Okay, so im a poor ass college student and it seems like all i ever have is the most random food articles. But i have managed to come up with some fairly good meals somehow. Ill share a few.

*Cheap obvious meals

-Grilled cheese (eaten with bbq sauce pwns)

-Cholula Egg sandwich
take an egg or two, whip in a bowl with a shit load of cholula or your favorite hot sauce, fry egg, put cheeze on it and serve on toast NOM NOM!)

-Ghetto pizza
Take flat bread, put a bunch of ketchup/hot sauce all over it, then throw a bunch of cheeze over that, throw in over at like 350 till its nice and delicious looking

-Spicy mac and sausage
Mac and cheeze, then put a shit load of hot sauce and cut up sausage in it, stir and nom. Fuck its tasty

-Egg drop ramen
Okay, so make your favorite ramen as usual, then when its done, but still boiling you throw in an uncooked egg and basically it just cooks in the boiling water and then you add the seasoning packet and you should probably put a lot of hot sauce in there lol. Its awesome.

-I can't beleive its not Rice
Cook up some white rice, then take a big spoonful of "I cant believe its not butter" and throw it in your bowl, put hot rice over it, stir it up and salt and pepper to taste.

"Exotic" meals

Okay, so i have learned that the Managers Special meat section at king supers is your best freind. You pretty much have to prepare the meat that night as it is almost expired but its cheap and awesome.

-Beef Heart Stir fry
Buy some sliced beef heard (very cheap is from the managers special section, got mine for $1.60) saute in a pan, add whatever vegetables you like and put a little soy sauce in there, and i also suggest some hot sauce and hoisen sauce to taste. This is seriously amazing.

-Baked Pork Ribs
Buy some pork ribs (also extremely cheap sometimes) and get some seasoning and some cheap ass marinade. I found a bottle of Italian garlic steak marinade and some Cholula dry spice and it was great. Marinade the ribs for about 30 min and then throw on a little spice, put on a baking sheet in tin foil in the oven at like 350 for 15 min, flip, another 15 min or however long and eat that shit up. Really good.

-Baked chicken drumsticks
They usually sell like a 12-15 pack of chicken drum sticks at grocery stores from as low at $3.50 to $6. Take these and rub them with your favorite rub/spice. put in a baking pan with tin foil, drizzle olive oil over all of them and make sure to have a coating on all of them, cover in tin foil. Bake at 350 for 15 min, flip, another 15 min or so and eat. Really good, Really easy.


***Tips -
I use hot sauce on basically everything i eat, it makes it taste great and its free! Here's the deal. Go into Chipotle, or Qdoba with your freinds, they will probably be eating there since they are bastards and have money. While they are eating, like your coat/pockets with all the hot sauce bottles you can manage. You can also take a shit load of salt and pepper, silverware, napkins. All for Teh Free sauce!

Try asking for a water cup too, then just fill it up with soda or lemonade. works 90% of the time. Ive gotten caught a few times, just dump out the soda and get water and smile.

Attend large group meals but dont buy anything and then eat all the leftovers for a decent meal. Works like a charm.

Thats all i can think of now, ill update with more perhaps. Please post your ideas as well!

Wow, that's some third world shit.

Is this a joke?

Wow, that's some third world shit.

Is this a joke?

Do not reply to ^

You aren't saving money by using relatively expensive things like ketchup and hot sauce as a substitute for pizza sauce. Buy a 99 cent (28 oz) can of diced tomatoes and cook it in a pan, occasionally stirring it and breaking it up. Add oregano, basil, black pepper, red pepper flakes, garlic powder (or you can mince garlic and briefly cook it before adding the tomatoes), etc., and that will be enough for 2 pizzas.

You can also make ramen noodle meals more filling by adding frozen vegetables.

You aren't saving money by using relatively expensive things like ketchup and hot sauce as a substitute for pizza sauce. Buy a 99 cent (28 oz) can of diced tomatoes and cook it in a pan, occasionally stirring it and breaking it up. Add oregano, basil, black pepper, red pepper flakes, garlic powder (or you can mince garlic and briefly cook it before adding the tomatoes), etc., and that will be enough for 2 pizzas.

You can also make ramen noodle meals more filling by adding frozen vegetables.

ketchup can be free in packet form.

though i think thats fucking disgusting anyway.

ketchup is disgusting.

Tip: Arby's Sauce can be a nice break from ketchup.

Just thought of one of my favorite chip dips that is absurdly fattening but tasty as shit,
Take a bunch of cream cheese, mix it thoroughly with ketchup. Simple and awesome.

Also, another thought, when i make any kind of grilled sandwich i never use butter cuz i almost never buy it. I just nab some mayo packets from a fast food place and use that in place of butter. Tastes great too.

...Or just get a fucking meal plan at your college.

Invest in a hot plate. Seriously. I got mine for 26$ at our PX.

You can pan fry steaks, and make some badass breakfasts' on there as well. Pankackes, eggs, sausage, bacon, and hashbrowns. Great way to get your day started on the weekends.

...Or just get a fucking meal plan at your college.

Meal plans are expensive as hell. At my college a one semester meal plan is a little over $1800 dollars. Ive done the math before and you end up spending around $9 a meal at the dining hall. Shit, i could eat out three times a day, everyday for that kind of money.

Invest in a hot plate. Seriously. I got mine for 26$ at our PX.

You can pan fry steaks, and make some badass breakfasts' on there as well. Pankackes, eggs, sausage, bacon, and hashbrowns. Great way to get your day started on the weekends.

Most colleges won't even allow a fucking candle warmer, much less a hot plate in the dorms....

I really like the egg drop ramen idea. Other than that, much overuse of hot sauce and especially ketchup. Taking advantage of meat markdowns on items that are about to go out of date is always good. If you can make friends with the guy who works in the meat dept. of whatever store, he may even mark fresh stuff down for you. For cheap fresh produce, find out if the there's a farmer's market in the town your school is located in. You can often find great deals at these places. With a little know how ( you have the internet, after all) you can spend like 10 bucks on canned vegetables, spices, and meat and turn out a true feast. Keep in mind, the majority of that money would be spent on the spices, and they'd last for many meals to come.

You can get great steaks on those manager's specials, too.

The number-one way to save money and improve meal quality when cooking at college/university is to cook with other people. The meals I eat at uni are better and cheaper than 95% of people I know because me and my 3 housemates cook meals together. Buying in bulk is so much cheaper; not even bulk as in wholesale-bulk, just as in buying a big pack of chicken that'll last four people two meals is cheaper per pound than buying two portions of chicken. It also means you can take advantage of multiple-buy special offers; things like 3-for-2 or buy-one-get-one-free on big packs of meat is pretty much useless if you're cooking for yourself, but if it makes sense to buy 1.5kg of mince you can save good money.

Go to a fresh fish counter 20 minutes before a store closes as well. They have to either sell it or throw it out, you can get up to 75% off without too much trouble if you don't act too interested in buying the stuff. Me and a mate bought £15 worth of plaice fillet for just under £5 last time we did that, which was enough for a four-person meal with some left over to put in the freezer. The same goes with meat counters, but to a lesser extent. Going shopping late in the day is generally good anyway, since most supermarkets reduce items that are gonna go past their sell-by dates. Again, you can get up to 75% reductions at the very end of a day.

And apart from that, buy fresh veg instead of frozen or pre-prepared stuff, be flexible in what you eat to take advantage of special offers/reduced items and don't impulse buy. Eat a lot of potato, rice and pasta. Make your own sauces (you don't need to be limited to chopped tomatoes; you can make a pretty good satay sauce for pork/chicken with smooth peanut butter and boiling water, although it helps to add a bit of sugar, soy sauce and chilli powder). Keep a packet of mixed herbs and a pack of mixed spices at the very least, ideally 2-3 herbs, 2-3 spices/spice mixes, salt, pepper, vinegar, soy sauce, garlic and anything else you like; it's not the cheapest thing in the world to buy initially, but they all last for ages and add a lot of flavour to the cheapest, blandest ingredients. Learn to like onions, carrots, mushrooms, squash and swede, because they're all dirt cheap. Make a huge pan of soup if you really need to save money, it can cover everyone's lunches for a week and costs fuck-all. You can get away with cheap meat in slow-cook dishes. And get to know what's cheapest at the different shops around you.

Loosely following all these guidelines (but only loosely; they're only die-hard if you're seriously poverty-stricken), we've made satays, stir-fries, roast dinners, soups, stews, pizzas, steaks, pork chops, fish meals, skewer things, casseroles, loads of stuff. Even when we just stick something in the oven we'll have 2-3 nice sides with it, it's really not much effort.

^ Yeah, but you're a girl, so no one can accuse you of faggotry for cooking all these grandma meals.

/sarcasm

^ Yeah, but you're a girl, so no one can accuse you of faggotry for cooking all these grandma meals.

/sarcasm

What the fuck is a "grandma meal"?

rice, its dirt cheap, lasts forever, and super easy to portion, goes well with EVERYTHING. rice is ultimate.

that being said here some other money saving tips if you can't buy bulk with your roomates.
instead of buying frozen veggies, just cut and freeze your own. Find out what sauces, free shit your cafeteria has and utilize. make big meals and fridge/freeze the left overs in individual portions, great to just throw in the mic for dinner or in your nap sack for lunches. Spices are a good way as people have mentioned, even though there is an initial investment it will pay off with not have bland ass food.

Oh, and a good marinade we stumbeld across is: soy sauce, garlic, and orange rinds(peel)

Staples nigga.

Rice, pasta, lentils shit like that.

Fish use to be a staple but capitalism fucked that up as per usual.

I went to the store the other day, and if you are looking for some cheap ass meat, chicken gizzards and hearts are CHEAP. I got a whole lot for just over a dollar! Its some tough meat, not gonna lie but its good in my opinion. Properly prepared, tastes good. Just a thought.

I went to the store the other day, and if you are looking for some cheap ass meat, chicken gizzards and hearts are CHEAP. I got a whole lot for just over a dollar! Its some tough meat, not gonna lie but its good in my opinion. Properly prepared, tastes good. Just a thought.
\

gizzards are in fact very good, but you'd have to know exactly what you're doing. livers are relatively cheap too. not big on those, myself.
the best thing about chicken liver, in my opinion, is that it's great fishbait.

What the fuck is a "grandma meal"?

Where you take like six hours to make something and it's all from scratch. Bonus grandma points if it's some kind of soup or stew or anything you'd be cooking in a giant pot like an old Italian woman.

Where you take like six hours to make something and it's all from scratch. Bonus grandma points if it's some kind of soup or stew or anything you'd be cooking in a giant pot like an old Italian woman.

Dinner from scratch never really takes more than 20-30 minutes to prepare and cook, and if it does take longer it's something you can just leave on the hob or in the oven and forget about. Once you learn to cook from scratch, you save a lot of money, eat better and set yourself up for life. You'll move out of your mom's house someday and find this out for yourself, I'm sure.

I would push crippled children in front of traffic to be able to cook my own food. You niggas are lucky not to be living in a dorm with a shitty fucked up dirty ass microwave.

The only things I cook our stouffers mac 'n cheese, cup 'o noodles, popcorn, and campell's soup.

If I wake up during the week past 10:30 (which I usually do if I don't have class) I've missed breakfast in the cafeteria. Fuck my life. If I could cook I'd be whipping up eggs, bacon, sausage, maybe so homefries if I had potatoes... shiiite.

And if it's past 10pm, and I have little to eat in my room, I just starve. It's either starve until tomorrow or walk the 900 blocks to wawa. :( There's no midnight express on campus or whatnot. Wawa rapes you on prices though.

I was able to buy a 6pk of cup 'o noodles for 2.19 the other day. I was drunk and only wanted one but it was a good price and I couldn't turn it down. Helluva a lot cheaper than paying .79 for a single cup at wawa/gas station.

fuckin hate college and having to cook my own food and shit..

its a waste of life.

if you live in a dorm bro, just steal other peoples food. seriously, you'll be cool.

If not well, just eat cereal, hot pockets, lean cuisines, tyson chicken patties, bread, ketchup, have your mom make pasta with chicken strips and put it in a big container and eat it for 3 dinners. make eggs in a ziplock bag and boil it in water so you dont have to do the dishes, don't do anything that involves dishes, you'll be wasting away on your college life, you should be out there in house parties drinking cheap beer and writing numbers downn son.. and fucking the next night and wake and bake with a hangover, then come to class late and sit there with a big smile on your face, have someone take a picture of it and put it on facebook. yea!

^ Yeah, but you're a girl, so no one can accuse you of faggotry for cooking all these grandma meals.

/sarcasm

because a chick will totally think you're a faggot if you cook for her

fuckin hate college and having to cook my own food and shit..

its a waste of life.

if you live in a dorm bro, just steal other peoples food. seriously, you'll be cool.

If not well, just eat cereal, hot pockets, lean cuisines, tyson chicken patties, bread, ketchup, have your mom make pasta with chicken strips and put it in a big container and eat it for 3 dinners. make eggs in a ziplock bag and boil it in water so you dont have to do the dishes, don't do anything that involves dishes, you'll be wasting away on your college life, you should be out there in house parties drinking cheap beer and writing numbers downn son.. and fucking the next night and wake and bake with a hangover, then come to class late and sit there with a big smile on your face, have someone take a picture of it and put it on facebook. yea!

Yeah, the college experience is all about getting your mom to cook you pasta.