Let's say you're a student with little money to spend, or just lost your job. What's your go to food in those times? I keep seeing that people mention ramen noodles. Me, I go on a diet of potatoes You can fry them, boil them and cook them in plenty of other ways. They're dirt cheap, satisfy hunger and you can always find them in most stores. What about you guys and girls?
I would have to say the Roman noodles is going to be one the top choices for a college student. I would also say hot dogs and kind of pasta, My favorite would be Vienna sausages and crackers. I think potatoes are also a great choice.
I'd go for rice and sausages, maybe some eggs too and beans, cheap and nutritional foods that we can buy and combine to make different meals. Pasta and potatoes are great too. Many options in fact, fish and meat are just the most expensive products.
I am a college student and I am always looking for deals so that I can save money. I am also a potato eater because they are so cheap and hardy. I also eat a lot of ramen noodles and cereal! Progresso soups are always good too! Try looking in you local newspaper or online for coupons to find great deals.
I hate Ramen, so if I'm broke, I mostly just stick with grilled cheese. A loaf of bread, some butter, and some cheese can last a long time!
I'm in university and I mostly eat pasta, vermicelli, and rice. They are fantastic with the simplest ingredients, even a bit of butter and garlic powder will take it a long way. My favourite toppings are fried onions, celery, carrots, and eggs. Grains are also healthier than ramen. For these dishes, you can cook in bulk and freeze them or put them in the refrigerator; a big batch lasts me a week and doesn't take long to make, unless you count prep time of chopping vegetables.
Students may go with the noodles because they are quick and easy. I would do the bean and rice thing as together they provide a complete protein which I would need as I didn't have enough money to buy meat. These take a little longer to prepare especially if one has to soak the beans but don't require a lot of cooking skill (boiling). These are also somewhat versatile as you can add in flavouring to the water much like the MSG packets in the noodles.
Ramen is the top choice; tasty and cheap! Pasta is also good cause you can make pretty much anything with it, and pasta is pretty cheap. Rice is another good food that's pretty cheap. You can put hot dogs into any of those and it'll taste good.
I ate Roman noodles at least 70% of the time while I was in college! Even when I had money, I chose to eat Roman Noodles. On day where I was looking for something cheap to buy, I would usually go to Taco Bell! Never spent more than $3 bucks!
Well i absolute hate to cook so I'll try my best to get someplace that has a dollar menu. If I can't then I will eat cheap cold cut sandwiches, tuna fish, egg sandwich or cereal. But definitely cereal because it gets me excited and its delicious.
I would just eat fried eggs with rice as my main meal. Noodles and canned goods are also a good alternative if you're on a budget. I can't cook, so I can't really try those "budget recipes".
When I was in college I lived off fast food, the dollar menu of McDonald's helped me survive (although I'm not quite sure about my health) I also ate a lot of Ramen noodles and rice, but I didn't find it that much offensive as the McDonald's one. After I graduated college and landed a job I swear to God to never eat those things again.
I lean toward pasta, too. While ramen is cheap and I do enjoy it from time to time, pasta is technically just as cheap usually. So a pack of cheap ramen is about $.25 usually....sometimes a slightly cheaper, sometimes slightly more expensive. Most people prepare the full pack and eat most or all of it, so that's a quarter for the amount of pasta. A box of spaghetti, linguine, macaroni, etc, is usually about a dollar (maybe a little more, depending on if you get it on sale or not). The boxes are usually going to have 8 servings, so even if you eat a double portion like you did with the ramen, that works out to.... you got it.... $.25 for the same variety of meal.
My go to when money gets tight is beans and rice and a pack of dollar spaghetti noodles, a dollar bottle of spaghetti sauce and a dollar pack of turkey meat and can eat off of that for several meals. Oh, and some french bread to fill up.
My cheap go to foods are beans and lentils. I used to eat a lot ramen until I discovered how much salt they contain. I also eat a lot of cheese quesadillas. I also pick up cheap vegetables at the Farmers Market. Potatoes are a good staple too, but they make me bloated.
When I am saving money or if I don't have at all. I eat only instant oatmeal. Aside from it being very cheap, it is also healthy, which I really like. I don't put anything with it like milk and sugar. After I pour the boiling water on it, I eat it right after. It is very effective in making me full. It's not also fattening. I am hitting two birds on one stone at the same time. I get fit while I am able to save more money. Isn't that great? It's just that for some it's very unappealing to eat oatmeal the way I prepare and eat them, plain!
Ramen is always a safe bet. Cheap and you can add things like eggs or veggies to it. Potatoes are great too, because you can buy a 5 pound bag for dirt cheap and prepare them in a variety of ways. And you also can't go wrong with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or just bread and butter. Rice is also a good option because you can add different types of veggies to is as well. I guess you really just have to use your imagination.
I can't eat wheat, so when I want ramen, I head to a local Asian market for rice noodles. They also have very good prices on bulk rice and sometimes they have good produce on clearance. I also like to save money by cooking with potatoes, they can be made a million different ways. Another favorite of mine are dried beans. I let them cook all day, and then I have a nice, big pot that's ready for dinner.
An alternative to Ramen Noodles, which would be roughly just as cheap and a whole lot healthier - would be to pick up a jar of Better Than Bouillon Chicken Base, and some egg noodles, and frozen mixed vegetables. One jar of the chicken base will run you about $4 at Wal-Mart, and makes 36 cups of chicken broth (you can actually stretch this even further, since the 1 teaspoon per 1 cup of water they recommend is rather strong). Then all you have to do is boil some noodles of choice, and toss with the chicken stock and microwaved frozen vegetable mix. No oily fried noodles. No MSG (there isn't any in the BTB brand chicken base, in fact their first ingredient is real chicken). And you are getting much fresher veggies, instead of the flecks of dried stuff they may or may not include in the Ramen seasoning pouches. Personally, I would just buy regular spaghetti (or any other pasta of choice), a bunch of 28 oz cans of crushed tomatoes (whatever is on sale), and a large container of fresh grated parm or romano, and some inexpensive olive oil. Spices are dirt cheap at the dollar stores too, to jazz things up. A really basic (but delicious) spaghetti sauce can be made by taking a large can of crushed tomatoes, and simmering it with half a stick of butter and half a peeled onion (not chopped, leave it all intact) for about an hour. This is famous Italian cookbook author Marcella Hazan's classic recipe for pasta sauce (though I think she calls for a whole stick of butter in hers).
