Introduction

This is something I’ve been meaning to do for quite some time. The main goal of this is to have the ultimate budget meal plan. That’s eating 2 meals of rice+black beans a day for a week. I will be eating for less than a dollar a meal.

My original idea was to go with plain rice and black beans with no spices but according to the folks over at reddit.com/r/budgetfood i’d be insane not to spice it up.

The price of spices is negligible compared to how much better the meals will taste.

Each day I will try to do a completely different recipe while still staying on budget and in my calorie range.

For those interested in how I got here, have a look at the thread here and the information provided by some amazing people.

Apparently for many cultures, especially Latin America, rice and beans is a very common staple in their diets. There are some great recipes out there that can make this not only great for the budget but also great tasting. Perhaps this will be even good enough for a long term plan, time will tell! Below is some great insight on what is done around the world.

Recipes

The first recipe I will try for it’s simplicity and price is this one:

Nutrition

For this recipe I’ll be using black beans, basmati rice, coconut oil, half a white onion and cilantro. Here’s the complete breakdown of nutritional facts for each. I’ll be having this twice a day. Note the 1:1 bean to rice ratio, according to this study it is associated with lower cardiometabolic risk factors in adults.

As you can see from this, I may be lacking in some vitamins so therefore I’ll be taking a complete multi-vitamin each morning.

After tallying up all the ingredients, the result was 2017 kcal which is right in the range I’m looking for.

Cost

Let’s tally up the cost for the day:

Cost Ingredient $0.40 Dry Black Beans (2 Cups) $0.74 Basmati Rice (2 Cups) $0.25 White Onion $0.10 Coconut Oil (2 Tbsp) $0.10 Cilantro (to taste)

This is a total of $1.59 a day. In other words, eating rice and beans for 80 cents a meal. Outstanding!

For prices, I used walmart.com

Tonight I am soaking my dried black beans therefore tomorrow I will begin this journey.

Thank you to everyone over at Reddit who chipped in to help with great information and recipes. I started this thinking it would be a painful experience however now I am excited for some great dishes from around the world!

To sum up, stay tuned for tomorrow’s first day, along with recipes used and photos! You too can start eating rice and beans for less than a dollar a meal.

Have a suggestion for future recipes? Should I be doing something different? Include it in the comments below!