Easy to make meals - Cheap - Young guy living on his own

Re Sauces.


I wouldn’t go so far as disagree completely, but I would not put that as a priority or rush to learn it. What you will end up with is rather learning to cook, you end up learning to make sauces.

Learn to cook first, how to cook meat, how to cook vegetables, how to cook pasta, how to cook rice, how to bake, how to stew, how to season etc. Start simple, learn the principles. Food, when cooked right, has natural flavours. A nice piece of Wagyu only need a tiny bit of salt or perhaps a touch of wasabi (not a sauce, it is grated root) and nothing else. They don’t serve it with a side of ketchup and if you did ask for it, they will be offended. Train your palette to taste food as its core, the freshness, the texture, the crunch, the natural flavours of fresh ingredients. Don’t learn to like sauces, learn to like food.

Sauces can come later, they are a compliment, they are to take it up the next level. Once you know how food tastes, then you can figure out what sauces compliments it. As opposed to make sauces and make everything taste the same. It’s like I see some people drown everything in ketchup or BBQ sauce. Or some people who has to have sauce in everything and they can’t eat anything dry. Like eating fried rice, why do you need a sauce to go on top of it? It’s all from bad habits growing up, everything has to have some kind of liquid coating in it.

p.s. in terms of calorie, sauces has some of the highest concentration of calorie in a meal. It’s because they are mostly made from fat and sugar a lot of the time.

You can probably tell I hardly ever make sauces.
 
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neviditelny said:
@Raymond Lin I really agree with you there. Not everything needs a sauce, and using the various ingredients naturally can bring out flavours even more. It should be there to add something, not hide or drown other foods out.
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Sauces has their place, some dishes is all about the sauce but the fundamentals of cooking is know when food is cooked just right. Take grilled Asparagus, know when they are done. Stop, then sprinkle with sea salt and black pepper, then get a tiny bit of butter and place it over the top and watch it melt.

It will not only taste good, but look great. You can just imagine it like a M&S advert.

How hard is that? you only need Asparagus, Salt, Pepper and butter.
 
I've never tried grilled asparagus like that, will try give it a go. I'm still learning more and more myself about cooking,it is a lot to learn but it is fun. Going to be some interesting times in the kitchen next month when I have to quarantine after my holiday and I will actually have time to cook, at the moment I've been batch cooking due to working a lot of nights.

Some meals will be truly enhanced by a good sauce, specially a proper made sauce instead of the powder sauces.
 
Had a go at a Katsu curry last week - I ****** up the sauce by misreading the recipe but managed to work around it, just ended up being too thick. Will definitely make again, can probably be done in 30 mins if you're efficient with the prep / timings.
 
neviditelny said:
I've never tried grilled asparagus like that, will try give it a go. I'm still learning more and more myself about cooking,it is a lot to learn but it is fun. Going to be some interesting times in the kitchen next month when I have to quarantine after my holiday and I will actually have time to cook, at the moment I've been batch cooking due to working a lot of nights.

Some meals will be truly enhanced by a good sauce, specially a proper made sauce instead of the powder sauces.
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When I say grill, I meant griddle or a pan. You can put it under a grill.

I have never actually batched cooked, unless you count cooking too much spag bol and had to freeze some. Mainly because I don't have a microwave (or working oven) to hand so it forces me to cook fresh every single meal. I have learned a lot of alternate ways to make the same thing, like making pizza with just a cast iron pan. Later I found out that Jamie Oliver also did the same thing in one of his videos!
 
I tend to batch cook as I work in the NHS and do 12-13 hour shifts depending on doing day or nights, thats why I batch cook so I have food in the freezer for the dayshifts where I tend to eat more than on nights. But I try to cook fresh food most days.
 
neviditelny said:
I tend to batch cook as I work in the NHS and do 12-13 hour shifts depending on doing day or nights, thats why I batch cook so I have food in the freezer for the dayshifts where I tend to eat more than on nights. But I try to cook fresh food most days.
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There are a lot of easy meals, some I don't even need to turn on the fire.

For example.

Bag of salad + tomatoes + roast chicken thigh from the hot meat counter at supermarket = chicken salad. I literally put salad on a plate, put in whole cherry tomatoes. tear the chicken thigh with my (clean) hands, then salt + pepper + little olive oil. It's pretty healthy and takes like a minute. If I have some olives in a jar, throw a few in too to add some tartness.

If I want warm food, I find tinned fish like Sardines, you can get them already in various sauces. It is a good sauce of protein and good fats. Boil some rice (15mins), literally put the fish straight into it and mix. The sardines is like 40p from Tesco, a single portion of rice is like 25p? It's less than £1 for the meal. If I am feeling fancy I could add a fried egg and chop some spring onions to add a sharpness to the dish.

Or if you like Pasta, then boil some pasta, add some pesto,I prefer green pesto (you can make your own, pretty easy or in a jar), often on the side, I pan fry some mussels in garlic and butter, and put it into the pasta and you have a seafood pasta dish. It will take the time to cook the pasta.
 
Some people love cooking. Some people hate it. I'm in the former camp - I find the methodical preparation calming and cathartic, and I enjoy the opportunity to be creative at the same time. I completely understand that some people find it nothing more than a chore, and you may find yourself in that boat. The hardest bit about cooking - well, following a recipe at least - is the timing. I find that people who dislike cooking tend to be those who don't get on with that aspect of it. So, some advice:

- Prepare everything before you start cooking. That means chopping vegetables, weighing ingredients, getting herbs and spices out of the cupboard, and cleaning up the mess you made while doing so. If you don't do that, you'll end up stressed when it comes to actually doing the cooking. And once you've finished eating you won't be put off by the masses of cleaning to be done.
- Build a mental timeline of what's happening when. Recipes have a tendency to run things in parallel (including preparation) so decoding it in advance is really helpful.
- If a recipe calls for an oven to be preheated, do so with plenty of time (usually at least 10 minutes). If you don't, all your timing will get thrown off as you're waiting longer for your food to cook.

In terms of getting started, I'd suggest learning how to make a basic ragu. Chopped onion, a couple of minced garlic cloves, fried in a small amount of olive oil. Add minced beef and brown, then tinned chopped tomatoes (or passata, which I prefer), a beef stock pot, mixed herbs. Simmer until it's thickened then season with salt + pepper to taste. You can serve that with spaghetti for a bolognese or mix with cooked pasta, top with cheese and bake for a simple pasta bake. You can add spices (cumin, coriander, chilli powder and a touch of cocoa powder) with kidney beans to turn it into a chilli. Once you've mastered that you can start messing with it - adding celery & carrot for extra flavour, or red wine to make a really rich sauce. Add fresh herbs rather than dried. Make big batches and freeze individual portions.

Curries are also fairly straightforward to cook, but usually require more prep work (and having all the ingredients in). But as with the ragu, you can make big batches of the gravy, freeze it and then use that to make individual meals a lot more quickly.
 
Thanks for all the help and info guys looks like I've got a lot of reading to do :)

I'm mainly looking for healthy cheap things that don't take long to make for tea. (evening meals)

I will be buying my lunch and breakfast on the go for now until i up my skills :)
 
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DomBruv said:
I will be buying my lunch and breakfast on the go for now until i up my skills :)
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Why? You started this thread because you wanted healthy and cheap. Buying food out is neither of those things and you'll just be undoing any hard work from your dinner-cooking escapades.

Look at overnight oats for breakfast. We make a tupperware of 4 portions every other night (two days between a couple), but that'd obviously last you 4 days on your own. It's a simple; equal parts/cups oat and milk, plus half as much greek yoghurt. There's tons of overly complicated recipes out there but we just have that as a base and add our own stuff in the morning. E.g. I put chia seeds, 7 almonds, 1/2 banan, a handful of blueberries and some honey. It takes as long as it does to boil the kettle and make my cuppa to go with it every morning. No stress. Infinitely better for you and probably costs a tenth of takeaway breakfast.

https://www.thekitchn.com/overnight-oats-268370
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/collection/overnight-oats
 
Scam said:
Why? You started this thread because you wanted healthy and cheap. Buying food out is neither of those things and you'll just be undoing any hard work from your dinner-cooking escapades.

Look at overnight oats for breakfast. We make a tupperware of 4 portions every other night (two days between a couple), but that'd obviously last you 4 days on your own. It's a simple; equal parts/cups oat and milk, plus half as much greek yoghurt. There's tons of overly complicated recipes out there but we just have that as a base and add our own stuff in the morning. E.g. I put chia seeds, 7 almonds, 1/2 banan, a handful of blueberries and some honey. It takes as long as it does to boil the kettle and make my cuppa to go with it every morning. No stress. Infinitely better for you and probably costs a tenth of takeaway breakfast.

https://www.thekitchn.com/overnight-oats-268370
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/collection/overnight-oats
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I usually buy mirrors meal deal with is £3 for a big sandwich side and drink, if i could make it for less than this myself i would, but i just can't seem to get it any cheaper than that.

my breakfast is just a bar as i find it hard to eat on mornings.
 
xyphic said:
Curries are also fairly straightforward to cook, but usually require more prep work (and having all the ingredients in). But as with the ragu, you can make big batches of the gravy, freeze it and then use that to make individual meals a lot more quickly.
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I've recently been making a lot of Katsu curry, often only with paneer or something. So easy!
 
tuftyfella said:
I use https://www.budgetbytes.com/ quite often. :)
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I also use BudgetBytes and highly recommend it.

I'd also recommend Basics with Babish for a video series on learning to cook; https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLopY4n17t8RBuyIohlCY9G8sbyXrdEJls

I find it is always good to try making new dishes like once a week or so. You don't want to get stuck in a rut of only cooking the same thing.


DomBruv said:
I will be buying my lunch and breakfast on the go for now until i up my skills :)
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Nooo. Breakfast and lunch are easy, and will save you so much money if you make them yourself.

You don't have to eat 'breakfast' items for breakfast, if you want chicken and rice from last nights dinner, go for it.

I also like to have a treat every now and again and make sausage and egg muffins which are lovely.
 
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Cleisthenes said:
I've recently been making a lot of Katsu curry, often only with paneer or something. So easy!
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That's our treat meal nowadays, lol. Sad eh :p We do it with tofu though. The conclusion is; anything breadcrumbed and fried is nice especially with curry sauce on :D

Love that S&B Golden Curry sauce!
 
Best easiest cheapest food you can make at home is pesto tbh.

Pasta.
Basil plant on your windowsill. You'll get enough of it for a portion of pesto a week easy.
Parmesan.
Pine nuts.
Olive oil
A bit of water.

Cook pasta.
Chop basil leaves and pine nuts.
Grate parmesan.
Mix together with oil and a bit of water. Food processor optional.

Stir through pasta. Done.
 
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