Is there such a thing as a vegetarian meal that costs less than 5 dollars to make and still tastes alright?

Question

If so could give me the recipe because when it comes to eating healthy and cooking i'm about as sharp as a golf ball but i can follow a recipe.

Wow those Taco's sound really good :)

Answer 1

What I do for lunch is a sandwich with avocado, tomato, and onion flakes.

As for dinners, pasta is always cheap. If you get the straight spaghetti, you'd only be using 50 cents worth or so for a single serve, and a jar of sauce is $2-3.50 depending on how good it is. The tomato based ones are usually vegetarian, but watch out for parmesan.

Here's another one: tacos with refried beans. Literally just scoop the refried beans (from a tin) into a pot with a little bit of salsa. You can garnish with lettuce, tomato, and vegetarian cheese (although if you're doing it on the cheap, you don't need to).

Answer 2

You could make some Chinese food - buy a package of frozen veggies that are "stir-fry" style and make those. Then you can simply put those over a bed of cooked white or brown rice. You can even add some cooked whole wheat spaghetti noodles to make "in-a-pinch" lo mein. I do that all the time and it's fairly cheap.
You could also make stuffed green peppers with a can of tomatoes, rice, cheese and onions. Season it to taste and that is quite good also.
Soup is always cheap...especially if you make a bit of it and can eat it for a while. I have an exellent recipe for tortellini soup if you're interested.

Answer 3

yes take a pair of clippers go outside cut some grass use some vinegar and olive oil maybe even an onion and you will have a lovely quick and cheap salad

Answer 4

Well, I guess it's probably not all out vegan, but if you are just not eating meat then it would be okay. One of my fav. comfort foods is Kraft Mac and Cheese. My mom must have made it a lot when I was young because I still love it. My sister's are more worried about pesticides than I am I guess because they both buy Annie's Mac and Cheese (it's organic). Mac and cheese will cost under a dollar and fill you up.

Something much healthier that is still good is brown rice. You can mix it up with some veggies and soy sauce. Yum. This is going to be about $2 or $3.

Also oatmeal and some fruit. It comes out to mere cents for a bowl of it, tastes good, and the whole grains and all that fiber give you enough energy to go for a while. My husband likes it with A LOT of honey (it kind of grosses me out) and sometimes I'll use a little bit of honey. If you eat dairy, it's much better made with milk than with water. If not, you could try soy milk. To cut down on calories and cost I've lately started making it with 1/2 milk and 1/2 water. This is going to be about a dollar also, less if you skip the milk and honey.

I also recently discovered that if you add cooked ramen noodles to chicken noodle soup, it makes a really good, satisfying meal. A while later I added a George Foreman grilled chicken breast, cut up, to this and it was great! I'm going to try adding veggies and see how that is next. You could try this with any broth based soup though. I guess chicken broth is far from being vegetarian, but try it with vegetable broth. Ramen noodles and a can of veggie broth would be under a dollar. Add some veggies and you've got maybe $2.

I found this red hot sauce in a bottle with a green cap at a Vietnamese restaurant. It has a white rooster on the bottle I think. It's pretty good added to regular ramen noodles. This is going to be between 10 and 40 cents, depending on if you can find the noodles on sale, plus the hot sauce which will last a long time.

I haven't tried these ideas yet, but just found them at:
http://recipes.suite101.com/article.cfm/cheap_student_meals

The quinoa sounds really interesting to me. I'll have to try it.

Quinoa with Peanut Butter
Ingredients: half a cup of uncooked quinoa and a dollop of peanut butter

This one sounds unusual, but it is unusually nutritious, very tasty, and a doddle to prepare. Quinoa is a South American grain, special for its protein content: it is the only grain that contains all the essential amino acids, and is therefore indispensable to vegetarians. Quinoa can be found in most supermarkets and in any speciality or health food store.

For one portion, bring about half a cup of quinoa to the boil in two cups of water. Leave it for ten minutes, or until the grains have burst, and then drain. Stir in a hefty dollop of peanut butter (crunchy is best, but smooth works too), and mix well. You can make up larger quantities and keep it for about three days in the fridge.

Bean Dips
Ingredients: a can of beans in water and some olive oil

Optional: soft cheese, tahini (sesame seed paste), garlic, any herbs or spices, carrot sticks

The most basic version of this dish involves draining the beans and whizzing them up in a blender (or mashing them with a fork) with enough oil to make a rough paste. A tablespoon of soft cheese makes the dip creamier, and tahini (available from any health food store, and most supermarkets) adds a nutty flavour. If you like the taste of garlic, then crush a clove or two and blend them into the beans. Any herbs or spices that you've got knocking about in the back of the cupboard will also liven up the dip: cannellini beans go particularly well with rosemary and chick peas with paprika but experiment and see what flavours you come up with!

Bean dips keep for a couple of days in the fridge, and can be eating with carrot sticks, bread sticks, inside baked potatoes, or simply on their own with a spoon.

What to Do with Bananas ...
Bananas are nature's gift. Cheap, energy efficient, and wrapped up in convenient skins. They do taste good on their own, but if you feel the need for some variety, then try slicing them up and baking them for twenty minutes with a sprinkling of sugar, wrapped in a twist of foil. This needs to be eaten hot, preferably with some yogurt or ice cream (although it is wonderful without).

If you don't fancy hot banana, then try mashed banana on toast (a combination of banana and honey, or banana and peanut butter also works), or, for a very special treat, chunks of banana dipped in melted chocolate and chilled in the fridge.

Answer 5

This is an easy one: rice and beans. It's the cheapest food out there, and it provides a complete protein.

Answer 6

boil water, throw in noddle, throw in chopped vegg, throw in soy sauce and eat, cost est 50c to $1

Answer 7

pasta and tomato sause.