Delicious and inexpensive: 10 economy class meals that everyone can handle

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Delicious food is not only found in high-end restaurants. In this selection, you will find inexpensive, but very mouth-watering dishes.

1. Draniki

Deruny, or potato pancakes, are familiar to everyone from childhood. Minimum products, maximum nutritional value. A great solution when you want something tasty and the refrigerator is empty.

Ingredients

• 4 medium potatoes;
• 2 small onions;
• 1 egg;
• 3-4 tablespoons of flour;
• salt and pepper to taste;
• vegetable oil - for frying;
• sour cream - for serving.

Preparation

Peel and rub the potatoes on a coarse grater. You can do the same with onions, or you can just chop it finely. Add the egg and flour to the potatoes and onions. You can also add chopped greens or fried mushrooms, or play with spices. Salt, pepper and mix everything thoroughly.

Put the resulting dough in a well-heated skillet with vegetable oil. It is most convenient to do this with a tablespoon, slightly pressing each pancake on top of it. Fry until golden brown on both sides.

Serve with sour cream. Potato pancakes are delicious both hot and cold.

2. Filled baked potatoes

If you had baked or boiled potatoes for dinner yesterday, this recipe will help you deal with leftovers.

Ingredients

• 2 sausages;
• vegetable oil - for frying;
• 1 small onion;
• 3 cloves of garlic;
• 1 sweet pepper;
• 1 teaspoon rosemary, oregano, or any other condiment of your choice
• 4 boiled or baked potatoes;
• ¼ glasses of sour cream or yogurt without additives;
• 100 g of hard cheese.

Preparation

Cut sausages into cubes and sauté them in vegetable oil. Once golden brown, place them on paper towels to remove excess grease. Fry chopped onions in the same pan. When it's translucent, add minced garlic, diced peppers and seasonings to it.

Cut the potatoes in half, remove the core with a spoon, leaving the walls about 5-7 mm thick. Place a little sour cream or yogurt and the sausage and vegetable filling inside each half. Rub the cheese on top.

The dish can be served on the table already in this form, or it can be placed in the oven or microwave for a couple of minutes to melt the cheese.

3. Vegetable stew with chili

Seasonal Dish: Cheapest after harvest. There can be as many variations of this dish as you like - it all depends on your culinary imagination. Here is one of them.

Ingredients

• 1 medium zucchini;
• 1 medium eggplant;
• 2 small hot peppers;
• 2 medium sweet peppers;
• 2 small onions;
• 2 cloves of garlic;
• 1 cup beans
• 1 can of canned corn
• 3 tablespoons tomato sauce;
• vegetable oil - for frying;
• salt, black pepper, oregano - to taste.

Preparation

Prepare vegetables by peeling and dicing. Remember to get rid of the bitterness in the eggplant and remove the seeds from the peppers. Boil the beans in lightly salted water.

Place vegetables (except hot peppers and beans) in a well-heated and oiled skillet or heavy-bottomed saucepan. Simmer everything over low heat.

When the vegetables are tender and fluid, add the tomato sauce, salt, pepper, oregano, and other spices to your liking. Instead of tomato sauce, you can use finely chopped tomatoes in your own juice. Now the main attraction of the dish is the chili pepper. The more you put it, the spicier the stew will be.

Cover and simmer for 20 minutes. Serve with sour cream and bread.

4. Bean burrito

A burrito is a Mexican tortilla wrapped in a variety of fillings. Since in our selection of economical dishes, you can use Armenian lavash instead of tortilla.

Ingredients

• ½ cup beans
• salt to taste;
• lettuce leaves;
• 1 large tomato;
• 1 thin pita bread;
• 2 tablespoons of hot sauce;
• 100 g of hard cheese.

Preparation

Boil beans (preferably white) in salted water. Wash and chop the lettuce and tomato. The winter option is tomatoes in their own juice and Chinese cabbage.

Heat the pita bread a little and brush it with hot sauce. Arrange vegetables and sprinkle with grated cheese. Roll the pita bread into a tube or envelope.

Serve with sour cream or any other sauce of your choice.

5. Vegetarian burgers

Who Said Burger Cutlet Should Be Meat? In a budget version, it can be made from vegetables.

Ingredients

• ½ cup beans
• 50 g walnuts;
• 1 bunch of cilantro or other greens;
• 2 cloves of garlic;
• 1 onion;
• 1 egg;
• ½ cup flour;
• salt and black pepper - to taste;
• 2 burger buns;
• vegetable oil - for frying;
• 1 tablespoon ketchup
• 1 tablespoon green curry paste

Preparation

Chop the boiled (as an option - canned) beans in a blender, but not much. Add chopped nuts, herbs, garlic, onions and egg white to it. Mix thoroughly, gradually adding flour. If it turns out to be watery, add more flour.

Salt and pepper, mix well again and refrigerate for 10 minutes. At this time, dry the burger buns in a dry skillet. Then add oil and fry the formed bean cutlets on it. They should be about the size of a bun, but not very thick. Fry until crisp.

Brush the bottom bun with green curry paste, place the bean cutlet on top of it, pour the ketchup over and add the second half of the bun. You can add lettuce and tomato slices to your burger if you like.

6. "Empty" soup

This is a great solution when you want something hot and you don't have time to make a full soup. At the same time, the dish is very, very dietary.

Ingredients

• salt to taste;
• 2 large potatoes;
• 1 bay leaf;
• 2 large onions;
• sour cream - for serving.

Preparation

Take a 3-liter saucepan and fill it about three-quarters with water. Bring to a boil. When the water is about to boil, add salt. Put peeled and diced potatoes into boiling water. Rinse and toss in the bay leaf.

When the potatoes are soft, the soup is ready! Pour it into bowls, adding a handful (or even more) of chopped onions to each bowl. Whiten the soup with sour cream (the more, the tastier) and start your meal.

7. Onion rings in batter

It is both an independent dish and an excellent beer snack. It is prepared very quickly, and the set of products is so elementary that it will certainly be found in any home.

Ingredients

• 3 large onions;
• 2 eggs;
• 100 g sour cream;
• 100 g flour;
• salt and pepper to taste;
• vegetable oil for deep fat.

Preparation

Peel the onion, cut into rings and separate. To get rid of the excess bitterness of the onion, pour boiling water over it. It is most convenient to do this in a colander to immediately place the rings under cold water and prevent them from boiling.

Prepare the batter. Beat eggs, add sour cream, flour and salt and whisk everything. If you like spicy, you can add pepper or mustard to the batter. In addition, grated cheese is sometimes added to make the rings crisper.

Sprinkle the onion rings with flour, then dip in batter and dip in well-heated vegetable oil. When a golden crust appears, you can take it out. Put the finished onion rings on paper towels to remove excess fat.

Serve with any tomato sauce.

8. Fried pollock in vegetable sauce

Pollock will cost you the cheapest in the fish department of the store. Moreover, it can be prepared in such a way that it tastes no worse than elite varieties of fish.

Ingredients

• 500 g pollock fillet;
• 2 tablespoons flour;
• vegetable oil - for frying;
• 2 small tomatoes;
• 1 bunch of green onions;
• 1 clove of garlic;
• salt and pepper to taste.

Preparation

Rinse the fish fillets, make sure there are no bones in them, and cut into small pieces. Each of them must be rolled in flour and fried in a hot and oiled frying pan. This takes about 7 minutes.

Then put coarsely chopped tomatoes and chopped green onions in the same pan (the more, the better). Season with salt, pepper and squeeze a clove of garlic over fish and vegetables. Stir and simmer for about 10 minutes. If you see that there is little liquid in the pan and the contents start to burn, add a little water.

At the end of cooking, you can sprinkle everything with grated cheese. This fish goes well with rice and pasta.

9. Cheesecakes

Another dish familiar to everyone from childhood. Many housewives are experimenting with recipes for cheesecakes (or curds). Others believe that the classic version is ideal.

Ingredients

• 500 g of cottage cheese;
• ¼ teaspoon of salt;
• 2 tablespoons of sugar;
• 2 tablespoons flour;
• 1 egg;
• 30 g butter;
• sour cream or jam - for serving.

Preparation

In a deep bowl, mash the curd with a fork. Add salt, sugar and flour to it, break the egg. Knead the dough. It should be soft, but not sticky to your hands. If the curd is too greasy and moist and the dough doesn't stick together, add a little more flour.

Form cutlets about 2 cm thick from the resulting cheese mass. Fry the cheese cakes in butter for about 5 minutes on each side.

It is better to serve cheesecakes hot, although they are very tasty when cooled down. They can be sprinkled with powdered sugar or jam. Those who like the less sweet version eat cheesecakes with sour cream.

10. Chicken on salt

This recipe causes bewilderment for many: chicken, salt and that's it ?! But once you try it, it becomes just too lazy to bake the chicken in the oven in some other way. Moreover, in this case, it turns out just a breathtaking crisp crust!

Ingredients

• broiler chicken weighing 1.5–2 kg;
• 1 kg of table salt.

Preparation

Chilled chicken should be rinsed and dried with paper towels. If desired, the chicken can be rubbed with dried herbs and lemon juice, but this is not at all necessary. If the chicken is fat enough, it will already be juicy and flavorful.

Cover a baking sheet with parchment and sprinkle the salt on it in a layer of about 2 cm. Put the chicken on the salt with the back facing down and send it to the oven preheated to 200 ° C for 1.5 hours. You can check the readiness by piercing the chicken with a toothpick. If clear juice comes out, the chicken can be removed.