<p>What kind of foods do you eat while you're in college?
I need some ideas that are like cost-effective because I have like no money left for food cuz for the past month I've been eating like mcdonalds and pizza and chinese. What are some good foods I can cook up that I can buy like bulk and cook and keep leftovers for the next day? I need to save $$$.</p>
<p>Bring a book bag or purse to the dining hall.</p>
<p>ramen
rice a roni
lipton pasta roni
cans of soup
peanut butter
mac and cheese
frozen pot pies
frozen pizzas on sale
tuna</p>
<p>haha i just went through my own cupboards. But really, these are all very cheap things that fill you up well.</p>
<p>You can make a big pot of chili and eat it for a week -- chili and rice, chili and bread, chili over veggies.</p>
<p>I also used to make a casserole dish full of lasagna or a pasta casserole and eat the leftovers for the week. You could also make a nice hearty stew -- stew beef is super-cheap, and it tastes amazing with some spices thrown in.</p>
<p>There are several really great cookbooks aimed for college students (and their time constraints and budgets!) -- I'm sure they'd have a few at your college bookstore.</p>
<p>ramen noodles...10cents a bag</p>
<p>2 dollars of ramen will last you a while</p>
<p>Making your own lunch should be both healthier and cheaper than ordering/take-out food. Especially if you buy cheap stuff (like cheap bread, ham and mustard to make sandwiches, veggies are cheap in general). Pasta is cheap and classic student food. If you have access to a freezer you can buy large amounts of meat on special and unfreeze portions when required (or, alternatively, cook, freeze, then thaw and reheat, like say, hamburgers). Also, stir-fry is cheap and healthy (rice is easy to cook, buy big bags, it keeps forever at room temperature).</p>
<p>just bring a giant dufflebag into the caf, you'll have a feast everyday</p>
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<p>Molliebatmit had pretty much all of the suggestions I took advantage of (and still do...). </p>
<p>Here are a couple more ideas that are quick, easy, and filling...</p>
<p>A variation to the Ramen noodles suggestion is to get a bag of your favorite frozen veggie combo and throw them in with the noodles...gives you a fuller meal than just the noodles itself and the frozen veggies can go a long way!</p>
<p>Another favorite of mine is cutting up grilled ham steaks and putting it into mac and cheese. Ham steaks come pretty cheap in 3-packs, so you can get 3 meals out of one pack. Additionally, you can normally get mac and cheese (even Kraft variety) for about a buck a box. </p>
<p>Grilled cheese also goes with Ramen noodles very well...</p>
<p>Lastly, you can make a big pot of a variety of meals and freeze them for future eating!</p>
<p>the chili pot is a good idea...</p>
<p>make a huge vat and put it in the fridge when done. You can jazz it up for leftovers:</p>
<ul>
<li>put some in a tortilla wrap with cheese (iv'e done this before, really good!)</li>
<li>on a hot dog</li>
<li>on one of those microwave baked potatoes</li>
<li>pour over tortilla chips with some cheese</li>
</ul>
<p>Just curious, college people...has anyone really found that Ramen (etc) is really unhealthy? Have you noticed any significant changes in your health since starting to dorm and eating that sort of food?</p>
<p>I'm hungry.// all these food talk....</p>
<p>i love cooking. i cook awesome meals for myself every day.
i buy meat in bulk - mainly boneless chicken breasts - and put each one in a separate ziploc bag, and freeze them. this way you don't have to worry about freezer burn and its easy just to grab a bag and grill it. salmon is really good too, same deal.
build up a bit of a spice collection, too. if you're only cooking very basic things, a lot of mixed spices say on the package what they go well with.
i also buy bags of pre-washed baby spinach, tomatoes, and peppers for salads. and then tons of fruit. buy whatever fruit is in season.
rice is also really cheap and versatile. anyone can make a good stir fry.
for bread, a loaf lasts me a while so i put it in the freezer and when i want a slice, i just take it out and toast it. i usually have cream cheese, peanut butter, etc.
and then theres eggs and milk, too. and cans of soup and tuna. and pasta and some kind of tomatoey pasta sauce. but most importantly, cheese. cheese is amazing.
some of the quickest cheap, healthy meals i make are:
-soup
-tuna salad - just salad with a can of tuna in it, basically.
-same thing with chicken
-eggs with toast, sometimes i make it into a sandwich with some cheese melted over the egg
-omelette
-stir fry
-pasta - i usually put meat and vegetables and tons of spices into the sauce
-whenever you want to snack, just eat fruit. its probably the cheapest and healthiest way to do it</p>
<p>anyway, i've found that its really easy to get a pretty huge variety of meals out of a few basic foods. this is my first year cooking for myself and i haven't gotten sick of it at all in the last 5 months.</p>
<p>are you people actually serious about the bringing bags to the dining hall or are you joking?</p>
<p>and with the ramen varitions ophiolite was talking about, add an egg and some slices of ham, it's really filling.</p>
<p>no, you can really take things from the cafeteria. I saw a girl at the soda machines filling 4 nalgene bottles the other day. People take loafs of bread too. And you can probably take a bunch of fruit. Or bagels.</p>
<p>Obviously you don't stuff like 10 cooked hotdogs in your pockets =P</p>
<p>I didn't know you could take stuff from the cafeteria. =P Do most people do it, or would they look at you like you're a cheap weirdo if you do?</p>
<p>I wasn't saying take a loaf of bread from the dining hall--that's pushing it, but I don't see anything wrong with taking some fruit, a muffin, or a sandwich. At my school, freshman year meal plans are mandatory, and they end up costing between 9 and 13 dollars per meal, so I have no qualms about taking a thing of tupperware in my bookbag to the cafeteria. As for the question of do others do it--yes, and as for the question of do the workers look at you funny--who cares? You (probably) overpayed for that meal, so you don't care, and the workers don't profit from keeping you from putting an apple in your bookbag, so they don't care.</p>
<p>...and it's not cheap, it's economical or thrifty.</p>
<p>at my school everyone does it (taking food out in tupperware etc). if we pay so much for our meal plans, we should be able to get alot more out of it. speaking of "stealing" caf food...i need to do some of that tonight..</p>
<p>Buy mashed potatoes packs. There's this one kind that's AMAZINGLY DELICIOUS and all you have to do is mix in hot water! I think it's like $1.29 per bag. </p>
<p>Also, if your problem is a dire lack of money, check campus events. Seriously, you can get by easily if you scope out the right ones! Ooooh and receptions for speakers, those always have really yummy food.</p>
<p>They have taken whole loaves from the dining hall at my school. There are very few people that bring containers. People take some fruit, cookies, muffins, bagels and thermal cups of coffee and various liquids in nalgene containers. There is usally a free pizza night or free sub night once a week by various student organizations. For the speakers, there is usually only cookies and punch. One of the student cafe's offers ramen for $0.25 and bottomless cereal for $2. The best thing we have at my school is the dining halls offer take-out food m-th from 7am-11pm, a lot of people take advantage of the takeout.</p>
<p>Do you have a 1)Costco 2)BJ's 3)WalMart near you? Costco has an amazing frozen foods section. Go for frozen pizza's, frozen chicken bakes, frozen salmon, frozen tacos, frozen taquitos. those are my personal favorites that i can think of right now.</p>