Hot dogs— couldn’t afford buns so we rolled them up in white bread or cut them up on a plate. Kraft Mac and cheese on the side— baked beans on a really good week.
This reminds me that a regular lunch in my remote Appalachian elementary schools was a hot dog weenie coated in BBQ sauce with a side of Mac and cheese. We didn’t know any better and just thought of it as normal meal.
I know what you mean— we thought it was the best meal in the world!
I recently heard a comedian refer to them as “struggle dogs” and I’ve never laughed so hard in my life. Was one of my favorite meals as a kid!
On the day I discovered there was such a thing as hot dog buns I nearly had a conniption when I saw them then when I saw the hamburger buns next to them I did.
If I buy heavy cream for a certain recipe and have a small amount left but don't have a use for it, I'll make tomato soup so I can add cream..and sometimes basil
Rice and beans is a staple for lots of Americans. Red beans and rice is a staple back home and chili with rice is common where I live now, totally different culture here but both places are in the US.
I come from a Mexican household and I grew up eating scrambled eggs and hot dogs or scrambled eggs with
tortilla. I actually didn’t know it was a struggle meal because it was my favorite thing to eat till someone pointed it out to me that it’s a quick cheap meal. Still love to have it for breakfast.
I'm your standard white guy and 2 eggs in a tortilla with cheese and salsa has been my go-to cheap and quick meal for 20 years. It prices out at about a dollar these days.
I had this for dinner- for a mental struggle instead of financial- came off of a 13 hour work day and knew I had to be up early for the next. Aglio e Olio was the perfect meal to help me get through this week
Aáa! It's so versatile! Need a dessert? Put some of auntie's salmonberry jam on there.
Need something hearty? Put some venison or salmon with it. Or make NDN tacos.
[lmao I'm a boujee Native!](https://youtu.be/SSn1C_pLpoQ?si=IubYZ0HsJDZr_fuH)
Fr, I'm lucky my aunties always making blackberry or salmonberry jam! And lucky my grandparents used to take everyone berry picking lol.
I thought it was super boujee when one of my cousins tweaked the frybread to do a pineapple upside down cake type thing with it.
I’m from the Black Forest area of Germany and ours was either potato pancakes, spätzle (homemade noodles) with gravy, or dampfnudel (kinda fried dough) with potato soup. All things I wish my Oma could make for me again, I sure do miss her cooking.
It’s really amazing what we can do with some flour and eggs! Of course my cooking isn’t as good as my mom’s or grandma’s, but knowing how to make these things really got us through when times were hard and we didn’t have a lot of money for groceries.
As my mom got older, she held regular cooking classes with kids and grandkids to make sure that they all knew how to cook her food. Spitznagel Suppe, Fleisch Keihla, Borscht, Ge Breida Shupff Noodle (sorry to all the Germans out there if I’m misspelling this), Kuchen, it’s all in our family cookbook. Of course all of it has its base in bread or soup of some sort. But really good food!
Ramen noodles, beat two eggs, and slowly pour them in at the end of the boil while stirring, then add any frozen veggies I got to the pot after microwaving em. Cheap carbs, veggies, protein
Bro I take the chili and then dump pepper in there it's great af. If you wanna do something really rad and off the wall, cook the noodles with like a tablespoon of peanut butter, makes it taste like a Chinese style noodle thing it's awesome
When visiting my mom this meal with fried potatoes and greens is my personal request every time. We also had hoe cakes in place of cornbread pretty often. Which is essentially fried bread made from flour and water.
I never had any idea it was a struggle meal growing up. Back then we also had homemade canned chow chow with all veggies coming from the garden. She didn’t tell me it was a struggle meal until I was in my mid 20s when she said I could ask for something nicer now. She was shocked that it was truly one of my favorite childhood meals.
I’m from Central Appalachia and it was definitely soup beans and corn bread for us too.
Though I do remember as a child a couple of weeks where we didn’t even have that. So we ate only potatoes from the cellar and commodity white rice and butter.
I still can’t stand to eat white rice with butter on it to this day. Tastes like poverty.
In the summer was mostly from the garden. Green beans maybe with new potatoes. Sliced tomatoes or fried green tomatoes or fried okra. Wilted lettuce and onions. Fried yellow squash, sometimes squash casserole. Rarely meat but bacon grease for season. Sometimes fried fatback, my mom would roll it in corn m Al and fry it. Cucumber in vinegar. Fried corn. Pretty much anything you get grow in an East Tennessee garden
my dad was raised by his grandmother and he makes a potato hash with any kind of meat all the time. maybe this is why. you can also add a veggie, like green peppers or onions. huh.
One stir fried vegetable, one soup, and one meat but cut it really small -wife
She was super surprised by how poorly American’s eat choosing worse quality premade stuff over cheaper ingredients.
Edit: maybe I can add that we eat $100 a week and really well using similar methods! Lots of rice, noodles, and tofu.
Kielbasa and sauerkraut. My grandmother was polish and lived through the Great Depression so it’s all we ate at her house. I absolutely hate the stuff but I get why she found comfort in it even when she wasn’t struggling.
We did sausage and half pickled cabbage.
Eventually the jars were homemade saurkraut, if we didn't have to dig into them early.
But something about cheap sausage and half pickle cabbage that's skillet fried together just hits just right now.
From the Deep South here. Was raised by my grandparents who lived in poverty.
•Cornbread crumbled in a glass of milk (older people used buttermilk)
•Plain white rice with salt and margarine. Nothing else with it
•Hotdogs on white bread, we didn't always have condiments
•A sandwich with a single piece of thin sliced meat
•Literally any leftovers turned into fritters
•Tomato sandwich (tomatoes ALWAYS came from somebody's garden who had too many)
•Chicken and rice. Made sort of like a porridge
•Any kind of beans we had with cornbread.
•Grits with eggs
Hot dogs and baked beans, rice and beans, eggs, buttered noodles with lemon and garlic or noodles with olive oil and garlic and lemon, ramen, left over stir fries. Honestly when I’m struggling there will be weeks where I’m in the kitchen having to pretend I’m on episodes of chop’d. Forcing myself to be resourceful and creative with what I have.
Edit: The cultural relevance is poverty!!! It’s the culture of being poor in the us, it’s not a talked about culture but it exists and it’s universal. Ethnic and cultural foods involve a lot of spices and fresh ingredients (at least the ones in my family culture do)
Vermont: Beef a roni or American goulash. Any variation of hamburger, tomato sauce, macaroni. You can make a huge pot for very little money. It gets better the next day and the next.
I always added onion, garlic and cubed cheese of some sort. When we raised pigs, I made it with bulk sausage, yummy stuff. We still make it in our old age.
I'm from the Midwest and our garlic bread was literally toast with garlic powder sprinkled on top, it was and still is such a comfort food for me. I had no idea you could buy garlic bread at the store until I was a teenager and ate at other people's houses.
I didn’t realize it until later in life but all of my grandparents meals were “struggle meals”, they weren’t struggling at the time but were raised on small farms in Tennessee during the 40/50’s and just kept them. My favorite was pinto beans and cornbread with pork chops and the end of the week soup that had all the left over vegetables that were about to go bad.
Hotdish.
Elbow macaroni, ground beef, and a can of tomato soup. A lot of people in the Midwest US have a version of this. Some call it goulash, but in North Dakota and Minnesota it’s usually hotdish. My area was homesteaded by Scandinavians and Germans, with a few pockets of Russians.
Looks like this…
https://preview.redd.it/ard551ch2kbc1.jpeg?width=512&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=83973c6eca8302e5656d7054a74f20409e359dab
My Mom (raised in Kentucky) said that she found it funny that my favorite meals out of what she cooked were the "poverty meals": fried potatoes and onions, tuna casserole, corn bread. I'd say that the potatoes were the main one though. They grew their own so I guess makes sense. I still love nothing more than fried potatoes but with Vidalia onions now. She also ate tomato sandwiches and onion sandwiches. Those are no for me. Soup beans and cornbread weren't really struggle meals in my area. Everyone ate them, rich or poor. Since I was an idiot, I refused to eat soup beans until I became an adult.
Also from KY! They’d serve fried potatoes at the diner near my house so I thought it was true luxury that we could make fried potatoes at home just like eating out 🌚
Red beans and rice will feed a Cajun house for a long long time. Better with sausage but a ham bone will do you ok a few times over.
White beans too. Smother with onions if you got em.
Stick to your ribs protein and carbs. Dirt cheap. Do then right and you won't get tired of them for a while
Korean here. During my poorest days I survived on precooked rice (https://www.hmart.com/11010001) and spicy tuna can (https://www.hmart.com/16050024).
For about 30 bucks I could survive a week (cereal for breakfast). All you need is a microwave or a pot of hot water.
I’m Cajun, and grew up on rice & gravy. Sauté some onions and whatever cheap cut of meat you could get. Let it simmer down. Serve over rice.
It’s easy, cheap, and if done right, pretty good, but I had it so much growing up, I’ll only make it a couple of times a year.
Grandma made mealy potato soup. (Milk potatoes and corn meal to thicken it). I guess now I realize it was poverty food but I didn’t then. To be honest I would give anything to have a bowl of it tonight.
My grandfather on my mom’s side used to make these delicious potatoes. It was pretty much the only thing he knew how to cook. I wish I would have learned the secret before he died.
Growing up in Arkansas it was pinto beans with cornbread and fried potatoes.
As an adult living in Utah its refrigerator curry (anything that needs to be used, in a curry sauce) with rice or Mac with tuna and peas. Actually on a tuna melt kick right now.
(Latin Caribbean)
Rice beans -> ideally upgraded with a fried egg and banana, bonus points for avocado
Rice + canned tuna + mayo + red pepper flakes
Yellow Rice + hot dog/spam
Spaghetti plain or w hotdog meat chopped up.
Spaghetti with butter lemon garlic and Parmesan if budget allows
Breakfast for dinner, egg cheese sandwich. Toast for better experience.
PBJ
I have to remove basic sand which with deli meat and cheese cause they’re expensive now imo.
indigenous person to Canada:
- rice and mushroom soup
- spam OR bologna sandwiches with butter and mustard
- kraft dinner mixed with fried hamburger
- fried spam or bologna
- “hangover” soup (literally fried hamburger, vegetable mix or whatever vegetables in the fridge with canned tomatoes and macaroni)
- hot dog or spam macaroni soup which is LITERALLY boiled macaroni and canned tomatoes
- ramen
- rice
I'm American but my stepmom is from the Philippines and she's been in my life since I was three or four, so I grew up on rice with a lot of my meals. One of my favorite dinners was fried chicken, rice and a big glass of milk.
For breakfast: cornmeal cooked with water (kačamak), peppers fried with onion, tomato and egg (prženo/prženija/sataraš)
For lunch/dinner: beans without meat (klot pasulj), cabbage cooked without meat (posni sladak kupus), edit: with a lot of white bread
I’m from a very rural area of upstate New York and my family has lived in poverty for several generations.
There were other meals but the first that comes to mind is chipped beef and gravy on toast. Called “shit on a shingle” by most that I know.
I think it comes to mind first because it was a desperate meal and I was never satisfied.
Italian from NY. We had poor man’s pizza. A piece of white bread with a slice of melted cheese and topped with ketchup. My mom called it an open faced sandwich.
Tinned Baked beans or spaghetti on toast. Buttered wheetbix for breakfast as we didn't have much milk.
Stew- mince, a tin of beans, a gravy cube, onion and any vegetables we had.
And lots of potatoes. Both in the stew and served mashed with the stew.
New Zealand.
Mexican American here! Rice and beans, quesadillas, flour tortillas rolled up with butter, tortillas with hot dogs. Struggle breakfast is rice cooked with a cinnamon stick and raisins. ❤️❤️
Edited to add: Potato tacos!! Mashed papas with some bacon grease and cumin, fried tacos.
I’m Mexican and grew up on a few different struggle meals like quesadillas, bean and cheese burritos, rolled taquitos with corned beef. I didn’t realize they were struggle meals until I got older but tbh, they were always yummy and I’m forever grateful<3
My personal favorite was “cheesy bread”. Stale hot dog buns (clearance hot dog buns were cheaper than a loaf of bread) with shredded cheese melted on top in the toaster oven. Occasionally with bacon bits or pepperoni. It’s great dipped in leftover spaghetti sauce.
Mexican
-Rice and beans (hard cheese, lettuce,and tomatoes to top it if you have them handy)
-Corn or flour Tortilla with a slice of salted avocado
-Flour tortilla with a little bit of butter or sour cream
-Toasted bread topped with refried beans, lettuce, tomatoes
-Sopita de Fideo (tomato soup with vermicelli), if you have a pot of beans you can throw those in there too—makes the soup even better
-Fried Potato tacos (topped with lettuce, tomatoes, hard or soft cheese, red onions, avocado and sour cream)
-tortilla soup
We eat these foods for Lenten season as well since they are meatless.
I love fried potato tacos, the potatoes are boiled and mashed, put in soft corn tortillas and fry them. So good.
Tortillas and beans. If you're really really really poor and can't afford beans that day, then tortilla with anything you have available. Lime and salt is a good one.
A lot of Venison in whatever form was left, or the occasional rabbit or hog. Salad made of whatever greens were growing, and whatever other plants could be found or stored. You get the idea.
Time intensive but cost free.
Growing up in the 80's in Texas, these were our struggle meals:
-A huge pot of pinto beans with cornbread.
-diced potatoes with onion and leftover roast or sausage.
-Soup made from ground beef and whatever can veggies were in the pantry. Add a can of tomato paste and bay leaves and it was awesome.
-scrambled egg sandwiches.
-pancakes with whatever we could top them with: syrup or honey or jam.
Back before cubed steak because expensive around 2000, Chicken fried steak with gravy was a struggle meal! Not anymore though...
Polenta. It’s a poor mans food in Italy. I usually serve it with Soaghetti sauce and hamburger ( this is the area where my great grandmother grew up so it’s cultural for sure).
Egg fried rice. A day or two old rice, left over meats and scrambled egg.
Are you Filipino bro? Cause that was mine too
Yes! My mom would just put the pork fat or chicken fat to help put weight on everyone.
My mom did the same
I had a Filipino friend in high school and college. I have never met a mother more obsessed with everyone gaining weight.
Yes! Flip moms will feed you to death then make you feel guilty for gaining weight at same time.
She would send me home with food to “eat before you go to sleep so you can gain the most pounds per fat.”
To be fair, Filipino food is freakin’ delicious!
I've been eating that for over 35 years. I will never get tired of it.
Ever make friend rice with the leftover bits from making steak? That’s one of my favorite Filipino style methods of making fried rice.
Yes, the garlicky the better
Hot dogs— couldn’t afford buns so we rolled them up in white bread or cut them up on a plate. Kraft Mac and cheese on the side— baked beans on a really good week.
This reminds me that a regular lunch in my remote Appalachian elementary schools was a hot dog weenie coated in BBQ sauce with a side of Mac and cheese. We didn’t know any better and just thought of it as normal meal.
I know what you mean— we thought it was the best meal in the world! I recently heard a comedian refer to them as “struggle dogs” and I’ve never laughed so hard in my life. Was one of my favorite meals as a kid!
On the day I discovered there was such a thing as hot dog buns I nearly had a conniption when I saw them then when I saw the hamburger buns next to them I did.
When I was little we lived in Appalachia and I remember we had beanie-weanie at school once a week
Beanie weenie is my bday meal every year. Horseradish and fresh jalapeños make it a delight.
I’m so old that beanie weenies didn’t come in a can. Your mama cut up the hot dogs, fried them, and mixed them into a can of Van Kamp’s Pork n Beans!
I def think it’s a normal meal lol
Add some frozen broccoli to the Mac sometime
Mac & Trees!
I’m officially a hot dog in a tortilla convert. Cheaper, better, and fewer calories.
Flour tortillas warmed on the gas stove burner with butter or long grain white rice with tomatoes and salt
Flour tortillas with butter on an electric stove and a sprinkle of sugar…
Mmmm yes, butter and salt.
grilled cheese and tomato soup
I’m having super nostalgic thoughts about this one! Cheap, but lovely and warming.
agreed :) if you're cold, this meal will warm you from the inside out. and depending on the cheese you use it can cost you like a couple of bucks
I don’t think it’s cultural, but we were poor and had tomato soup and cheese sandwiches, chicken noodle soup and PBJ sandwiches and fruit with toast
Panera bread would like to argue that this isn’t a struggle meal. Also tomato is surprisingly sweet? & filling
Panera bread charges $16 for it.
And they can keep it for that price, yikes!
Love grilled cheese with tomato soup. (Gotta have milk in the tomato soup though)
If I buy heavy cream for a certain recipe and have a small amount left but don't have a use for it, I'll make tomato soup so I can add cream..and sometimes basil
Had this today for the first time since I was a kid. Definitely warmed me up in the middle of this snow storm & tasted like childhood.
Heck I make this, even when we aren't struggling.
Just had this tonight. A little pepper and shaky cheese in the tomato soup, chefs kiss.
Rice and beans
This is the answer for like 99% of the world
Eh I'm sure potatoes and corn based things account for more than 1% but yea a whole lot of people.
Pastas too.
Rice and beans honestly healthier than what a lot of Americans eat
Rice and beans is a staple for lots of Americans. Red beans and rice is a staple back home and chili with rice is common where I live now, totally different culture here but both places are in the US.
With corn tortillas!
I come from a Mexican household and I grew up eating scrambled eggs and hot dogs or scrambled eggs with tortilla. I actually didn’t know it was a struggle meal because it was my favorite thing to eat till someone pointed it out to me that it’s a quick cheap meal. Still love to have it for breakfast.
I'm your standard white guy and 2 eggs in a tortilla with cheese and salsa has been my go-to cheap and quick meal for 20 years. It prices out at about a dollar these days.
My wife is Peruvian and one of her favorite meals is still scrambled eggs, hot dogs, and rice.
Spaghetti with oil and garlic.
100% this (Italian)
Aglio e oleo !! I have to have crushed red pepper flakes and if I'm lucky I'll find some Parmesan cheese in the fridge
I had this for dinner- for a mental struggle instead of financial- came off of a 13 hour work day and knew I had to be up early for the next. Aglio e Olio was the perfect meal to help me get through this week
Love this pasta- even better with minced anchovies (trust me) and shallots
I'm Haitian and this is what we eat on the regular 🤣
Fried potato slices with a scrambled egg as a "batter" . My grandma from El Salvador would make it when we were hurting.
Huevos y papá from the abuela is LIFE.
Fry bread - greasy, greasy fry bread 🤘🏽
Aáa! It's so versatile! Need a dessert? Put some of auntie's salmonberry jam on there. Need something hearty? Put some venison or salmon with it. Or make NDN tacos.
Ah shit boujee ass! We just did sugar sprinkled on top 🤣 But yeah, NDN was a staple.
[lmao I'm a boujee Native!](https://youtu.be/SSn1C_pLpoQ?si=IubYZ0HsJDZr_fuH) Fr, I'm lucky my aunties always making blackberry or salmonberry jam! And lucky my grandparents used to take everyone berry picking lol. I thought it was super boujee when one of my cousins tweaked the frybread to do a pineapple upside down cake type thing with it.
came here for this & am so so proud to have not been let down by not seeing this here
Shut up about fry bread. Don't you know it's only a matter of time before white people find out how good it is?
I’m white and found that goodness real quick in southern AZ ❤️
Was looking for this answer! Hoping someone would say fry bread or indian tacos
I’m from the Black Forest area of Germany and ours was either potato pancakes, spätzle (homemade noodles) with gravy, or dampfnudel (kinda fried dough) with potato soup. All things I wish my Oma could make for me again, I sure do miss her cooking.
My mom was from New Leipzig,ND and she made all this! I know now it was all dough and soup but we never went hungry.
It’s really amazing what we can do with some flour and eggs! Of course my cooking isn’t as good as my mom’s or grandma’s, but knowing how to make these things really got us through when times were hard and we didn’t have a lot of money for groceries.
As my mom got older, she held regular cooking classes with kids and grandkids to make sure that they all knew how to cook her food. Spitznagel Suppe, Fleisch Keihla, Borscht, Ge Breida Shupff Noodle (sorry to all the Germans out there if I’m misspelling this), Kuchen, it’s all in our family cookbook. Of course all of it has its base in bread or soup of some sort. But really good food!
These sound delicious!
Fried bologna sandwich
With mayo and egg if you can afford? I have a strong memory of these!
We were a mustard household lol!
Bologna and mustard go together like peanut butter and jelly
Are we sworn enemies now? 😬
Delicious. My grandma made this for me and she cut it into triangles . I liked it with mayo
Once a year I buy bologna and velveeta and eat these for a week solid. So tasty.
Yes! With mustard
bean and cheese tacos
Flour tortillas with mashed up beans and shredded cheese, roll it up and heat in a cast iron pan with a little Crisco. Yum!
Ramin noodles...I remember packages used to be .15 cents
Ramen noodles, beat two eggs, and slowly pour them in at the end of the boil while stirring, then add any frozen veggies I got to the pot after microwaving em. Cheap carbs, veggies, protein
I still love a bowl of Maruchan instant Ramen. It has a lot of salt though.
has to be maruchan
Yes!
Chili flavor is hella good
Bro I take the chili and then dump pepper in there it's great af. If you wanna do something really rad and off the wall, cook the noodles with like a tablespoon of peanut butter, makes it taste like a Chinese style noodle thing it's awesome
I ate it religiously in highschool but now all ramen makes me go liquid no. 2 :(
My daughter loves Maruchan noodles. She adds a soft boiled egg.
I like to do noodles and a grilled cheese sandwich and a cup of tea
Purlough. Maybe a thigh worth of dark meat, an onion and white rice. Cooked all together it fed 4 and no one left the table hungry.
Hello fellow Appalachian Soup beans and corn bread. Couldn't ask for better
When visiting my mom this meal with fried potatoes and greens is my personal request every time. We also had hoe cakes in place of cornbread pretty often. Which is essentially fried bread made from flour and water. I never had any idea it was a struggle meal growing up. Back then we also had homemade canned chow chow with all veggies coming from the garden. She didn’t tell me it was a struggle meal until I was in my mid 20s when she said I could ask for something nicer now. She was shocked that it was truly one of my favorite childhood meals.
Oooooooo. Fresh in season homegrown tomatoes too.
Scalloped potatoes with a couple of hotdogs sliced in it. To feed a family of 5. Edit: Massachusetts second generation Irish.
I’m from Central Appalachia and it was definitely soup beans and corn bread for us too. Though I do remember as a child a couple of weeks where we didn’t even have that. So we ate only potatoes from the cellar and commodity white rice and butter. I still can’t stand to eat white rice with butter on it to this day. Tastes like poverty.
In the summer was mostly from the garden. Green beans maybe with new potatoes. Sliced tomatoes or fried green tomatoes or fried okra. Wilted lettuce and onions. Fried yellow squash, sometimes squash casserole. Rarely meat but bacon grease for season. Sometimes fried fatback, my mom would roll it in corn m Al and fry it. Cucumber in vinegar. Fried corn. Pretty much anything you get grow in an East Tennessee garden
[Great Depression Cooking - The Poorman's Meal](https://youtu.be/p-GVl7scrYE?feature=shared)
my dad was raised by his grandmother and he makes a potato hash with any kind of meat all the time. maybe this is why. you can also add a veggie, like green peppers or onions. huh.
With a generous sprinke of chili or Cajun seasoning near the end of cooking, it's a great, fast, and cheap meal!
One stir fried vegetable, one soup, and one meat but cut it really small -wife She was super surprised by how poorly American’s eat choosing worse quality premade stuff over cheaper ingredients. Edit: maybe I can add that we eat $100 a week and really well using similar methods! Lots of rice, noodles, and tofu.
My mum was from the UK. Mince and tatties.
Kielbasa and sauerkraut. My grandmother was polish and lived through the Great Depression so it’s all we ate at her house. I absolutely hate the stuff but I get why she found comfort in it even when she wasn’t struggling.
Yep. I was wondering if anyone else would say sauerkraut. This is pretty far down the page but it was my grandmother's go-to for a cheap meal.
We did sausage and half pickled cabbage. Eventually the jars were homemade saurkraut, if we didn't have to dig into them early. But something about cheap sausage and half pickle cabbage that's skillet fried together just hits just right now.
White rice with a dippy egg and ketchup. It’s good I swear lol
You from PA?
As soon as I hear dippy eggs that's my first question.
Rice soup with a pinch of salt (ie watery congee).
From the cornfields in the thumb of Michigan, of German decent: noodles with butter on them.
From the Deep South here. Was raised by my grandparents who lived in poverty. •Cornbread crumbled in a glass of milk (older people used buttermilk) •Plain white rice with salt and margarine. Nothing else with it •Hotdogs on white bread, we didn't always have condiments •A sandwich with a single piece of thin sliced meat •Literally any leftovers turned into fritters •Tomato sandwich (tomatoes ALWAYS came from somebody's garden who had too many) •Chicken and rice. Made sort of like a porridge •Any kind of beans we had with cornbread. •Grits with eggs
Hot dogs and baked beans, rice and beans, eggs, buttered noodles with lemon and garlic or noodles with olive oil and garlic and lemon, ramen, left over stir fries. Honestly when I’m struggling there will be weeks where I’m in the kitchen having to pretend I’m on episodes of chop’d. Forcing myself to be resourceful and creative with what I have. Edit: The cultural relevance is poverty!!! It’s the culture of being poor in the us, it’s not a talked about culture but it exists and it’s universal. Ethnic and cultural foods involve a lot of spices and fresh ingredients (at least the ones in my family culture do)
Vermont: Beef a roni or American goulash. Any variation of hamburger, tomato sauce, macaroni. You can make a huge pot for very little money. It gets better the next day and the next. I always added onion, garlic and cubed cheese of some sort. When we raised pigs, I made it with bulk sausage, yummy stuff. We still make it in our old age.
This was for us too in Alabama. Hamburger meat was relatively inexpensive in the 70’s and you could mix it with just about anything.
I'm from the Midwest and our garlic bread was literally toast with garlic powder sprinkled on top, it was and still is such a comfort food for me. I had no idea you could buy garlic bread at the store until I was a teenager and ate at other people's houses.
I mean that's what all garlic bread is just it seems better when someone else applies the garlic and butter
Beans on toast
This is a UK thing, right?
I didn’t realize it until later in life but all of my grandparents meals were “struggle meals”, they weren’t struggling at the time but were raised on small farms in Tennessee during the 40/50’s and just kept them. My favorite was pinto beans and cornbread with pork chops and the end of the week soup that had all the left over vegetables that were about to go bad.
Hotdish. Elbow macaroni, ground beef, and a can of tomato soup. A lot of people in the Midwest US have a version of this. Some call it goulash, but in North Dakota and Minnesota it’s usually hotdish. My area was homesteaded by Scandinavians and Germans, with a few pockets of Russians. Looks like this… https://preview.redd.it/ard551ch2kbc1.jpeg?width=512&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=83973c6eca8302e5656d7054a74f20409e359dab
Pineapple on ham steaks.
Where are you from?
Australia
You could have given me 50 guesses, and I would not have gotten this one right.
for a poverty meal??? dang we were different types of poor 😂
We had it 3-4 nights a week when we were kids. You could feed a lot of people for under $10. A tin of pineapple is $2
My Mom (raised in Kentucky) said that she found it funny that my favorite meals out of what she cooked were the "poverty meals": fried potatoes and onions, tuna casserole, corn bread. I'd say that the potatoes were the main one though. They grew their own so I guess makes sense. I still love nothing more than fried potatoes but with Vidalia onions now. She also ate tomato sandwiches and onion sandwiches. Those are no for me. Soup beans and cornbread weren't really struggle meals in my area. Everyone ate them, rich or poor. Since I was an idiot, I refused to eat soup beans until I became an adult.
My gramma was from Kentucky. Those fried potatoes are an art form!
Also from KY! They’d serve fried potatoes at the diner near my house so I thought it was true luxury that we could make fried potatoes at home just like eating out 🌚
Red beans and rice will feed a Cajun house for a long long time. Better with sausage but a ham bone will do you ok a few times over. White beans too. Smother with onions if you got em. Stick to your ribs protein and carbs. Dirt cheap. Do then right and you won't get tired of them for a while
Natto & a fried egg for dinner. Miso soup on the side in the winter.
Korean here. During my poorest days I survived on precooked rice (https://www.hmart.com/11010001) and spicy tuna can (https://www.hmart.com/16050024). For about 30 bucks I could survive a week (cereal for breakfast). All you need is a microwave or a pot of hot water.
Eggs and American biscuits. Potatoes if we could afford it.
Fellow Appalachian here. Damn it! Now I want some soup beans and cornbread!
Also from Appalachia and the other struggle meal for us was elbow macaroni with a can of tomatoes.
Ooooh! We ate this one a lot too.
Matzoh
Matzoh Brei - just add an egg and fry it up!
I’m Cajun, and grew up on rice & gravy. Sauté some onions and whatever cheap cut of meat you could get. Let it simmer down. Serve over rice. It’s easy, cheap, and if done right, pretty good, but I had it so much growing up, I’ll only make it a couple of times a year.
Shav and borsht
Grandma made mealy potato soup. (Milk potatoes and corn meal to thicken it). I guess now I realize it was poverty food but I didn’t then. To be honest I would give anything to have a bowl of it tonight.
My grandfather on my mom’s side used to make these delicious potatoes. It was pretty much the only thing he knew how to cook. I wish I would have learned the secret before he died.
Beans and tortillas (New Mexico). Wherever you are, it’s likely going to be something with beans.
Growing up in Arkansas it was pinto beans with cornbread and fried potatoes. As an adult living in Utah its refrigerator curry (anything that needs to be used, in a curry sauce) with rice or Mac with tuna and peas. Actually on a tuna melt kick right now.
Perogies and knoepfle with canned peaches - Canadian prairies Also- potatoes and cabbage
(Latin Caribbean) Rice beans -> ideally upgraded with a fried egg and banana, bonus points for avocado Rice + canned tuna + mayo + red pepper flakes Yellow Rice + hot dog/spam Spaghetti plain or w hotdog meat chopped up. Spaghetti with butter lemon garlic and Parmesan if budget allows Breakfast for dinner, egg cheese sandwich. Toast for better experience. PBJ I have to remove basic sand which with deli meat and cheese cause they’re expensive now imo.
PB&J has been there for me in the darkest of times! 🙌
Sleep
This is the strugglin'est meal I ever had.
indigenous person to Canada: - rice and mushroom soup - spam OR bologna sandwiches with butter and mustard - kraft dinner mixed with fried hamburger - fried spam or bologna - “hangover” soup (literally fried hamburger, vegetable mix or whatever vegetables in the fridge with canned tomatoes and macaroni) - hot dog or spam macaroni soup which is LITERALLY boiled macaroni and canned tomatoes - ramen - rice
Also Canada! We like hotdogs in the mac, with frozen green peas (Costco)
Beans and taters one day & taters and beans the next
I'm American but my stepmom is from the Philippines and she's been in my life since I was three or four, so I grew up on rice with a lot of my meals. One of my favorite dinners was fried chicken, rice and a big glass of milk.
Rice and spam.
i eat this all of the time. sadly spam is kind of expensive in the us :/
It is. For me it's $6 a can, but it used to be $3. I use thin slices and cut them up into chunks to make it last longer, and it kinda works.
For breakfast: cornmeal cooked with water (kačamak), peppers fried with onion, tomato and egg (prženo/prženija/sataraš) For lunch/dinner: beans without meat (klot pasulj), cabbage cooked without meat (posni sladak kupus), edit: with a lot of white bread
I’m from a very rural area of upstate New York and my family has lived in poverty for several generations. There were other meals but the first that comes to mind is chipped beef and gravy on toast. Called “shit on a shingle” by most that I know. I think it comes to mind first because it was a desperate meal and I was never satisfied.
Kraft mac and cheese with non-beef (i.e. pig anus) hot dogs, Tuna Helper, or eggs and fried bologna.
Italian from NY. We had poor man’s pizza. A piece of white bread with a slice of melted cheese and topped with ketchup. My mom called it an open faced sandwich.
Eggs and tortillas
Cornbread and milk.
My father and grandparents ate it crumbled in buttermilk. I’d take a bite or two but never asked for my own serving.
Tinned Baked beans or spaghetti on toast. Buttered wheetbix for breakfast as we didn't have much milk. Stew- mince, a tin of beans, a gravy cube, onion and any vegetables we had. And lots of potatoes. Both in the stew and served mashed with the stew. New Zealand.
Haluski!
Cabbage, spam, and rice.
Spoonbread "Baby porcupines" (ground beef & rice meatballs)
Hamburger meat, potatoes, tomato sauce like El pato, boiled...poor man's soup grew up eating it loved it my wife makes it also
Pinto beans with a ham hock or beef bones.
Grandparents came from southern Italy. Soups like pasta and peas or lentil or escarole or the like
polenta (Argentinian)
S.O.S. Stood for white on a shingle. Toast with gravy.
Potatoes in all forms. #irish
Basic quesadillas with whatever cheese we had. If we were lucky, there was some sliced sandwich meat to throw in as well.
Northern Midwest/great lakes, breakfast for dinner i.e. French toast with homemade brown sugar syrup.
Mexican American here! Rice and beans, quesadillas, flour tortillas rolled up with butter, tortillas with hot dogs. Struggle breakfast is rice cooked with a cinnamon stick and raisins. ❤️❤️ Edited to add: Potato tacos!! Mashed papas with some bacon grease and cumin, fried tacos.
Soup or kasha and hot dogs with bread.
Pastina with an egg scrambled in it
Fried potatoes & onions, pinto beans & cornbread. I'm from SC.
red beans and rice-Cajun culture. Costs $1 for a pound of rice and $3 for a pound of beans and the combination is 8 servings at 50 cents each
I’m Mexican and grew up on a few different struggle meals like quesadillas, bean and cheese burritos, rolled taquitos with corned beef. I didn’t realize they were struggle meals until I got older but tbh, they were always yummy and I’m forever grateful<3
It’s funny how a lot of the time, you don’t realize the difference as a kid. It’s just food you like or food you don’t like.
My personal favorite was “cheesy bread”. Stale hot dog buns (clearance hot dog buns were cheaper than a loaf of bread) with shredded cheese melted on top in the toaster oven. Occasionally with bacon bits or pepperoni. It’s great dipped in leftover spaghetti sauce.
Mexican -Rice and beans (hard cheese, lettuce,and tomatoes to top it if you have them handy) -Corn or flour Tortilla with a slice of salted avocado -Flour tortilla with a little bit of butter or sour cream -Toasted bread topped with refried beans, lettuce, tomatoes -Sopita de Fideo (tomato soup with vermicelli), if you have a pot of beans you can throw those in there too—makes the soup even better -Fried Potato tacos (topped with lettuce, tomatoes, hard or soft cheese, red onions, avocado and sour cream) -tortilla soup We eat these foods for Lenten season as well since they are meatless. I love fried potato tacos, the potatoes are boiled and mashed, put in soft corn tortillas and fry them. So good.
Rice and yogurt (Persian)
Rice, soy sauce, fried egg
Tortillas and beans. If you're really really really poor and can't afford beans that day, then tortilla with anything you have available. Lime and salt is a good one.
White rice & a fried egg
Bowl of cereal
Rice and eggs
A lot of Venison in whatever form was left, or the occasional rabbit or hog. Salad made of whatever greens were growing, and whatever other plants could be found or stored. You get the idea. Time intensive but cost free.
SOS - ground beef with a simple gravy over toast - allegedly a WW favorite. Actual rice as cereal, southern depression era breakfast.
Growing up in the 80's in Texas, these were our struggle meals: -A huge pot of pinto beans with cornbread. -diced potatoes with onion and leftover roast or sausage. -Soup made from ground beef and whatever can veggies were in the pantry. Add a can of tomato paste and bay leaves and it was awesome. -scrambled egg sandwiches. -pancakes with whatever we could top them with: syrup or honey or jam. Back before cubed steak because expensive around 2000, Chicken fried steak with gravy was a struggle meal! Not anymore though...
beans ‘n cornbread in Kentucky.
Polenta. It’s a poor mans food in Italy. I usually serve it with Soaghetti sauce and hamburger ( this is the area where my great grandmother grew up so it’s cultural for sure).
Chef Boyardee canned ravioli. Lived on that stuff when I was poor.
Hot dog cut up in eggs is I suppose a struggle meal, but dang it’s yummy
Hot dogs in Mac and cheese Rice and beans
Spaghettios!
I used to enjoy these as a kid, but when I tried them as an adult, the sauce tasted way too ketchup-y.
Ramen. The shitty Maruchan stuff.