Showerthought: My best cheap meal week started with a $1.50 bag of lentils

I made a huge pot of soup and stretched it with rice and frozen spinach for five days straight. What's your go-to 'stretch a meal' ingredient?

4 comments

4 Comments

miles_chen4mo ago

Rowan's lentil paste furniture glue is a new one. My own kitchen disasters usually involve rice turning into a weird, sticky cement. The real cheap meal secret is just accepting that some nights dinner will be a weird, edible science project.

david1344mo ago

Honestly, that's the real secret to eating cheap. It's not about one magic ingredient, it's about building a pantry of basics that work together. Lentils, rice, beans, and frozen veggies are the foundation for a million different meals.

rowanw914mo ago

My pantry is basically a sad museum of half used condiments and a single can of beans I'm too scared to open. I've tried the whole 'basics' thing but my cooking skills turn lentils into a paste that could glue furniture together. It's a good plan in theory, just needs someone with more talent than me to run it. My cheap meal foundation is usually just cereal for dinner again.

margaretc421mo ago

Yeah, "talent" is definitely the missing ingredient in my kitchen too. "A million different meals" sounds great until you're staring at the same bag of lentils for the third time that week. My cooking skills are more about turning chicken into rubber and rice into a weird porridge that tastes like regret. I tried frozen veggies once and they ended up as a sad, mushy soup that I called "dinner" just to feel better about myself. Cereal for dinner is a classic, no shame there. We're all just getting by.