How I Make 20 Healthy Meals for $30

Today, I'm going to show you guys the frugal way to make 20 healthy, fresh meals for just about 30 US bucks. Obviously, 30 bucks is an extremely tight budget, but this is the exact way that Lauren and I ate for almost two consecutive years while trying to pay off my $80,000 of student loan debt. So it can be done. Before we get to the process, though, we'll need to talk about the grocery list. All the ingredients for all the recipes in this video cost me just about 33 US dollars, Starting with the protein, I've got four huge bone-in chicken legs. These are possibly the best value of any item on this list. That is a lot of delicious, versatile protein for only $1.19 a pound. That's insane. Next, I've got a two-pound bag of black beans here and one dozen eggs. For the produce, I've got two onions, one avocado, some carrot sticks because they were the cheapest carrot item at the grocery store, and they'll actually save me some knife work later on. You'll see. Next, I've got a whole head of cabbage here because it's nutritious, voluminous, full of gut-healthy fiber, and it's so cheap that it's almost free. This three-pound head was like $1.99. I've also got a giant two-pound bag of chopped kale to bring in my leafy greens. I've got a head of garlic and a fresh poblano pepper, a clamshell of fresh mushrooms, a bundle of fresh cilantro, a clamshell of cherry tomatoes, and a bag of frozen peas. Those are technically a vegetable. The other stuff that I've got to fill out the meals here is a big bag of cheap rice. Yes, exactly the type of cheap rice I told you guys on several occasions to avoid because it's not premium. Don't worry about that. I've also got some crumbly, salty feta cheese, a small can of tomato sauce, and a can of tomato paste. And then lastly, I've got a sleeve of tostada shells because they crunchy. What I'm not including in this price tag are the standard issue pantry items that most home cooks should have on hand, like cooking oil, salt, pepper, spices, and condiments. But one last thing that I want to clarify before I start is that we're going to be cooking only five times, but making 20 portions of food at least. How do I do that? Well, leftovers. You guys have heard of those. That means that when we're cooking Monday's dinner, we'll also be cooking Tuesday's lunch. Yes, not only is this a budget-friendly video, but it's also a labor-saving one. So to get started on the first dish, I'm going to throw one pound of overnight soaked black beans into my pressure cooker, then cover it with about two inches of water. From here, I'll just set the timer to 45 minutes and then cook it on high pressure. Of course, if you don't want to trouble yourself with soaking and instant potting your beans into tenderness, then you could go for canned beans. They're easier for sure, but they're about double the price as dried. If you can swing the extra three bucks, I'd say go for those. You'll need four cans to match this recipe. Now, while those beans cook, I'll get started on my other main component, sofrito rice. To make it, I'll take one of my two onions, my poblano pepper, three to four cloves of garlic and most of my bunch of a fresh cilantro and chop them down until they're all pretty small. Yes, you could use a food processor to do this job, but that makes a bunch of extra dirty dishes. So it's up to you how complicated you want to make this. Next, into a hot Dutch oven, I'll add in a long squiggy of olive oil, 30 to 40 grams worth, then 400 grams of rice that I've rinsed to remove the excessive starch. From here, I'll give that rice a stir and a fry for three to four minutes over medium heat. Once the rice grains are toasty and translucent like this, I'll add in all of my chopped aromatics and then 12 grams of salt. I'll jump into the pot now and stir to combine, and then I'll fry until the onions and peppers are softened and just starting to take on a little bit of color. That'll take about five minutes or so. Next, in goes five grams of cumin and 30 grams of tomato paste. I'll give all that a quick stir to toast the spices and to cook off the raw tinny flavor of the paste. And once the colors turn from red to rusty orange and the pot is glazing up on the bottom, I'll add in 650 grams of water and one small can of tomato sauce. I'll bring that all up to a simmer, pop on a lid, and then throw it into a 350 F oven to bake for 20 minutes. While that cooks, I'm going to take that two pound bag of kale and turn it into possibly the most versatile dish in this entire video, garlicky kale. To make it, I'll add in three to four cloves of minced garlic into a medium hot pan and fry it with a bunch of olive oil. And then I'll give that 20 to 30 seconds or so. And then next in goes my whole bag of kale. It's a big boy and it's going to barely fit into this 12 inch nonstick pan. But once I've got it smashed down, there we go, I'll add in a splash of water to jump start the steaming process and to make sure the garlic underneath doesn't get burnt. And then I'll trap that steam with a lid and cover it for four to five minutes over medium heat. And after four to five minutes, I'll come back, pop the lid. And as you can see, this kale has shrunk quite a bit and it's well on its way to being tender. At this point, I'll add in a few strong pinches of salt, stir to combine, and then saute for another five minutes or until the fibrous stems are as tender as blanched broccoli. Think snappy, but tender. This dish is delicious and very useful. It brings fiber and nutrition to any dish. Plus, it only takes about 10 minutes and provides three to four days worth of green vegetables. From here, I'll set this kale aside, then snatch my rice out of the oven. I need to let it finish cooking out of the oven now, so I'm going to give it 10 more minutes covered. 10 minutes later, when I pop the top, you can see we've got beautifully swollen rice that's perfectly cooked. Flavor-wise, it's bright from the tomato and deeply aromatic from the sofrito. Plus, frying it first in the olive oil like we did helps keep the grains intact and separate. Usually, budget rice is a broken, bloated, overcooked mess. Now, to finish those beans that we started earlier, I'm going to pop the pressure after 45 minutes, then give them a quick refry. Into a saucepan over medium heat, I'll add in a long squeezer of olive oil, then a little spoonful of cumin, chili powder, onion powder, and garlic powder. From here, I'll gently fry that together for 30 to 45 seconds to open up their flavor. Then I'll add in half of my drained beans and about a cup of my bean cooking liquid. Next, I'll jump in with a ground beef masher and smush these beans while they simmer for about three minutes. I know right now you're thinking, Brad, this is a lot of prep. And it is. But the first night of cooking serves as a kind of meal prep for the rest of the week. Night two and night four have almost no active cooking, and they require very little cleanup. Now, once the beans are all smushed, I'll add in the other half and then stir to combine. To finish, I'll add a strong grip of salt and then a tablespoon of vinegar. Yes, I'm using vinegar instead of limes because I had the vinegar and it was free, and limes cost like 75 cents. Now, a quick stir to combine to get it all seasoned up. And there we go. Smooth but toothsome refried beans. You've got the creaminess from the puree and you've got some bean texture from the whole bean. Now, to put it all together, I'll drop some sofrito rice on a plate, then a large grip of garlicky kale, then a couple spoonfuls of my refried beans. By the way, if your beans aren't saucy like this, add in a little bit of water. They tighten up when they cool. And oh yeah, for a little bonus protein, I'll sneak on a whole fried egg. And then finally, to bring some acid and sweetness, I'll add a little ziggy of some hot sauce. You guys, this is a lot of craveable food for very little money. In fact, I love cooking like this because being constrained by cost or ingredients is a great way to unlock creativity in the kitchen and to learn how to work hard to build flavor from scratch. Anyone can make steak taste good, but it takes a real cook to make a plate of beans and rice sing. Now, for day two, we'll bring in some meat. I'll start with all four of my chicken legs laid out on parchment on a sheet tray. Then I'll season them liberally with salt and pepper on both sides. From here, I'll load the whole sheet tray into a ripping hot 450F oven and bake them for 45 minutes. And after a quick 45 minute roast, these legs are ready to eat. We've got that rendered skin that we were looking for, and the meat is looking real juicy. On day two, the only cooking that we need to do is these legs. So it's time to build our plate. I'll first drop down some sofrito rice from yesterday, then some of that garlicky kale. By the way, to heat these up, I just threw two portions worth into glass and then threw them into the microwave for two minutes. Super easy. Now to finish, I'll drop down my roasty chicken leg and there we go. A simple dish like this really doesn't need sauce because the dark chicken meat is mega juicy and it kind of lubes up the whole plate. This meal is flavorful, well-balanced, and nutritious. You got a little protein, you've got some carbs, and some fibrous, nutritious veggies. One quick call out is on the leftovers lunch for day three. The two chicken legs that we've got leftover actually need to be used for night three's dinner. So I recommend a repeat of beans, greens, and eggs from night one for day two's lunch. Okay, on night three, it's time to take those two leftover chicken legs and turn them into delicious, comforting chicken soup. To get started, into my rice cooker, I'll add 400 grams of rinsed rice, then 550 grams of water and eight grams of salt. The lid goes down, the white rice button gets hit, and I'll let that rip. Next, I'll prep my veggies. First up, onion. I'll grab my second and final onion and cut it into a medium dice. In total, I'll need 100 grams of onion and I'll also mince 10 grams of garlic while I'm at it. Next, I'll take half of my bag of carrot sticks and chop those into a medium dice. Conveniently, these are cut up most of the way already and I just need to run my knife through them once like this. In total, I need 250 grams of diced carrots. Lastly, I'll take half of my head of cabbage, cut out the core, then slice it into four two inch wide chunks crosswise like this. Then I'll turn it 90 degrees and slice thinly. Again, cut this into a shape that once cooked will fit on a spoon. Half a head of cabbage should yield about 350 grams once it's cut down. Back at the rice, you can see it's cooked. No surprise there. So I'll move most of this into a Tupperware and save it for night five's dinner, but I'll reserve two cups for dinner tonight and lunch tomorrow. Now to cook this soup into a medium heat Dutch oven, I'll add in a bunch of olive oil, then my onions and garlic, my carrot, my cabbage, and then a strong pinch of salt. From here, I'll sweat these veggies, stirring them often for about 10 minutes or until they've softened a little bit and released most of their moisture. Next, in goes one gram of dried oregano, two grams black pepper, one gram turmeric, and finally 75 grams of better than bouillon chicken base. This particular bouillon product is the best way that I know how to make cheap broth that has meaningful chicken flavor. Store-bought stock really isn't worth the money when cooking on a tight budget because it has almost no flavor. If you can't afford BTB or you can't get it, I would say use dried bouillon instead. Next, in goes 1600 grams or about eight cups of water, and then I'll bring the whole thing up to a hard simmer. Once I'm boiling, I'll turn the heat down to low and cook until the veggies are tender, about 10 minutes more. While that cooks, I'll get the chicken part of this chicken soup sorted out. But first, I need to thank the sponsor of this video, Trade Coffee. Trade is a coffee delivery service that makes it really simple to discover new craft coffee so that you can make a great cup of coffee at home every day. Trade uses their unique matching algorithm to set you up with coffees that you'll love. I can honestly say that I've loved every bag that I've gotten so far, especially this one from KooVee Coffee out of Austin, Texas. They're one of the over 55 independent coffee roasteries that Trade works with around the country. I actually tried KooVee in person when I was in Austin a few weeks ago, collabing with Ethan Chbosky, and I was really stoked to find out that I could just add their coffee to my Trade subscription. This Guatemala medium roast coffee that I'm working on right now is balanced, a little bit fruity, and has a beautiful acidity to it. And even though I got this coffee in the mail, it's still super fresh because all of the coffee from Trade is roasted fresh to order and shipped within 48 hours of roasting. So to start tasting some delicious new coffees that you'll love, head to drinktrade.com slash brian to get a free bag of coffee with any subscription. Again, if you want a free bag of coffee, the link is in my description below. Thank you, Trade. Now to prep this chicken, I'll grab the two legs left from yesterday's dinner and pull all the meat off the bone. I like to keep the chicken skin in the mix here because it's salty, peppery, and tastes delicious from that long, high temperature roast. Now I'm just going to chop this down real quick into bite-sized pieces that'll fit on a soup spoon, and then I'll move back over to the stove and check on my veggies. At this point, texturally, they should be softened but not mushy. I'm mainly referring to the carrot here. The cabbage is pretty much indestructible and actually gets better when you cook it more. Next, I'll add in 100 grams of frozen peas, then all of my chopped chicken. I'll give that a quick stir to combine. Then I'll give this broth a quick taste for seasoning. Bouillon products are generally pretty salty and so this broth doesn't need any more. Now to serve, I'll drop a half a cup's worth of my cooked rice into a bowl. Then I'll sneak in a little bit of my garlicky kale because I've got it and I really like it. Then I'll ladle in about a quarter of my soup. And there we go, a veg-heavy chicken and rice soup made in only about 25 minutes. It's deeply flavorful thanks to that roasty chicken and that cheeky little bit of bouillon paste. Okay, night four is tostada night. Like night two, this dish comes together super fast and has almost zero cleanup. It's perfect for those nights where you're going to be out pickleballing late with your girl and you just need something quick to eat. Now to start, I'll load four tostada shells into a 350F oven to toast them up, and while those bake, I'll cut some of my cherry tomatoes into quarters. This form factor makes them much easier to bite into once they're living on the beans on the tostada. Next, I'll slice and scoop my one avocado. And then once the tostada shells are hot, I'll smear on a half cup or so of reheated refried beans. Again, these firm up a lot when they're in cold storage, so you'll need to add in a little bit of water as you reheat them. Behind the beans, I'll add in a few pieces of quartered cherry tomato and about half of a half of an avocado. Next, I'll drop on some pickled jalapenos for acidity and heat. Then I'll crumble on some of that salty, fresh feta cheese. I'll finish with a few leaves of fresh cilantro, then drizzle on a little bit of hot sauce. You guys, tostadas are sick. Have you ever had one? They're like a portable, crunchy, open-faced, hard-shelled taco. And again, there's basically no cleanup here. Night four is sick. Okay, night five is the time to use that stale rice that we made on soup night. Let's turn it into fried rice. To make it, I'll grab a 12-inch nonstick pan and drop it on the stove over medium-high heat. While that preheats, let's take a look at the prep. I've got carrots and cabbage, cut the same way we did for the soup, sliced mushrooms and four cracked eggs. I've also got some stir-fry sauce here, but I'll explain that later on. Okay, hot pan, oil goes in, then mushrooms and some salt. I'll stir-fry those for about five minutes until their water is cooked out and they've taken on some nice browning. There we go. I'll take those off heat and flip them into a bowl while I cook everything else. Next in is carrots and cabbage. Again, I cook this with a squiggle of oil and a little bit of salt. I'll give these a quick stir-fry and then top with a lid. This is going to trap the steam from the veggies and help them cook much faster. And after four to five minutes of saute steaming covered, this carrots and cabbage mixture should be snappy but tender. So I'll move it into the bowl with the mushrooms, then in goes my four cracked eggs. I'll top with salt and then scramble them over medium high heat for about 30 seconds or until they're set and cooked through. I'll move those into the bowl. Then to finish this dish, I'll add my stale rice into one last bit of oil and fry that for two to three minutes to get it toasty. From here, I'll add in a hundred grams of frozen peas and then my stir-fry sauce. That's just 75 grams of oyster sauce, 50 grams of soy sauce and 15 grams of sesame oil. Next, all the cooked stuff goes on top and then I'll very carefully stir all this to combine while reducing that oyster soy sauce mixture into a glaze. And after about three minutes of stirring and folding, we've got some beautiful fried rice or sauteed rice. Whatever you want to call it, it tastes good. Now to bring one last little bit of craveability here, I'm going to squiggle on some sriracha mayo. That's just two parts mayonnaise and one part sriracha stirred together. You guys, in this dish, we've got a wonderful variety of textures and flavors. We've got mushrooms in there. Those are good. We've got cabbage that kind of bulks out the rice so it's not 100% starch. We've got some nice silky scrambled eggs. What's not to like? So that's five dinners and five next day leftover lunches for two people with a price tag of just 33 US dollars. Let me know down in the comments what you guys think. And if you like a video like this that shows a variety of techniques and will definitely help you out with your weeknight cooking, then check out this video where I cook 20 healthy meals in just 60 minutes.