No Stupid Questions

Onion. It's cheap, nutritious, acts as a low-key anti bacterial solution, can be served in a multitude of ways, or eaten raw.

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the three sisters are very nutritious. corn, beans, squash. add any spices you like, and a good oil (my faves are la tourangelle olive oil and their toasted seasame oil, sold on amazon and not expensive). salt and spices make all the difference.

Buy raw material and cook yourself.

Most premade food is expensive because:

• labor on cooking
• restaurant profit
• rent of the restaurant/owner of the place sell you food
• service

You already mentioned them, but I'm a huge fan of lentils. They go with so much stuff and you can combine them with a variety of spices. Give me any leftover ingredients and some lentils, and I'll cook up something delicious. I can and will eat lentil soup for days.

They are also a pretty solid crop, they can grow in a variety of climates, require little water and are good for the soil.

It depends where you live (I'm in Bangkok, so grocery choices are quite limited).

I love Oats. I got massively back into them again this year... now I buy around 3kg every month (instant oats).

It's only this year, really, that I discovered that oats are still really good and creamy when not made with milk... and it's really easy to boil a single cup of water to dump on a cup of oats for a perfect breakfast (left standing for a minute - done... no need to 'microwave' oats).

Also, cheap staples include: carrots, potato, broccoli, spinach...

Frozen strawberries are dirt cheap here too.

Breakfast 1:

• Instant Oats (1 cup, 1/4 tsp salt, 3tsp sugar, 3 tsp creamer)
• pulsed to powder in the blender with a cup of boiling water poured over.
• Blend 100ml milk with 3 strawberries and mix that in. The beauty of this is (as my son does NOT like stodgy/thick porridge) I can add an extra 100ml of milk to his breakfast, and it becomes a liquid smoothie.

Breakfast 2:

• Weetbix are not too cheap, but ONE biscuit mixed with ONE cup of oats is a massive breakfast - and tastes of Weetbix... and is ridiculously cheap in comparison.

Breakfast 3

• Oats work great with eggs...
• 1 cup oats, some salt, some cumin (maybe a teaspoon)
• 2/3 cup boiling water (soak a minute)
• 2 duck eggs mixed in
• butter up the frying pan and dump it in there, cover and cook gently for 3 minutes, flip and give them another 3 minutes.

DIsgusting poopy one

• 2 teaspoons of cocoa powder mixed with 4 teaspoons of non-dairy creamer + 1 cup oats
• pulse to powder, add a cup of hot water.

That's choccie heaven right there.

Rice and beans, just be a little creative with preparation. Also you can make lots of soups that are cheap and healthy and its super easy to make too.

My very Italian answer is "pizza bianca" . I guess "healthy" depends, but it's generally OK carbs, it's delicious and with few Euros you can buy quite a lot (enough for a lunch).

Beans! Especially stew with them, you can throw in pretty much anything (veggies, meat, adjust your spice levels...) and once you learn the correct balance it's very tasty and filling.

Popcorn is very low calorie per volume, especially the types without a lot of fat.

Cabbage + brain damage

Eggs with salt. Boiled, scrambled, any style really

Lentils.

So… Are you just unaware of fruits, vegetables, and legumes, haha? In my opinion there’s a huge amount of food that fits all three categories. One of the best example of cheap, delicious, healthy, and easy is beans and rice, spiced up however you like.

Well, something being delicious is subjective, but if we assume a "general acceptance" of most delicious foods, potatoes could fit easily. They can be cooked in all kinds of ways, are very nutritious and, again, pretty much everyone says they're delicious.

Tacos and burritos could absolutely meet this criteria If you're doing them well at home, with the most unhealthy thing being the tortilla itself (You could argue that those are empty calories). Of course that means no sour cream or cheap cheese abuse among other things

I'd say sandwiches, depending on what you want to put in them. A loaf of healthy (low sugar) bread isn't going to be the cheapest option on the shelf, but if you're dividing the cost by the number of sandwiches you can make out of it, it still ends up amounting to a large number of really inexpensive meals. I normally just add some meat, cheese, lettuce, and tomato, and it's very nutritional and also delicious.

BEANS

Addictive carbs and salt, dirt cheap, and healthy as shit. Also convenient and compatible with most dietary/ethical restrictions.

If you learn to like beans when you're 20 and throw it into an index fund, you'll have a modest retirement fund just on the money you saved (yes, I calculated it based on money saved and growth of the S&P).

Pizza is pretty cheap in Italy, also Pasta.

Well chicken maybe as it is the most cheap meat. And it is subjective, but something like chicken soup (if cooked at home) can be relativly cheap and really delicious.

Also, just thought about it - fruits and berries also easily break this trinity

Jimmy Joy. Cheap (under 2 euros per meal), delicious and you can't really get any more nutritious than that. It has all the recommended nutrients in one go.