Thumpy Rose So, you have decided to lead a plant-based eating lifestyle? Smart! Sooner or later, we all come to realize the importance of adopting building healthy habits in our lives. The right intake of high protein foods is a must for our body. Plus, our Mother Earth abundantly offers us such affordable easy high protein foods. These in turn lend us lots of budget friendly meal plan . Vegetables, fruits, legumes, nuts, to name a few of the mainstay ingredients of broke recipes (meaning money dey tight!). We intend to elevate your options beyond basic foods to cook, subscribe to our free newsletter to be notified.
This post aims to show you that way. There are actually a few strategies you can rely on to continue veganism even when your financial situation is not too rosy. These broke recipes will greatly expand your catalog of budget friendly meal plan, ensuring that your frugal living does not suffer.
Crucially, you will learn basic food tricks allowing you to make budget-friendly dinners for self, family, or indeed guests. Discover it all from a selection of easy-to-make weeknight meals on budget that will benefit your building healthy habits.
Budget friendly meal plan for savvy people
Every broke vegan should at least arm themselves with cheap yet healthy budget friendly meal plan (s). Obviously, eating out won’t work when your wallet is already stretched. Resorting to vegan junk is also not a solution. A mindful plant-based person shouldn’t harm their building healthy habits, come what may. The good news is there are many exciting broke recipes that can ensure your good health.
Related: Yummy Liberian Fry Rice
During my broke college days when I set out exploring eating differently, some of my go-to easy high protein foods were fragrant Liberian cabbage stew and Delish Pinto beans stew. You can prepare them within 30 minutes using cheap basic ingredients from your local store or backyard garden. A few minutes’ prep might need a few more minutes. Otherwise, they are very hands-off and speedy dinners, really basic foods to cook.
Moreover, scramble recipes and pasta dishes are a wonderful option. They are delicious, filling and ready in minutes. Other possible variations include fried rice and creamy sauces and soups you can create using cashews and plant milk.
When in the red, saving that naira, shilling, rand, franc, dinar, pound or dollar becomes all the more crucial. As such, these healthy inexpensive budget friendly meal plan can be your saving grace, quite literally.
To be honest, there are endless possibilities for broke recipes. Interested in strategizing your budget friendly meal plan?
Exciting strategies for broke people to get meals in minutes
Discover these interesting recipe strategies for broke vegan:
1- Use store bought or premade sauces to elevate boring meals. For example, buy a jar of pesto sauce for $2.99, pair it with a block of firm tofu for $2.99, and add regular noodles for $1.99. When you combine all the ingredients, your dinner is set. If your wallet permits, you could add blanched broccoli or asparagus to the pesto pasta recipe. By doing this you will be very satisfied with the taste, nutrition, and satiated. In short, do incorporate premade sauces which come with many of the flavoring components (garlic, spices, and other niceties). Can you say basic foods to cook or assemble?
Related: The Popular Tofu Pesto Pasta You Need
2- Diversify your taste buds beyond borders – take gari for example, its taste is foreign to many westerners but Gari has saved lives during hard times. Gari (ground fermented yucca) can be eaten for breakfast lunch, dinner and dessert. Gari with milk and honey is my go-to dessert when I want to feel satiated and crave something sweet; Did I mention it helps keep my waistline in check?
Additionally, I want the world to know about motogo wa ting, millet porridge, the cheapest, filling, and most nutritional breakfast ever. Many people might be turned off because it is fermented. Fortunately, most people love sourdough bread: motogo wa ting tastes like sourdough bread. Get some, your wallet and gut health will thank you. Plus, you get to enlighten your circle of friends with new found information about eating foods beyond your borders. Gari soaking one of the basic foods to cook… or assemble!
Related: Plain Oil Lima Beans Okra Stew
3- Mixy boxa creations– some people call it deconstructed cooking, leftovers cooking but I call it pantry raid, fridge raids, almost empty mixy-boxa meals. I’ve mixed certain foods together by literally crossing my fingers and hoping for the best. Meanwhile, it usually came out delicious. Taking risks like this inspires you to go further when cooking. Most importantly, I had something edible to eat as a result of a mixy-boxa creation. Make use of mixy boxa strategy just like I did using string beans in a breakfast scramble.
Some examples of these strategies for broke vegan includes truly filling meals such as store-bought sauce with Teriyaki, spiced tofu fried rice, Peanut Butter Stew with stir fry vegetables, and Liberian Cabbage Stew. So many ideas of basic foods to cook!
Related: How to transform store-bought sauce
How good is it to prepare discounted meals within a few minutes. Do yourself justice and deploy these healthy broke recipes from the comfort of your kitchen. They are worth it!
Alternative eating means accepting change & creativity
Eating healthy or sustainably on a budget ultimately comes down to creativity, grace, and thinking outside the box. One of the ways to do things unconventionally in the interest of saving few bucks is to transform store-bought sauce into a healthy homemade version.
Related: Tofu Red Sauce Curry-Lazy Foodie Fast Food
No one told me incorporating string beans into a tofu scramble dish would be delicious and a texturized goodness. The picture above of green beans in tofu scramble came about because I had string beans that were about to spoil. Took a leap of faith and applied the mixy-boxa strategy.
With the premade store-bought jar sauce strategy, you will definitely enjoy budget friendly meal plan that yields amazing flavors, even better than take-out alternatives. Want a more tomato based sauce? You can utilize most leftover veggies in any tomato sauce. Simply, add your revamped home-made sauce to your veggies with pasta and enjoy. When short on cash, we are looking to avoid any unnecessary waste in the kitchen, right?
Building healthy habits for tough situations
Leading a plant-based eating lifestyle during hard times requires some shrewd budgeting around the foods to buy or pass. Below, discover some of the hacks to employ in order to survive on healthy vegan diet when your monies are not right:
- Shop cheap basic ingredients in bulk
Your goal during harsh times is to keep that grocery bill down, if not take it further down. As such, you should stick to (or start) buying cheap basic foods to cook in large quantities from wholesale stores or farms. Seek to make savings by purchasing such vegan staples as brown rice, dried beans, lentils, oats, nuts and seeds in bulk at wholesale stores.
Indeed, utilizing budget friendly meal plan will positively impact your building healthy habits. For instance, you can determine the quantity of salt in your beans as opposed to the expensive, salty canned beans from the store. Similarly, you can consistently maintain your carbohydrates intake by stocking pasta, rice, and corn flour from relatively affordable stores.
- Plan your week’s meal in advance
As you may have realized, you always spend a lot on these broke recipes when you go shopping without a predetermined budget. It will really help to write down a list of easy high protein foods (for example include beans and ancient grains) for the entire week and remain faithful to it when you go to the grocery store.
Also, set yourself a reasonable time limit at the store. Nonetheless, this does not mean that you should not allow yourself some room for flexibility. For instance, if you find certain vegan items going on good discounts at the store, there is no harm to take advantage of it a little bit. YES, chocolates count as food too. lol!
Related: Best tomato gravy with cassava, eddo and plantain
- Take advantage of vegan foods in season
You can save that coin smartly by planning your broke recipes around vegan foods in season. Take advantage of cheap plant-based items in season or on-sale veggies and fruits. This requires that you become in tune with the harvesting patterns in your locale so that you will always know when it is the season of mangoes, tomatoes, etc.
In certain supermarkets, you may be in luck to find dried vegetable packet mixes or vegan alternatives of sausages and burgers. You can experiment with your broke recipes by turning your burgers into meatballs, toss into transformed store-bought tomato sauce, and have it with spaghetti. This way, you synergize a blend of easy high protein foods and carbs without straining your wallet too much.
Related: Fast food saves lives -Easy plant-based meals for beginners
In another view, when you make extra amounts of your basic food and freeze it, you’ll realize that it tastes better later. This is because the ingredients come together better with time, meaning that your frozen leftovers will make a serving of easy high protein foods inexpensively. That is very beneficial to your building healthy habits.
Strategic Food Staples for broke Vegan
–Grains, rice and beans – these should be top of the grocery list because they use raw fresh ingredients that are simple to boil and require few spices. In the interest of consuming healthy foods, you should ensure to choose wholegrains brown rice over refined white rice. You may also follow this cranberry beans stew recipe that uses fresh raw beans ingredients to benefit your building healthy habits.
Related: Rice & Grains-the good, bad and worst
–Leaves and greens make the easiest and most economical meals, worth taking on board in your broke recipes. Cabbage or spinach are relatively cheap and so is collard greens. Did you know collard greens make a yummy stew? Try this sauteed collard greens recipe, and realize one of the budget friendly meal plan you will relish as a person low on finances.
–Pasta and Ramen – these two carbohydrates should be in every person pantry. Remember ramen noodles motto from college days? Right! It kept us alive then and it will again. For some of us our finances have evolve, we can afford pasta or whole wheat options if you feeling fancy. The upside to this is, you can dress up such meals with spinach or opt for broccoli, mushrooms, corn, or asparagus. Our options for building healthy habits get better with age and savvy strategies; some people will doubt your wallet is low. What matters is you have enough protein, good carbohydrates and healthy fat, so drizzle some oil generously.
Home cooked meals is the BEST choice
Truly, it is bad to be financially challenged and still order takeout for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I don’t care what Neyo & Pitbull said in their song, don’t play with your rent or gas money trying to flex. Those artisanal vegan burgers or plant-based frozen meals are very expensive, has high salt content and so is eating out. Home cook meal ideas suggested here are optimal for meal prep, or you can make small portions of the easy high protein foods to see if you might like a particular dish.
Cooking at home is relatively easy, especially with our guidance. Did you know you can write us and ask questions if you get stuck? Public comments or private emails are welcome. It matters to us that you are supported and have delicious meal options. We understand being vegan is not easy so be not afraid of cooking at home and ask for help. Embrace mistakes and see what good comes out of it. Heck, I burnt a pot of rice and turned the crust into a refreshing drink.
In closing, don’t let anything come in your way in living a successful plant-based food lifestyle. Not even the hard economic times, because savvy options abound. Try the above mentioned amazing frugal vegan recipes. They are easy high protein foods, basic foods to cook, and they make your money go further.
Let us know in the comments which one you’ll cook first. Curious about a no-animal-meat food lifestyle? Check out our Instagram page for real-life inspirations 😊.
