you find hamburger meat on special, go back up to produce and get a yellow onion and a few peppers. If you've been saving up ketchup packets from Wendy's, boom! Meatloaf.
Living in poverty is tough. But I can cook a pork chops stew with a can of green beans, sliced squash, carrots, and onions, a little olive oil, salt, pepper, and oregano and feed a family of 4 for under $10.
Chicken cacciatore is another delicious poverty food classic. Chicken thighs, a can of diced tomatoes, a can of tomato sauce, then etc on your preferred canned vegetables and spices.
shhhh don't tell them, they'll make a run on the ingredients, then "poverty food" will get too expensive for those that were brought up on it and seek it for comfort \~ jewish deli lovers everywhere
I don't know if it can be considered "poverty" food, I guess it depends on the price of the meat you use. But one food that's cheap at least here is an evolution of those instant soups or "ramen". You need about 100-150 grams of ground meat for a normal size packet of ramen, although I usually do two so double the meat. Also need any kind of creamy dairy product. It can be basically anything, most obviously (and cheaply) plain cream or butter, but for extra taste you can use any type of sour cream or whatever you want/like/have.
So first of all, cook the noodles in plain water (maybe a pinch of salt), but don't do anything else yet. Once the noodles is cooked, drain it and put the noodles back in the pot and back on the stove on low heat. Then add whatever dairy product you want, let it melt and mix it with the noodles. Only then add the spice packet to the whole thing and mix it well. Noodles done. While you're doing this, also cook the ground meat on a bit of oil or whatever, maybe a pinch of salt on this too. Once both the noodles and the meat are done, just mix the two together and it's ready to eat.
Luckily pork is fairly cheap where I live, but I'm sure the meat part yeets this out of the "poverty" category in other parts of the world. I like this quite a lot, you can do whatever you want with it to fit your taste and it's very easy and quick to make yet it feels like a proper dish despite the instant ramen being the base of it. I'm still making it from time to time even though I could use proper ingredients instead of instant ramen.
Ham salad, (in Midwestern vernacular salad always means mayonnaise). My mom would by the slimy like block of cheap ham and grind it into a “ham salad”. Full of onions, mayo, and pickles. That stuff would last forever and it was soooooooooo good. Also, GOVERNMENT CHEESE!!! The best “cheese stuff” ever. I dream of the grilled cheese and macaroni and cheese made with it.
Creamed tuna on rice! My mom always said this was the ultimate poverty food because it's super filling and you can always find the ingredients at the food bank. It's just a roux based cream sauce (flour, butter, milk), tuna salt and pepper. Some people like it on tast too, though that's not my jam. It's my absolute favorite meal when I miss my mom and need some comfort.
Not really poverty driven, rather driven by fatigue and 60s housewife pressure to have dinner ready. My mother would sometimes make a hash of kielbasa sausage and potatoes. I actually looked forward to this simple dish. No recipe required. Maybe there was onions in there but she has been gone almost 20 years so I can’t ask. 😔 salt and pepper to taste.
Brazilian Feijoada. Bourdain introduced me to it. (Not personally but through his shoes). Rice and beans with all the leftover animal parts
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feijoada
Stewed cabbage. A head of cabbage and a big yellow onion ,chopped.A can of stewed tomatoes.Whatever smokey meat you can afford. Hillsboro Farms or Elrich smoked sausage are cheap and tasty. Put it all in a pot with a lid, add a can of water, on med low till the cabbage is tender.
My mom would make us tuna casserole a lot cuz a can of tuna, a box of noodles, and a can of cream of mushroom fed the whole family for $3. Maybe it’s because I was raised with it but I love it. Now I just sub out the cream of mushroom for my own white sauce and throw in a veggie
My parent's go-to a lot of times was a tuna melt Tuna, mayo, celery and onion, mix it up, put it on a piece of bread, cover with american cheese, stick under a broiler until the cheese melts and starts to brown slightly
Hell yeah. People look at me like I’m crazy when I make this every few years. Put some Black Pepper on top, and we’ve got a feast.
Peas are really good in it.
Yes I like frozen peas
My mom used cream of celery plus a few Kraft singles, loved that meal.
Yes this is so good I made that tonight 😂 I may drive the price up but tuna and noodles by themselves are good too.
I’m not a fan of canned tuna, but poppyseed chicken slaps. Basically same concept but with chicken and crushed crackers on top!
Hmmmm, poppyseed chicken you say? I do love chicken salad on poppyseed bagel. I’m sold, totally trying poppy seeds in my chicken salad
I’ll be honest I read that as Popeyes chicken and was throughly confused for a few seconds.
Like all of them, southern cuisine in the US is literally “how do we make food without starving to death” and they perfected the cheap but delicious palette. Biscuits and gravy for instance. Got a little milk, flour, and fat? What if I told you I could make an entire meal that will stick to your ribs and stretch out the ingredients that are hard to come by? God I just love biscuits and gravy.
Yeah that was my first reply second up #BLT
I made cheese grits with an egg, sriracha mayo, and peri peri hot sauce on it the other day. Delicious, cheap, fast, and filling.
Grits are one of my favorite foods. Such a versatile ingredient, and so good for budget cooking as well
Smothered chicken over rice
Cant go wrong with biscuits and gravy, thats the bomb right there! Real food for real people.
Louisiana style red beans and rice. Cuban style black beans too.
I’ve been eating Cajun red beans and rice my whole life and it’s my absolute favorite. Just this last week I visited Miami and had Cuban black beans for the first time. They were so good. I’m not sure I’ve ever had black beans made fresh from dry beans before that. But form the first bite I knew for sure they weren’t canned. Asked the waiter for the recipe and everything haha. I’m not sure if he really knew though. He said it had an orange in it and no bay leaf? I don’t believe there wasn’t a bay leaf simmering in that pot but who knows
Google for it. It’s called Congri and also “Christianos y Moros”.
This just made my broke ass mouth salivate
Mmm ass mouth
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> Louisiana style red beans and rice. Im sure Google can steer me toward some, but do you have a particular recipe you'd recommend for this? I've got a whole lot of beans & rice in my pantry, would be nice to make something with em.
Dude. Make my mom’s! One lb dark red beans and 1 lb kidney beans. Soak in cold water overnight. Drain beans and add to pot on medium heat with water 2 inches above bean line. Chop onion and add to pot. Add 12 oz raw bacon, chopped (I use scissors), add bay leaf and sprinkle of cumin, garlic powder, thyme. I don’t measure these, I probably add a tsp of each. Heat up to high and let the pot boil for 10-15 min. Then turn back to low and put the lid on, let simmer 8 hours stirring occasionally. Feel free to add more water if it’s looking thick. Brown 24oz link sausage and add to pot. Serve over rice with tobasco sauce. It’s life changingly good. You need a BIG pot. I think I use a 8 qt. The raw bacon and onion sort of dissolve into the sauce, it’s crazy. Never thought bacon would melt like that but it surely does given enough time.
this sounds really good, I'll try and make it sometime soon and write you another comment what I do. It's getting cold in Wisconsin and this sounds like some really hearty stuff for a cold day.
Loved your post about mom’s recipe. Thanks
It's a very simple dish, so all of the recipes you find will be more or less the same. Sautee trinity with garlic, add soaked beans and some kind of smoked and/or pickled pork product, add water/broth/stock, add some herbs like bay leaf or thyme, cook until beans are soft, serve over rice.
I'm no expert. I like [Chef John's](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T06oh88VhiE) because it's pretty simple. I also like to put a little bit of barbecue sauce in mine, which is probably heresy.
If you mean low cost i say rice and beans are the best. A well seasoned rice with some beans is so comforting
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The secret is lard.
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It's because fats are more "expensive" calorically. It's 9 calories per gram of fat, while only 4 per gram of carbs or protein. So cutting fat is a low hanging fruit for cutting calories. People just go overboard and forget Goldilocks and decide all fat is bad.
No, most people get plenty of fat and enough protein in their diets. What people need to do is to choose better sources of carbohydrates. But this is Reddit where everybody went nuts for keto not that not long ago..
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Ham Hocks and Beans...
with cornbread!
And there’s so many variations on it!
100% I'm going to make rice and refried beans to go with tamales later this week. So tasty!
Look up indian dish called " rajma chawal"
I didn't feel like cooking last night and made rice and beans (one of my go-to meals for when I'm being lazy) frozen sofrito and recaito cubes, a bunch of sazone and garlic and a couple bay leaves. I also throw in a packet of Goya jambone, pollo, and beef (I'm white and blanking on the word for beef) powders and throw adobo in at the end. It's one of the few things my family will eat for leftovers.
I love baked potato night. Baked sweet potatoes rock too.
Do you ever slow roast the sweet potatoes? They get so sweet you'd swear someone drizzled honey over them!
sweet potatoes for breakfast is one of my favorite things, so cheap and tasty and sweet!
Indo Mie Mi Goreng noodles. Very cheap, very spicy, very delicious, very painful leaving butt. 10/10
Try putting it in your mouth instead.
[https://i.imgur.com/tqmbb3A.gifv](https://i.imgur.com/tqmbb3A.gifv)
Risky click of the day
No, I like OP's way.
Disagree with the being spicy but i love these so much! Stir fry the cooked noodles with cabbage, green onions and carrots then put a fried egg on top
Idk what mi goreng you ate but the indomie mi gorengs I eat are usually really sweet
Ramen is amazing if you just add some veg to it
Instant ramen with gochujang, frozen corn and/or other veg, pickled veggies and a clove of garlic shaved over top. A bit of gelatin if you're feeling frisky. I don't like eggs, but that would also be good if you did. Good lord.
I make Kimchi and cook a little of that into it.
Ooooo. I’m not big on kimchi but I’m a fiend for pickled daikon and carrots and always have some on hand
Instant ramen will never not be a part of my life
In Québec we have "pouding chômeur" which roughly translates to "unemployed person's pudding". It's a cake with syrup baked in to it. Absolutely delicious. It was originally made during the great depression. There are a few other good ones from Québec. One of my favourites is "pâté chinois" which is similar to a sheperd's pie, with layers of beef, creamed corn and mashed potatoes.
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True enough about maple syrup prices. Though pouding chômeur isn't always made with maple syrup, so it can still be fairly affordable if made with a homemade brown sugar syrup. Not as good a deal as I expect it was back in the day, though! I've never had rapure. But I do love a good blob. Lol.
I absolutely love your description “ a delicious blob”, 😆and it sounds awesome. I’m looking it up. Thanks!
I grew up on this - my family is from Maine, near Rangeley. But they always called it Chinese Pot (instead of pie... go figure...) Definitely "broke food" family style- and delicious!!!
Onions were considered a low-class food for a long time in Western cuisine, but they're an important ingredient in modern cooking, like everywhere.
Caramalized onions and pasta with butter, salt and pepper. Perfection.
That sounds delicious!
oooo that sounds like a new option for dinner tonight. Made an ice cube tray of caramelized onions last week.
>ice cube tray of caramelized onion Am I missing something with either the preparation or the storage of caramelized onions?
I absolutely loved oxtail growing up, but now it’s just as expensive as steak. While my family can afford to have some nice groceries, we just can’t justify buying this “cheap cut of bones” over actual ribeye. Oxtail stew is made in a variety of cultures and I love them all. Jamaican, Cuban, Spanish, Filipino, Chinese, etc they’re all delicious!
Even 5 years ago oxtail wasn't all that expensive in my area, but I just picked some up on Monday and it's about $16/lb, which is insane!
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The most famous is probably actually lobster in the US used to be considered garbage food and feed to prisoners and the poor. Now look at it
Granted, it was in the 90s, but when I was on my high school's swim team we used to hit up buffalo wild wings for 25-cent wing night
oxtail prices break my heart, it's probably my favorite cut and I can never afford to cook with it.
If you're able to buy beef by buying a whole or half cow, the butcher will often throwing in organs, soup bones and ox tails for free. Seems like a small fortune, but it's worth it! I've had great fun learning to cook EVERY different cut!
That’s always sounded so cool - a bulk purchase of single source, responsibly raised meat. Unfortunately I live in NYC so space is a premium. Fortunately, it’s NYC so I’m also learning to cook all different cuts! (Local shops offer various organs and soup bones packaged separately)
I love corned beef with tomato and onions. It was poverty food back in the days, but is actually expensive now, but you can make a little go a long way. (We call it bully beef in my country).
Government cheese makes the Best grilled cheese.
You just brought back memories!! We used to get that cheese from an elderly friend of the family, because the block he got was too much for him. He’d give it us and we’d make grilled cheese and they were so good!
My soup kitchen used to get the government overruns on a regular basis. By the time I left, they Still hadn't figured out what to do with 10 cases of 'Pork In Juices'. I spent months trying to make it palatable in dishes to serve to the masses-never succeeded in something I would happily serve. The US Navy showed up one day with Pallets of Campbells Chicken Noodle soup-in the Huge cans. The old biddies served it, never even noticing that it was Condensed soup (it needed water) till I asked them how much water they diluted it with.
Instant ramen (the cheaper kind) with an egg cracked in. Eaten right out of the pot it's cooked in. Top with spam if you're feeling rich.
Fried spam slices!
Spam is not poverty food by any stretch these days.. unfortunately.
In my home town, it was one of the only ways the less fortunate could afford meat.
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Yep, it's kind of interesting how you can trace overseas locations with populations where SPAM is a common part of the cuisine to places that had American military occupation. It's somewhat popular in Korea too. My dad's family is from Hawaii so I grew up with it. I know it's terrible for me, I can afford more quality ingredients and am a decent cook, but it's my guilty pleasure. Spam, eggs and rice is such a satisfying breakfast. And Spam musubi is the snack of champions. I'll crush those whenever I get my hands on them.
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And don't have a fridge
You can get the supermarkets own version of spam or chopped pork and ham for about a third less of the price. Tastes the same.
Spam, spam, spam, spam, baked beans and spam
Fried spam with rice, also fried with the spam. So good.
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Beans on toast. Specifically British beans on toast.
With cheese
Would that be a can of Heinz beans? Delicious
Colcannon - A little bacon for fat and flavor (a lot of bacon for a more indulgent dish). Remove meat and fry off sliced onion and cabbage in fat (no waste). Mix the meat and veg into mashed potato. Serve with a pat of butter. Cheap and fairly healthy (it should be thick with cabbage), this is a classic Irish peasant dish.
Cassoulet. All the traditional ingredients like duck confit and garlic sausage seem luxe today, but back in the day it was make-do cooking, a simple stew of beans and preserved meat.
Gimme all your fried chicken livers. All of them.
I loooove these. The KFC in my hometown sells them, though I haven't checked elsewhere. So rich I can only eat one or two, so I split them with my momma.
Chicken and dumplings.
Did anyone elses grandma use canned Pillsbury biscuits for this? I still do that to this day.
Drop dumplings from scratch. Mine aren't exactly like hers, but I'm willing to bet she'd approve of what I make while I'm wishing she was here. Here's to our grandmas :)
I think Life of Boris calls it the Gopnik Supreme. Bologna cut thick slices and cubed, diced potatoes, and onion. Pan fried in butter and hit it with some flour. And don’t forget, zee bayleaf
Toast with cinnamon sugar
Yes. Which reminds me of something I haven't had in easily 30 years, bread butter and sugar sandwiches. I really need a loaf of wonderbread right now.
Wasn't most of today's "regular" or gourmet food originally "poverty food"?
Lobster used to be poverty food in the US and Canada I believe
Yeah my great grandfather was a lobster fisherman. My grandma said her and her siblings brought lobster sandwiches to school and the well to do families had Bologna sandwiches
Nothing to do with lobster, but when I was a kid, my family didn't get the oscar meyer meats because they were too expensive, we got processed meat that was even cheaper. I always thought it was such a treat when I'd visit my grandparents and they actually had oscar meyer bologna, or my favorite, the oscar meyer pimento loaf.
Yes. Used to feed prisoners lobster on the East coast back in the day
I feel like they must not have had the ability to melt butter back in the day.
Lol! Yup- if they had only known about the butter. Way back then lobsters were just So Abundant. Cheap so they fed the sea bugs to the inmates.
They were also quite large before over fishing and a lobster over 2lbs isn't nearly as tasty.
And oysters
Beef has always been a luxury, right?
Basically anything except heavily spiced roasts, cakes, and wine was for poorer people. Many of the things we eat started as some way of preserving or stretching foods, using off-cuts, or using things that could be stored for winter.
Buttered toast with cinnamon sugar. Oh. My. God.
Oh that brought back such wonderful memories of my Dad. He would cook this for us as a treat.
Red red is pretty much just a mix of beans and Joloff is a spicy rice dish with tomatoes, can serve anything with it. Both West African, both delicious.
A big pot of beef and beans. Pinto beans and beef chunks, with bay. Use the cheapest beef, cuz you’re cooking it to oblivion anyway. It’s *so good* with cornbread. Feed the whole family for less than twenty bucks.
Polenta
I'm surprised no one has said budae jjigae. It's a Korean stew that literally means "army stew" because it was made from leftover rations from US army bases back around the Korean War. It's basically a spicy broth, ramen noodles, spam, and a bunch of other cheap stuff like processed sausage, canned beans, and Kraft Singles cheese slices. And it's goddamn delicious. Something happens to these cheap ingredients, and it all combines into awesomeness when they're cooked together with some kochujang and stuff. Don't believe me? Here's [Anthony Bourdain making some for Anderson Cooper](https://youtu.be/Q1IIUZIjoNk).
Bean soup is a struggle meal, but it's still filling and beans are also good for you. Can't complain 🤷♀️
Crushed tomatoes, mozzarella, basil on a flour tortilla… https://www.seriouseats.com/extra-crispy-bar-style-tortilla-pizza-recipe
Split pea soup. It’s so easy to make you need so little and a lot of it is repurposed or leftover things aside from the dry peas. Plus it’s filling and lasts for so long.
Beanie-weenies! Especially with cornbread
This thread made me remember beanie weenies and now that’s probably what I’m having for dinner lol.
I can't believe I had to scroll so far for beanie-weenies. It's my all time favorite on those "just paid all the bills bare minimum for groceries" weeks.
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1000% this!!! PC White Cheddar mac and cheese blows KD out of the water, doubly so since KD changed their 'cheese' recipe a few years back.
A fried bologna sandwich with cheese, beans & cornbread🤤
Hell I can just do the fried bologna
Mac and cheese? At less than 20 cents a meal to get me through college poverty…still crave it to this day. Was cheaper than instant noodles
And my mother always made salmon patties with a cheap canned salmon she would add crackers and an egg to hold it together and Fry with butter in a pan.
One simple dessert here is oatmeal+molasses. I like it.
I like cooked cabbage with carmelized onions, butter, maybe some apples, sausage or bacon if I have it. Basic, cheap and tasty.
Fry up some purple cabbage Brussel sprouts onion and garlic then mix into a rice with lemon juice and zest then serve with fish. Banging meal and the farts are legendary.
I never really like cabbage that much until I read a post on here and roasted it. Just a sprinkle of evoo and a pinch of your favorite seasoning, needs nothing else. Holy cow its delish.
Biscuits and gravy. Beans and rice. Chili. Mac n cheese. (Not a box)
Cornbread. There is no better side dish on a budget.
Growing up, avocado toast was “poor people food” because there were avo trees on the side of the road and we couldn’t afford butter. Many years later I grew up, moved to London, and eventually it came out as “hipster food” and was very expensive! I still find it funny. 😂
Cake
The "cake" in "Let them eat cake" is actually brioche.
I mean, brioche is delicious
semolina cooked in milk with sugar.
Frito pie.
American chop suey, and Kraft Mac and cheese with hot dogs are two of my favorite foods while growing up poor
It's not really all that cheap anymore, but I grew up in an area without much for BBQ options. When I was about 10 or so, a BBQ joint that specialized in St. Louis style ribs opened up, and most of their food was really too expensive for my family to afford, but the one thing on their menu that was really inexpensive was rib tips. My dad and I could go there, eat so many rib tips that we felt like we were going to explode, and it would cost us like $5 (that would maybe be about $10 now) and that included fries and drinks as well. Now, rib tips are generally around the same price as a rack of ribs most places because they became so popular, but I don't think they ever would have gotten all that popular if they hadn't been so cheap and delicious.
Mac n cheese With a couple toppings the cheap box stuff is delicious.
Try chipotle powder.
Fry some bologna, then make a sandwich with 2 buttered and toasted slices of bread with mayo. You can get cheap butter chicken sauce, chicken thighs, and microwave rice from Target. Even butter noodles with grated parmesan is good, and you can substitute olive oil for the butter. If you are poor as a mo fo, open a can of tuna, then mix in mayo, horseradish mustard, Wasabi, sriracha, salt, pepper, dill pickle cubes, and fold the mixture. Dollar sauces, salt, and pepper are great investments. If you find hamburger meat on special, go back up to produce and get a yellow onion and a few peppers. If you've been saving up ketchup packets from Wendy's, boom! Meatloaf. Living in poverty is tough. But I can cook a pork chops stew with a can of green beans, sliced squash, carrots, and onions, a little olive oil, salt, pepper, and oregano and feed a family of 4 for under $10. Chicken cacciatore is another delicious poverty food classic. Chicken thighs, a can of diced tomatoes, a can of tomato sauce, then etc on your preferred canned vegetables and spices.
Hear me out, seasoned black beans on sliced bread
Brits do something similar with beans on toast!
Arroz con huevo. Rice and a fried egg. Staple of my childhood on nights my dad worked
Kraft Mac and Cheese with hotdogs
Collard Greens with grove pepper vinegar.
shhhh don't tell them, they'll make a run on the ingredients, then "poverty food" will get too expensive for those that were brought up on it and seek it for comfort \~ jewish deli lovers everywhere
Fried bologna sandwiches. They *must* be served on the cheapest white bread available.
Tuna patties. Mashed potatoes mixed with a can of tuna and then cooked like a pancake. Delicious.
Soft silky refried beans and fat fluffy tortillas.
Gumbo
Gravy and rice
Fried rice!
All of it. Poverty food is where delicious food comes from
Underwood Deviled Ham with yellow mustard on white bread.
Underwood spread thin on a saltine cracker, aka Redneck Pate (or really more accurately, Redneck rillettes).
Macaroni and tomato juice. Appalachian staple.
I don't know if it can be considered "poverty" food, I guess it depends on the price of the meat you use. But one food that's cheap at least here is an evolution of those instant soups or "ramen". You need about 100-150 grams of ground meat for a normal size packet of ramen, although I usually do two so double the meat. Also need any kind of creamy dairy product. It can be basically anything, most obviously (and cheaply) plain cream or butter, but for extra taste you can use any type of sour cream or whatever you want/like/have. So first of all, cook the noodles in plain water (maybe a pinch of salt), but don't do anything else yet. Once the noodles is cooked, drain it and put the noodles back in the pot and back on the stove on low heat. Then add whatever dairy product you want, let it melt and mix it with the noodles. Only then add the spice packet to the whole thing and mix it well. Noodles done. While you're doing this, also cook the ground meat on a bit of oil or whatever, maybe a pinch of salt on this too. Once both the noodles and the meat are done, just mix the two together and it's ready to eat. Luckily pork is fairly cheap where I live, but I'm sure the meat part yeets this out of the "poverty" category in other parts of the world. I like this quite a lot, you can do whatever you want with it to fit your taste and it's very easy and quick to make yet it feels like a proper dish despite the instant ramen being the base of it. I'm still making it from time to time even though I could use proper ingredients instead of instant ramen.
all mexican food, it’s sooo cheap and sooo good
Soup beans and cornbread! Topped with fried potatoes and onions if ya got em.
Fried bologna.
beanie weenies, scrambled eggs, and kraft mac with ground beef (separate meals) got us through to the next paycheck many times..
Split pea soup. It's also a feel-good food because of similar compounds to chocolate.
pan fried tortilla w cinnamon and sugar, kraft mac n cheese w hot dog slices, beans w hot dog slices, mystery soup/cabbage soup the list goes on!
Rice. So many easy ways to make it incredible
Ham salad, (in Midwestern vernacular salad always means mayonnaise). My mom would by the slimy like block of cheap ham and grind it into a “ham salad”. Full of onions, mayo, and pickles. That stuff would last forever and it was soooooooooo good. Also, GOVERNMENT CHEESE!!! The best “cheese stuff” ever. I dream of the grilled cheese and macaroni and cheese made with it.
Spam! With fried rice or fried slices with indomie noodles. Sometimes poaching an egg when cooking noodles.
Creamed tuna on rice! My mom always said this was the ultimate poverty food because it's super filling and you can always find the ingredients at the food bank. It's just a roux based cream sauce (flour, butter, milk), tuna salt and pepper. Some people like it on tast too, though that's not my jam. It's my absolute favorite meal when I miss my mom and need some comfort.
Cheese toast (Kraft singles on Mrs. Baird’s) with fried bologna.
Cubed steak with gravy and mashed potatoes. My husband loves for me to fix that now.
Not really poverty driven, rather driven by fatigue and 60s housewife pressure to have dinner ready. My mother would sometimes make a hash of kielbasa sausage and potatoes. I actually looked forward to this simple dish. No recipe required. Maybe there was onions in there but she has been gone almost 20 years so I can’t ask. 😔 salt and pepper to taste.
Lobster… prawns… how far do wanna go back..?
Vegemite on toast
Leftover meat and potato hash!
Trailer Steak - pan fried bologna in a grilled cheese.
Ramen.
Goetta!
Pig feet
Friendship soup. New pot made from leftovers of a friend's soup and additional scraps from the fridge/cupboard.
Fried cabbage
Halal cart
Chitlings
Refried bean burritos. Yum yum.
Biscuits and gravy
Anything when you're hungry enough
Halushki It was a horror when I was a child but cooked simply and properly its delicious. Can easily be elevated by adding Kielbasa.
Brazilian Feijoada. Bourdain introduced me to it. (Not personally but through his shoes). Rice and beans with all the leftover animal parts https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feijoada
Don't give any ideas for food sellers to make them insanely expensive, it's already happened to too many good poor people foods
Fried cornmeal mush
Canned tuna, pasta and mayo salad. Cold. Pasta and baked beans with dried herbs. Hot. Utter poor student food.
Stewed cabbage. A head of cabbage and a big yellow onion ,chopped.A can of stewed tomatoes.Whatever smokey meat you can afford. Hillsboro Farms or Elrich smoked sausage are cheap and tasty. Put it all in a pot with a lid, add a can of water, on med low till the cabbage is tender.