Start with what stretches. Pulses, grains, and the cheaper cuts of meat carry more meals per dollar than anything else in the produce aisle. A pot of beans is the price of a single chicken breast and feeds eight. The trick is salt, time, and a willingness to season more than you think you should.
Buy the whole bird, not the parts. A roasted chicken is dinner; the carcass becomes stock; the stock becomes Monday's soup. The difference is roughly a dollar per pound and an hour of attention spread across two evenings.
Cook once, eat three times. A pan of greens on Sunday is a side on Sunday, a frittata filling on Tuesday, and a soup base on Thursday. Treat leftovers as ingredients, not as leftovers.
Three things that pay for themselves
- A sharp knife. The difference between cooking and prep-as-chore is mostly a knife you trust. Used ones from a flea market are fine.
- A heavy pot with a lid. Anything cast iron or enameled cast iron you can scavenge will outlive you and turn $4 of beans into a dinner party.
- A quart of decent oil. Cheap oil tastes like nothing or worse; ordinary olive oil makes vegetables taste like themselves.
The shopping list under twelve dollars
Two pounds of dried beans, a head of garlic, a bag of onions, a bunch of greens, a lemon, a small piece of pork or chicken, a tin of anchovies, salt, pepper, a hot pepper. That is six dinners for two, or two dinners for six, depending on how the week is going. Add stale bread and you have soup.