There are many reasons not to make your own dinner: It takes so much time. Seamless is so easy. Pizza is so delicious. But anyone blaming cost will have to find a new excuse.
In the cookbook, Good and Cheap, author Leanne Brown makes the case for eating well on a budget—a very slim, $4/day budget to be precise. Brown designed the recipes and cookbook with food stamp recipients in mind, but her pantry-stocking advice and low budget menus will be useful to anyone who likes delicious food.
You can make each of the dinners below from Brown’s cookbook for less than $2.
Half-Veggie Burgers: $0.90/serving
Love burgers but not the slump they put you in afterwards? Try mixing lentils or beans into the meat. This recipe makes 8 servings, feel free to cut it down for fewer people.
Mash up about 3 cups of your legume of choice with a large spoon. Mix it with a pound of ground beef or other meat, a cup of chopped vegetables (red peppers are great), and an egg if you’re grilling (that will keep the patties from falling apart). Season with salt and pepper, sear in a pan until dark brown (about 5 minutes per side) or throw on a grill. Serve on a toasted bun with the burger accoutrement of your choice.
Spicy, Crunchy, Creamy Polenta: $1.75/serving
In the winter, few things are as inviting as a warm bed of pillowy polenta. Top with greens and an egg and never look back. This recipe makes 2 servings.
Bring 2 cups of water to a boil in a medium-sized pot. Add in 1/2 tsp of salt, dial down the heat to low, and slowly pour in 1/2 cup of polenta or corn meal, stirring the whole time with a wooden spoon. Once the polenta is thick and smooth, you can leave the spoon in, and the lid on but slightly askew so steam can get out. Just be sure to give it an occasional stir to keep it smooth. It should cook for about 15-30 minutes, depending on how thick you want it and how much time you have.
In a pan over medium heat, add 1/2 tablespoon of olive oil or butter. Once heated, add 3 cloves of chopped garlic, an optional chopped anchovy and 1/2 tsp of chile flakes. (If you’ve got a fresh chile, you can use that instead!) Once fragrant, after about a minute, add 4 cups of chopped fresh spinach or 1 cup of chopped, thawed frozen spinach. (Or substitute whatever greens you have on hand.) Allow it to wilt, about 3 to 5 minutes, before transferring to another bowl.
When the polenta is almost ready, wipe out the spinach pan and use it to make sunny-side-up eggs. Pour in a little olive oil or butter, heat, crack your eggs into it and cover with a lid so they’ll steam. They’ll be ready in 1-2 minutes.
Divvy up the polenta between two bowls, add spinach on top, plus the eggs. Sprinkle some grated Parmesan or Romano cheese and a little salt and pepper when you’re done.
Deconstructed Cabbage Rolls: $1.50/serving
The beauty of a casserole is that anything goes. Feel free to swap out the listed ingredients for whatever you have on hand. Casseroles are also freezer friendly, so you can save what you don’t eat for a night when you only have energy to reheat. This recipe makes 6 servings.
Preheat the oven to 350° and grease a large casserole dish. Melt a tablespoon of butter or oil in a pan over medium heat and crumble up about 4 ounces of fresh sausage. (Ground beef, turkey or pork, will also work.) Cook until no longer pink, about 5 minutes, and then put in a large bowl.
In the same pan, add 3 finely chopped cloves of garlic and a chopped onion. Once the onion becomes translucent, about 3 minutes, add 1 small or 1/2 a large head of cabbage, chopped. Cook until it can be easily stabbed with a fork, about 5-7 minutes. Add plenty of salt and pepper.
While the cabbage is cooking, add 3 cups of cooked rice (leftovers are perfect) and 4 cups of cooked lentils to the cooked sausage. Mix up and season to taste.
In the casserole dish, spread half the lentil-rice-sausage mixture for the bottom layer. Next add a layer of the cabbage. On top of that, add a layer of tomato sauce from a total of 3 and 1/2 cups of pureed canned tomatoes (or any tomato sauce you have on hand). Keep layering until you run out of food. Sprinkle the top with salt and pepper and add breadcrumbs if you want to.
Bake until it’s bubbly, about 30 minutes.
Filipino Chicken Adobo: $1.30/serving
The vinegar means this dish stays well in the fridge, and like all of Brown’s recipes, substitutions are welcome. Feel free to use any meat or vegetables you want instead of the chicken. This recipe serves 8.
Trim any excess fat off 8 chicken thighs and set aside. Make your marinade in a large non-aluminum pan by stirring together 3/4 cup rice vinegar or distilled white vinegar, 1/4 cup soy sauce, 2 minced cloves of garlic, 1/2 teaspoon black pepper, and 2 bay leaves. Now add the chicken, being sure to coat each piece, and cover to marinate for at least 30 minutes. (If you can do overnight, even better.) Then take the chicken out and pat each piece dry but don’t toss the leftover marinade.
Over medium heat, pour 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil into a large pot. Cover the bottom of the pot in chicken and cook until it’s browned—just a few minutes—and then flip the pieces and repeat. Finish batch one and do the same with batch two. Once it’s all browned, put it all back in the pot with the rest of the marinade, 2 chopped medium-size potatoes, 4 sliced medium-size carrots, and 3/4 cups of water. Dial up the heat to bring the liquid to a boil, then dial it back down to low. Simmer until the chicken is cooked through, approximately 45 minutes. (You’ll know the chicken is done when it’s not pink in the middle.)
About halfway through the chicken cooking, make the rice. Add 2 cups white rice, 4 cups of water and 2 pinches of salt into a medium-size pot. Put on medium heat and bring to a boil. Then lower the heat and cover, with the lid slightly off so that some steam can get out. Cook for about 20 minutes, until the water is gone.
Back to the chicken: Once it’s done cooking, take out the bay leaves and stir in a mixture of 2 teaspoons of cornstarch with 1 tablespoon of water. Allow it all to thicken a bit, until glazed, and then voila! Serve over rice.
The original version of Good and Cheap is available for free as a PDF download on Brown’s website. The longer 2nd edition, released over the summer by Workman Publishing, is available for purchase online and in bookstores.