Total Prep & Cook Time: 1 Hour
Total Price: $24
Amount of Meals: approximately 5
(varies from person to person)
Eating healthy doesn’t have to be expensive or time consuming. I’m not a great cook and this isn’t the most exciting food, but it’s cheap, easy, fresh, and healthy. It also tastes good because there is nothing frozen or from a can. It can all be cooked on the stovetop, and it doesn’t create a lot of dishes.
Ingredients
- 2 lbs of ground chicken: $9
- 1lb of tofu: $2.70
- half-head of cabbage: $2.30
- 2 zucchini squash: $2
- 1 lb of carrot chips: $2
- 48 oz of vegetable broth: $3
- 12 oz of egg white pasta: $3
- Total Price: $24
Pots & Utensils
- 1 large pot with a lid – 6 quarts or 5.6 liters is what I use, it has to be a least that big
- 1 medium size pot
- 1 strainer
- 1 large knife
- 1 large plastic spoon
- 1 wooden spoon or paddle
Instructions
1. Wash the vegetables.
2. Cut up the vegetables and tofu.
3. Fill the large pot about ⅔ of the way with water and add the zucchini squash, carrot chips, and cabbage. Boil those for about 20 minutes.
4. Cook the ground chicken in the medium size pot at the same time that the vegetables are boiling. Cook it on medium heat and stir it regularly until it is fully cooked.
5. After the vegetables have been boiling for 20 minutes, add the pasta to the pot and mix it all together (you don’t need to remove the vegetables). Continue to boil for 10 minutes.
6. Put the strainer in the sink and pick up the large pot with oven mitts. Start pouring the water into the strainer. A small strainer works for me because I don’t dump everything into it. I just pour out the water and most of the ingredients stay in the pot. About 20% of the water remains in the pot, but that’s ok. If you have a large strainer and want to dump out everything, that’s ok too.
7. Add the vegetables, pasta, chicken, tofu, and vegetable broth to the large pot and stir everything together. At this point all the ingredients are in the large pot. I also add some cayenne pepper for flavor. I don’t add any seasoning because the vegetable broth already has salt in it.
8. Put the lid on the large pot and cook on low for 5 minutes.This step is just to heat up the tofu and let the ingredients absorb the vegetable stock.
9. Eat!
10. Once the large pot has cooled down you can place it in the fridge. Next time you eat it you can put it in a smaller pot and heat it up on the stovetop. I prefer doing that instead of microwaving it.
Conclusion
- Be very careful. There’s going to be a large pot of boiling water so stay aware and focused.
- Substitutes: Pasta can be switched out with another carb such as rice or quinoa. Other vegetables are fine to use. Note that the cooking instructions are for the specific ingredients listed above.
- I prefer to eat the food over a 3 day period. For example, if I cook the food on Monday I will eat it on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.
- You might have to add some more vegetable stock after a day or two.
- Occasionally ordering groceries online helps a lot so you don’t run out of fresh ingredients.
- It’s always good to have healthy food prepared for when you get back from a run because you will probably be tired and not in the mood to cook.
- There are a lot of different ways to eat healthy, this is just one method that works for me.
