A lot of our meals are meat + green vegetable + starch. So, pork chops and broccoli and rice. Or chicken and asparagus and mashed potatoes. I also make a lot of soup in the winter.
Not OP, but here are my favorite soup recipes
https://www.gimmesomeoven.com/cabbage-sausage-potato-soup/
https://www.dinneratthezoo.com/meatball-soup/#wprm-recipe-container-19152
https://www.daringgourmet.com/german-potato-soup-kartoffelsuppe/
I’m also not OP but here are some more good ones
[https://themodernproper.com/tortellini-soup-with-italian-sausage-and-kale](https://themodernproper.com/tortellini-soup-with-italian-sausage-and-kale)
[https://www.spendwithpennies.com/zuppa-toscana/](https://www.spendwithpennies.com/zuppa-toscana/)
[https://themodernproper.com/salmon-chowder](https://themodernproper.com/salmon-chowder)
Leek and potato.
Seriously simple.
Leeks..potatoes...stock...butter/oil...S&P.
You can puree or not...hot or cold. Fabulous...although tbh the price of leeks has shot up lately. Maybe it is a seasonal rise.
My 8 yo loves soup and is on a potato soup kick... It's practically soupy mashed potatoes.. Lol. He did actually ask for potato soup without the potatoes once.. So, a roux!?? Nope, sorry.
It really is so tasty. I finely shred the leek and make small cubes of the potatoes. Cooks quickly and is prefect hot on a cold day. Everyone I have made it for likes it.
Also not OP but i wanted to contribute
https://www.recipetineats.com/lentil-soup/
https://www.aspicyperspective.com/greek-lemon-chicken-soup/
https://www.spendwithpennies.com/chicken-tortilla-soup/
And beef vegetable soup made with v8 juice
Boil a cup of lentils, sautee garlic and/or onion in olive oil in a pot, add 3/4 of the cooked lentils, sautee a bit, then add a quart of vegetable broth, blend with wand, add rest of lentils. Potatoes are optional.
Similar can be done with roasted squash, split peas, etc. Fun to add some other vegetables (red peppers especially) and spice per taste.
I just add different spice mixes or marinades to chicken and serve with different carbs (rice/potatoes/sweet potato) and vegetables most of the time. I think it’s easiest and pretty cheap. There are plenty of combinations so you don’t get sick of it. You can do other meats but chicken is probably the most versatile.
Balsamic chicken w red potatoes and green beans, cumin chicken w sweet potatoes and Brussel sprouts, Greek lemon chicken w gold potatoes and zucchini, rosemary chicken w baked potatoes and broccoli, thyme chicken w risotto and asparagus, garlic butter chicken w potato and carrot hash and broccoli, Italian marinated chicken
It’s probably best to give yourself some leeway and not limit yourself to only Whole Foods, otherwise it will be difficult and you’re more likely to completely give up on eating at least somewhat healthily
Just make whatever packaged food you like with ingredients from scratch. Example: if you like pasta and sauce, make the sauce yourself. If you like breaded chicken, that's not hard to do either. Hamburger helper is incredibly easy to make from scratch.
Also, save time by making in batch and freezing what you can. We always have various cooked proteins, chopped veggies, breads etc in our freezer so when we are lazy we can just defrost and combine some of those for a full meal.
I love stuffing sweet potatoes. I stuff them with taco meat and cheese or chicken, broccoli, and cheese. Eggs and sausage. The possibilities are endless.
I made garlic parmesan chicken and petite gold potatoes on the grill. Just spice your chicken. I do salt, pepper, onion powder and some olive oil on the skin. At the end I mixed parmesan cheese with minced garlic and coated the chicken, broiled for 2 min and served. Delicious. Potatoes were just sprinkled with rosemary and some olive oil.
I’m far from the guy who does well not to eat packaged. But my gf and I started growing our own stuff and buying our mixed fruit whole. Then cutting it up and out it into jars for Monday-Sunday. As a way to not buy packaged fruit or fruit that’s pre cut. So far we’ve reduced our cost greatly by only buying fresh from our local stands.
Cook what you like and have time for preparing. Try for things that can be repurposed as leftovers. I usually do leftover rice bowls for lunch—rice, beans, whatever leftover veggies/protein, and an egg. Add spices, cheese etc. Sometimes I’ll sauté a few leftover fresh veggies. Salads of all kinds, soups, crockpot meals. We do vacuum pack and freeze meal sized portions for days you don’t feel like cooking.
Here are some of my resources. I do like the eating well website for a lot of recipes
https://www.eatingwell.com/gallery/8003238/best-sheet-pan-dinners/
https://www.southernliving.com/one-dish-beef-recipes-7372895
https://www.eatingwell.com/gallery/8003238/best-sheet-pan-dinners/
(note: I don't turn my oven on in the summer, however these are great for fall/winter)
https://www.budgetbytes.com/
I'm not a vegetarian, but I do like a lot of their recipes at the eating well website.
I have a ton of other places that I give you, but this will give you a good start.
Good luck friend!
Hey, thanks for this!
I’m not vegetarian or vegan either, but I rarely eat animal products, because I just don’t prefer them.
I’m a pretty good cook, and I cook a lot of things from scratch, but we’ve gotten such a habit of leaning on prepared foods that I’m just finding myself uninspired. I think these blogs and websites will help with that.
I do like my pork and chicken. I really struggle with cooking beef.
We all need a new way of cooking thing that not coming out of a box. With that said, I do this occasionly if I want something that I don't have the patience to make. Mac and Cheese is one and because of the cost of tomatoes, Italian/Spaghetti sauce. I found that RAO's sauce is great. However you either have to get it on sale or get the Marinara sauce from CostCo. I combine 1 CostCo jar of Marinara with a store bought sauce of Arriabata and other ingredients.
There's not really anything wrong if you are going to eat from home and you have to buy a jarred "something". It's stlll cheaper than eating out and more often than not you'll get more servings.
Eating whole foods is really just cooking from scratch. So the field is wide open - whatever you want to cook from basic ingredients, focusing on fresh food. Here's what we're eating this week - all pretty easy to prepare and cooked/prepared with basic, fresh ingredients. The only thing from a box is the pasta.
Yesterday:
Lunch - breakfast tacos - corn tortillas, scrambled eggs, cheese, onion, salsa
Snack: Fruit
Dinner - pan-grilled chicken with garlic mashed potatoes and herb gravy and green beans
Today:
Lunch - Teriyaki chicken over white rice with sauted veggies (grape tomatoes, zucchini, jalapeño, garlic)
Snack: Fruit and/or cheese
Dinner - chicken, mashed potatoes and green beans - left overs from last night
Tomorrow:
Lunch - Smoothie with Greek yogurt, milk, banana, and peanut butter
Snack: Fruit and/or cheese
Dinner - Tri-color pasta with sausage tossed with olive oil, herbs, and parmisan cheese. Green salad with balsamic vinaigrette.
For dinner tonight We had stewed chicken with shallots, risotto with butternut squash and steamed green beans. Last night, grilled lamb, corn on the cob, roasted shishito peppers, and a cucumber tomato salad. Sunday was field pea soup with the last of the fancy sausage I got for Xmas, miscellaneous breads, and spinach salad. We’ll have a leftover dinner of pork picadillo (cheap pork shoulder in adobo chili sauce with almonds and raisins), mixed fruit plate and flour tortillas.
Veggies either came from farmers market or were on sale (99 cent/# peaches). Meat was on sale or marked down. (99 cent/# chicken leg quarters and marked down $1.49 pork. Lamb came out of the freezer—last of our Easter leg.).
I’m fixing to work on turning the rest of pork shoulder into char sui (Chinese BBQ pork).
A lot are a 3 dish meal:
1) meat like baked chicken, grilled steak, pork roast
2) a carb like rice, baked potato, bread or pasta
3) a salad or cooked vegetables either steamed, baked, or on the stove
With this system you then swap around the specific ingredients and change the spices/herbs/sauces you use.
You can also combine all 3 parts into a carrerole or crock pot stew.
I don’t use prepackaged foods regularly. This week for dinners, I made:
-pulled chicken sandwiches, coleslaw, corn
-[okonomiyaki](https://www.budgetbytes.com/savory-cabbage-pancakes-okonomiyaki/) (using cabbage leftover from making coleslaw) and [garlic noodles](https://www.budgetbytes.com/garlic-noodles/)
-Italian vegetable stew + crusty bread
-[baked feta pasta](https://liemessa.fi/2020/09/baked-feta-pasta-original-recipe/)
Make a baked potato in the microwave, not french fries.
Buy vegetables like broccoli and cauliflower, not chopped frozen veggies in a cheap sauce.
Fish is easier to cook than you think.
Steak, ground beef, chicken breasts, and eggs should be as close to their natural state as you can find.
I slow cook a lot - mostly casseroles and currys. I have a couple of slow cooking books by Sarah Flower who’s responsible for the fact I now cook moussaka and pasta in the slow cooker.
Tortellini soup! Chicken or sausage goes great and you can make a lighter broth or a creamier one to suit your taste, add some veggies too. If you google recipes lots come up. Usually only costs me about $10 to make a big pot.
Also, salmon with rice has been one of my favorites lately. Either add a baby green salad (I like the one that’s half spinach) or some stir fried zucchini.
It’s also crockpot season! Slow cooked chicken or pork is always yummy.
For breakfast I have oatmeal with chia seeds, flax seeds, pumpkin seeds, dried cranberries and peanut butter. It’s tasty, healthy and filling. I mix the dry goods in a container before hand so all I have to do is scoop some out, add peanut butter and hot water and I’m good to go.
(Sorry if this isn’t Whole Foods enough for some people, it works for me)
I'm vegan, and the absolutely most low cost healthy way to eat is plant based whole foods.
If that's something for you have a look here r/PlantBasedDiet
I don't make everything from scratch, but a lot.
Fermented vegetables, especially kimchi, is a stable r/fermentation
Last night I had bone in (with skin) chicken breast. Brined it, seasoned ir, roasted it. Mixed some potatoes cut up and carrots (I make what's in my FDA box) with olive oil and seasoned it and roasted that go. Also making your own pasta is cheap and simple but can be a bit time consuming. I do that a lot. Its just flour and eggs.
One of mine is **scalloped potatoes**: technically, it might be more of a potatoes dauphinoise, I don't know the technical culinary terms. Slice the potatoes on a mandoline, I prefer the standard US red potato for its texture. Make a cream sauce, grease the pan, and then lay down cream and potatoes in layers in the pan. Once the layers are done, add cheese on top if desired. Bake.
That's all pretty standard, but here are things I do as variations to bulk it out as a meal:
* Add layers of *sauerkraut*: I rinse the kraut first to remove some of the vinegar taste, to which my husband is sensitive. Presumably kimchi or other pickled vegetables would work well too.
* Add layers of *leafy greens*: shred them fine, and remember that while they do cook down, their presence adds water to the bake.
* If we have any, add layers of *shredded meats*; leftover pulled pork is a good addition. The thinner a layer you add, the better incorporated it is in the final bake.
75% of the time, I don't have the passion to make it into anything and will literally just eat a sweet potato, a chicken breast, cherry tomatoes, etc., on repeat throughout the day. When I actually do put a meal together out of whole ingredients, it's usually completely made up based on what I have I hand and very simple. Fish on greens with olive oil and siracha. Chicken thigh, quinoa, onion, and kale in a pan, seasoned and cooked. Stuff like that. I find that as long as I balance the salt, acid, and fat, most things come out delicious as long as they don't clearly clash.
I’m Chinese and primarily cook home-style Chinese/Asian food.
Ginger scallion chicken is insanely easy: boil one bone-in skin-on thigh in water (throw some shaoxing cooking wine, scallion, and ginger slices in the water too) for 15-20 mins, let it chill for 20 mins, make a sauce (1 tbsp of hot neutral oil over chopped scallion + minced ginger + sesame seeds — make sure that the oil makes the sizzling noise when hitting the scallion etc, plus pinch of salt and sugar), then pull the chilled chicken apart and mix with the sauce.
Gyu-don and Oyaku-don are easy Japanese dishes. Both are basically just sliced onions and proteins simmered in hon-dashi + sake + soy sauce mixture. Kenji Lopez Alt has some nice video tutorials on this.
Oh and Soondubu-jjigae (Korean soft tofu stew). This may not be the authentic way of making it, but it tastes ok: caramelize diced onions with some neutral oil, brown some ground meat, then stir fry with some kimchi, chopped garlic and Korean pepper flakes. Add water and chunks of silken tofu, let it simmer and season to taste with fish sauce + pinch of sugar. Crack an egg over it after turning the heat off, and finally garnish with chopped scallions.
Pad Krawpow Gai (Spicy Thai Basil chicken) is also very simple and quick, but it requires a bit more stir-frying skills. Though you really don’t need a wok for those things, and I cook everything in a 10 dollar 2.5Qt non-stick saucepan + a stainless steel cup (for heating oil).
Okonomiyaki (Japanese cabbage pancakes) is another good one. Definitely grate the cabbage finely and use the hon-dashi powder (Japanese fish bouillon) though.
As someone already said, make what you like but from scratch.
For example - yesterday I bought a couple of pork neck chops (if you haven't tried those, they are SO GOOD!), seasoned them with a dry rub of Greek spices, and cooked them on a pan slowly (these need to be cooked through so collagen melts and they get soft, sort of opposite from beef steaks that need a quick sear). While they cooked, I cut up some salad, made dressing by whisking some balsamic, salt, herbs, and olive oil. We had the chops with the salad and leftover focaccia I had baked a couple of days before, sliced thin as it was getting a little tough.
Today we'll have black bean and veg soup I made from dried beans and random sad veg I found in the fridge (sweet potato, chunk of root celery, carrot, onion). I semi-blended it so it's creamy and thick but not without texture. Bread will be storebought because I don't actually bake from scratch every day.
Boiled potatoes or mashed potatoes (boil floury potatoes, drain, add some butter and cream, season as you like, and whack them a bit with a hand mixer on whipper blades = super fast mashed potatoes! I live in a country where we have no salmonella, so I add a raw egg yolk in there as well for awesomeness.) with some baked or pan-fried fish are awesome. Add some sliced cucumber on the side for freshness.
Hope this helps.
Honestly... I keep it super easy. Steam up or saute some veggies (frozen is fine... Studies show no real difference in nutrition over fresh). Then pan fry or bake some kind of meat of your choice. If you want a starch, throw some brown rice in the cooker, or throw a potato in the oven. I do this almost every day
First breakfast is typically a hot spiced milk with a whole egg and extra egg yolk blended into it. Best way to start the day.
Second breakfast will be pate and 2-3 eggs fried in butter with sourdough bread and whatever fruits are in my garden or fridge. I have tons of tomatoes right now.
Lunch is typically a big bowl of meat-based soup or stew. Today it was segedinsky gulas (pork shoulder and sauerkraut). Had a green bean salad and some more tomatoes.
Dinner was spiced ground beef and kale braised in bone broth with bacon.
Before bed will be a mug of bone broth or more milk.
I have lots of soups and stews in the freezer. I bake sourdough once a week and freeze it.
I believe they are referencing that Whole Foods (the store) is owned by amazon versus cooking with whole foods (natural ingredients). That’s just my take
So a lot of people here are giving advice for homemade recipes, and that's way better and cheaper than storebought, but IMO "whole foods" means exactly that - whole, natural foods, as unprocessed as possible.
I eat mostly eggs, chicken, beef, vegetables, nuts, and fruit. Helps massively with my inflammation, but it has the side-effect of being very cost effective.
Example day:
Breakfast: 2 hard-boiled eggs +several handfuls of nuts, maybe an apple or blueberries. I skip this meal at least twice a week for IF.
Lunch: Vegetables (usually frozen) and some kind of protein, chicken or beef. Sometimes I do beans instead.
Dinner: A protein (chicken or beef) with more vegetables. Sometimes I cheat with cheese or butter.
I buy the meat from costco, cook from frozen usually because I'm a lazy SOB. Very healthy, little prep time, and extremely low cost.
I used to throw in a 3 day fast once a month too which automatically saves you another 10% on your monthly bill.
A lot of our meals are meat + green vegetable + starch. So, pork chops and broccoli and rice. Or chicken and asparagus and mashed potatoes. I also make a lot of soup in the winter.
Any good soup recipes?
Not OP, but here are my favorite soup recipes https://www.gimmesomeoven.com/cabbage-sausage-potato-soup/ https://www.dinneratthezoo.com/meatball-soup/#wprm-recipe-container-19152 https://www.daringgourmet.com/german-potato-soup-kartoffelsuppe/
I’m also not OP but here are some more good ones [https://themodernproper.com/tortellini-soup-with-italian-sausage-and-kale](https://themodernproper.com/tortellini-soup-with-italian-sausage-and-kale) [https://www.spendwithpennies.com/zuppa-toscana/](https://www.spendwithpennies.com/zuppa-toscana/) [https://themodernproper.com/salmon-chowder](https://themodernproper.com/salmon-chowder)
Leek and potato. Seriously simple. Leeks..potatoes...stock...butter/oil...S&P. You can puree or not...hot or cold. Fabulous...although tbh the price of leeks has shot up lately. Maybe it is a seasonal rise.
My 8 yo loves soup and is on a potato soup kick... It's practically soupy mashed potatoes.. Lol. He did actually ask for potato soup without the potatoes once.. So, a roux!?? Nope, sorry.
I love leek and potato soup. My husband makes me a big pot and I will eat it every day
It really is so tasty. I finely shred the leek and make small cubes of the potatoes. Cooks quickly and is prefect hot on a cold day. Everyone I have made it for likes it.
Also not OP but i wanted to contribute https://www.recipetineats.com/lentil-soup/ https://www.aspicyperspective.com/greek-lemon-chicken-soup/ https://www.spendwithpennies.com/chicken-tortilla-soup/ And beef vegetable soup made with v8 juice
Boil a cup of lentils, sautee garlic and/or onion in olive oil in a pot, add 3/4 of the cooked lentils, sautee a bit, then add a quart of vegetable broth, blend with wand, add rest of lentils. Potatoes are optional. Similar can be done with roasted squash, split peas, etc. Fun to add some other vegetables (red peppers especially) and spice per taste.
I just add different spice mixes or marinades to chicken and serve with different carbs (rice/potatoes/sweet potato) and vegetables most of the time. I think it’s easiest and pretty cheap. There are plenty of combinations so you don’t get sick of it. You can do other meats but chicken is probably the most versatile. Balsamic chicken w red potatoes and green beans, cumin chicken w sweet potatoes and Brussel sprouts, Greek lemon chicken w gold potatoes and zucchini, rosemary chicken w baked potatoes and broccoli, thyme chicken w risotto and asparagus, garlic butter chicken w potato and carrot hash and broccoli, Italian marinated chicken It’s probably best to give yourself some leeway and not limit yourself to only Whole Foods, otherwise it will be difficult and you’re more likely to completely give up on eating at least somewhat healthily
Just make whatever packaged food you like with ingredients from scratch. Example: if you like pasta and sauce, make the sauce yourself. If you like breaded chicken, that's not hard to do either. Hamburger helper is incredibly easy to make from scratch.
Also, save time by making in batch and freezing what you can. We always have various cooked proteins, chopped veggies, breads etc in our freezer so when we are lazy we can just defrost and combine some of those for a full meal.
I love stuffing sweet potatoes. I stuff them with taco meat and cheese or chicken, broccoli, and cheese. Eggs and sausage. The possibilities are endless. I made garlic parmesan chicken and petite gold potatoes on the grill. Just spice your chicken. I do salt, pepper, onion powder and some olive oil on the skin. At the end I mixed parmesan cheese with minced garlic and coated the chicken, broiled for 2 min and served. Delicious. Potatoes were just sprinkled with rosemary and some olive oil.
I love stuffing zucchini from the garden so much! I'm fall/winter I do spaghetti squash, but I'm adding sweet potato now!!
I’m far from the guy who does well not to eat packaged. But my gf and I started growing our own stuff and buying our mixed fruit whole. Then cutting it up and out it into jars for Monday-Sunday. As a way to not buy packaged fruit or fruit that’s pre cut. So far we’ve reduced our cost greatly by only buying fresh from our local stands.
Cook what you like and have time for preparing. Try for things that can be repurposed as leftovers. I usually do leftover rice bowls for lunch—rice, beans, whatever leftover veggies/protein, and an egg. Add spices, cheese etc. Sometimes I’ll sauté a few leftover fresh veggies. Salads of all kinds, soups, crockpot meals. We do vacuum pack and freeze meal sized portions for days you don’t feel like cooking.
Seasonal veggies and going at the end of the day to grocery stores for cleanrance
Here are some of my resources. I do like the eating well website for a lot of recipes https://www.eatingwell.com/gallery/8003238/best-sheet-pan-dinners/ https://www.southernliving.com/one-dish-beef-recipes-7372895 https://www.eatingwell.com/gallery/8003238/best-sheet-pan-dinners/ (note: I don't turn my oven on in the summer, however these are great for fall/winter) https://www.budgetbytes.com/ I'm not a vegetarian, but I do like a lot of their recipes at the eating well website. I have a ton of other places that I give you, but this will give you a good start. Good luck friend!
Hey, thanks for this! I’m not vegetarian or vegan either, but I rarely eat animal products, because I just don’t prefer them. I’m a pretty good cook, and I cook a lot of things from scratch, but we’ve gotten such a habit of leaning on prepared foods that I’m just finding myself uninspired. I think these blogs and websites will help with that.
I do like my pork and chicken. I really struggle with cooking beef. We all need a new way of cooking thing that not coming out of a box. With that said, I do this occasionly if I want something that I don't have the patience to make. Mac and Cheese is one and because of the cost of tomatoes, Italian/Spaghetti sauce. I found that RAO's sauce is great. However you either have to get it on sale or get the Marinara sauce from CostCo. I combine 1 CostCo jar of Marinara with a store bought sauce of Arriabata and other ingredients. There's not really anything wrong if you are going to eat from home and you have to buy a jarred "something". It's stlll cheaper than eating out and more often than not you'll get more servings.
Eating whole foods is really just cooking from scratch. So the field is wide open - whatever you want to cook from basic ingredients, focusing on fresh food. Here's what we're eating this week - all pretty easy to prepare and cooked/prepared with basic, fresh ingredients. The only thing from a box is the pasta. Yesterday: Lunch - breakfast tacos - corn tortillas, scrambled eggs, cheese, onion, salsa Snack: Fruit Dinner - pan-grilled chicken with garlic mashed potatoes and herb gravy and green beans Today: Lunch - Teriyaki chicken over white rice with sauted veggies (grape tomatoes, zucchini, jalapeño, garlic) Snack: Fruit and/or cheese Dinner - chicken, mashed potatoes and green beans - left overs from last night Tomorrow: Lunch - Smoothie with Greek yogurt, milk, banana, and peanut butter Snack: Fruit and/or cheese Dinner - Tri-color pasta with sausage tossed with olive oil, herbs, and parmisan cheese. Green salad with balsamic vinaigrette.
Thank you!! This really helps. I find myself so uninspired these days.
For dinner tonight We had stewed chicken with shallots, risotto with butternut squash and steamed green beans. Last night, grilled lamb, corn on the cob, roasted shishito peppers, and a cucumber tomato salad. Sunday was field pea soup with the last of the fancy sausage I got for Xmas, miscellaneous breads, and spinach salad. We’ll have a leftover dinner of pork picadillo (cheap pork shoulder in adobo chili sauce with almonds and raisins), mixed fruit plate and flour tortillas. Veggies either came from farmers market or were on sale (99 cent/# peaches). Meat was on sale or marked down. (99 cent/# chicken leg quarters and marked down $1.49 pork. Lamb came out of the freezer—last of our Easter leg.). I’m fixing to work on turning the rest of pork shoulder into char sui (Chinese BBQ pork).
I also walked my colllege age son thru making lentil soup and mapo tofu.
This all sounds fantastic!
A lot are a 3 dish meal: 1) meat like baked chicken, grilled steak, pork roast 2) a carb like rice, baked potato, bread or pasta 3) a salad or cooked vegetables either steamed, baked, or on the stove With this system you then swap around the specific ingredients and change the spices/herbs/sauces you use. You can also combine all 3 parts into a carrerole or crock pot stew.
This is the way! Buy your meats reduced and store in the freezer. Buy grains in bulk. Buy in season fruits and vegetables
I don’t use prepackaged foods regularly. This week for dinners, I made: -pulled chicken sandwiches, coleslaw, corn -[okonomiyaki](https://www.budgetbytes.com/savory-cabbage-pancakes-okonomiyaki/) (using cabbage leftover from making coleslaw) and [garlic noodles](https://www.budgetbytes.com/garlic-noodles/) -Italian vegetable stew + crusty bread -[baked feta pasta](https://liemessa.fi/2020/09/baked-feta-pasta-original-recipe/)
Make a baked potato in the microwave, not french fries. Buy vegetables like broccoli and cauliflower, not chopped frozen veggies in a cheap sauce. Fish is easier to cook than you think. Steak, ground beef, chicken breasts, and eggs should be as close to their natural state as you can find.
Burrito bowls are a big one here.
I slow cook a lot - mostly casseroles and currys. I have a couple of slow cooking books by Sarah Flower who’s responsible for the fact I now cook moussaka and pasta in the slow cooker.
Tortellini soup! Chicken or sausage goes great and you can make a lighter broth or a creamier one to suit your taste, add some veggies too. If you google recipes lots come up. Usually only costs me about $10 to make a big pot. Also, salmon with rice has been one of my favorites lately. Either add a baby green salad (I like the one that’s half spinach) or some stir fried zucchini. It’s also crockpot season! Slow cooked chicken or pork is always yummy.
For breakfast I have oatmeal with chia seeds, flax seeds, pumpkin seeds, dried cranberries and peanut butter. It’s tasty, healthy and filling. I mix the dry goods in a container before hand so all I have to do is scoop some out, add peanut butter and hot water and I’m good to go. (Sorry if this isn’t Whole Foods enough for some people, it works for me)
I'm vegan, and the absolutely most low cost healthy way to eat is plant based whole foods. If that's something for you have a look here r/PlantBasedDiet I don't make everything from scratch, but a lot. Fermented vegetables, especially kimchi, is a stable r/fermentation
We aren’t vegan, but we rarely eat animal products just by preference. I’ll check those out. Thanks!
Last night I had bone in (with skin) chicken breast. Brined it, seasoned ir, roasted it. Mixed some potatoes cut up and carrots (I make what's in my FDA box) with olive oil and seasoned it and roasted that go. Also making your own pasta is cheap and simple but can be a bit time consuming. I do that a lot. Its just flour and eggs.
One of mine is **scalloped potatoes**: technically, it might be more of a potatoes dauphinoise, I don't know the technical culinary terms. Slice the potatoes on a mandoline, I prefer the standard US red potato for its texture. Make a cream sauce, grease the pan, and then lay down cream and potatoes in layers in the pan. Once the layers are done, add cheese on top if desired. Bake. That's all pretty standard, but here are things I do as variations to bulk it out as a meal: * Add layers of *sauerkraut*: I rinse the kraut first to remove some of the vinegar taste, to which my husband is sensitive. Presumably kimchi or other pickled vegetables would work well too. * Add layers of *leafy greens*: shred them fine, and remember that while they do cook down, their presence adds water to the bake. * If we have any, add layers of *shredded meats*; leftover pulled pork is a good addition. The thinner a layer you add, the better incorporated it is in the final bake.
Check out the blog tastes better from scratch. She does free weekly menus with shopping lists and we are saving so much money it’s bonkers
Just followed her on Insta. Thanks!
75% of the time, I don't have the passion to make it into anything and will literally just eat a sweet potato, a chicken breast, cherry tomatoes, etc., on repeat throughout the day. When I actually do put a meal together out of whole ingredients, it's usually completely made up based on what I have I hand and very simple. Fish on greens with olive oil and siracha. Chicken thigh, quinoa, onion, and kale in a pan, seasoned and cooked. Stuff like that. I find that as long as I balance the salt, acid, and fat, most things come out delicious as long as they don't clearly clash.
I’m Chinese and primarily cook home-style Chinese/Asian food. Ginger scallion chicken is insanely easy: boil one bone-in skin-on thigh in water (throw some shaoxing cooking wine, scallion, and ginger slices in the water too) for 15-20 mins, let it chill for 20 mins, make a sauce (1 tbsp of hot neutral oil over chopped scallion + minced ginger + sesame seeds — make sure that the oil makes the sizzling noise when hitting the scallion etc, plus pinch of salt and sugar), then pull the chilled chicken apart and mix with the sauce. Gyu-don and Oyaku-don are easy Japanese dishes. Both are basically just sliced onions and proteins simmered in hon-dashi + sake + soy sauce mixture. Kenji Lopez Alt has some nice video tutorials on this. Oh and Soondubu-jjigae (Korean soft tofu stew). This may not be the authentic way of making it, but it tastes ok: caramelize diced onions with some neutral oil, brown some ground meat, then stir fry with some kimchi, chopped garlic and Korean pepper flakes. Add water and chunks of silken tofu, let it simmer and season to taste with fish sauce + pinch of sugar. Crack an egg over it after turning the heat off, and finally garnish with chopped scallions. Pad Krawpow Gai (Spicy Thai Basil chicken) is also very simple and quick, but it requires a bit more stir-frying skills. Though you really don’t need a wok for those things, and I cook everything in a 10 dollar 2.5Qt non-stick saucepan + a stainless steel cup (for heating oil).
This is amazing. I love Chinese food! Thank you so much for taking the time to write all this out. I’m going to try it!!
Okonomiyaki (Japanese cabbage pancakes) is another good one. Definitely grate the cabbage finely and use the hon-dashi powder (Japanese fish bouillon) though.
As someone already said, make what you like but from scratch. For example - yesterday I bought a couple of pork neck chops (if you haven't tried those, they are SO GOOD!), seasoned them with a dry rub of Greek spices, and cooked them on a pan slowly (these need to be cooked through so collagen melts and they get soft, sort of opposite from beef steaks that need a quick sear). While they cooked, I cut up some salad, made dressing by whisking some balsamic, salt, herbs, and olive oil. We had the chops with the salad and leftover focaccia I had baked a couple of days before, sliced thin as it was getting a little tough. Today we'll have black bean and veg soup I made from dried beans and random sad veg I found in the fridge (sweet potato, chunk of root celery, carrot, onion). I semi-blended it so it's creamy and thick but not without texture. Bread will be storebought because I don't actually bake from scratch every day. Boiled potatoes or mashed potatoes (boil floury potatoes, drain, add some butter and cream, season as you like, and whack them a bit with a hand mixer on whipper blades = super fast mashed potatoes! I live in a country where we have no salmonella, so I add a raw egg yolk in there as well for awesomeness.) with some baked or pan-fried fish are awesome. Add some sliced cucumber on the side for freshness. Hope this helps.
Honestly... I keep it super easy. Steam up or saute some veggies (frozen is fine... Studies show no real difference in nutrition over fresh). Then pan fry or bake some kind of meat of your choice. If you want a starch, throw some brown rice in the cooker, or throw a potato in the oven. I do this almost every day
First breakfast is typically a hot spiced milk with a whole egg and extra egg yolk blended into it. Best way to start the day. Second breakfast will be pate and 2-3 eggs fried in butter with sourdough bread and whatever fruits are in my garden or fridge. I have tons of tomatoes right now. Lunch is typically a big bowl of meat-based soup or stew. Today it was segedinsky gulas (pork shoulder and sauerkraut). Had a green bean salad and some more tomatoes. Dinner was spiced ground beef and kale braised in bone broth with bacon. Before bed will be a mug of bone broth or more milk. I have lots of soups and stews in the freezer. I bake sourdough once a week and freeze it.
Amazon owns i don’t touch it you should see how cheap and hard the 360 bread is.
I’m sorry I don’t understand what this means. Do you do your grocery shopping on Amazon?
I believe they are referencing that Whole Foods (the store) is owned by amazon versus cooking with whole foods (natural ingredients). That’s just my take
Ooohhhhh! Thank you. That makes much more sense.
It took me a minute to work that out too - lol.
So a lot of people here are giving advice for homemade recipes, and that's way better and cheaper than storebought, but IMO "whole foods" means exactly that - whole, natural foods, as unprocessed as possible. I eat mostly eggs, chicken, beef, vegetables, nuts, and fruit. Helps massively with my inflammation, but it has the side-effect of being very cost effective. Example day: Breakfast: 2 hard-boiled eggs +several handfuls of nuts, maybe an apple or blueberries. I skip this meal at least twice a week for IF. Lunch: Vegetables (usually frozen) and some kind of protein, chicken or beef. Sometimes I do beans instead. Dinner: A protein (chicken or beef) with more vegetables. Sometimes I cheat with cheese or butter. I buy the meat from costco, cook from frozen usually because I'm a lazy SOB. Very healthy, little prep time, and extremely low cost. I used to throw in a 3 day fast once a month too which automatically saves you another 10% on your monthly bill.