Lentils. They're a superfood. Cook them with correct technique (hardly any technique needed, honestly) and season them properly

Savory oatmeal.

Rolled oats with cold soy milk. Microwave 2-3 mins. Add chilli oil, spice paste, or ramen seasoning.

Tasty and not unhealthy. The plan is to prevent unhealthy food leading to a negative feedback loop.

Toast two slices. Slice of cheese between. Microwave 12 seconds to melt cheese a little. Hate waiting for toasters though,

I once ate nothing but eggs and rice for 3 months. Rice too slow. Another time I bought a 9-pound sack of roasted, unsalted cashews at wholesale, and ate only that until it was gone. Interesting pale results in the bathroom on that one.

Not foodie, so I just eat whatever takes the least time and mess to make. The toaster takes too long for me. Fold a slice of cheese in a piece of bread in under one minute!

I once ate nothing but eggs and rice all day for 3 months. (Took too long to cook rice.) Another time I bought a 9-pound sack of unsalted but roasted cashews and ate nothing else until it was gone in a couple weeks. (Interesting, pale results in the bathroom from that one.)

I once made "Povery rolls"

I took every last scrap of leftover food, all the half bags of frozen veggies and so on from the freezer. Defrosted it all, put it in a stock pot and cooked it till it was a thick stew moved it to a giant bowl and went buck wild with the electric mixer then threw in about 4kg of self raising flour and water. The dough tasted ok, but then I did the same thing with the spice rack... stock cubes, french soup mix... the works. They tasted odd. But I rested the dough, divided them up and baked them anyways.

Fuuuuuuuck they were amazing. They tasted like a family sunday roast dinner flavored heavy doughy roll. It made about 50 of them. I scoured the house for change and found enough to go grab a decent sized packet of powdered gravy mix.

I was genuinely sad when I used the last ones.

Until more recent times, a handful of hard boiled eggs was cheap, highly nutritious, and damned good with a sprinkle of salt/pepper/tajin/paprika/furikake or a dollop of mayo/sour creme/sriracha/nacho cheez/butter/etc. Potatoes are still pretty good in the same ways; just bake and let cool and you can add any of those same toppings and chow down at any time. Or get the smaller ones and airfry with a spritz of oil and salt. As long as you eat the skins, it's good nutritionally too.

Cup of steamed rice. Small tin of tuna - I like the lemon and cracked pepper ones. Splash of soy sauce. 30 seconds in the microwave.

Tortillas. Just tortillas. Warmed over a gas burner. It’s a comfort food to me now, but there was a time when all I had was tortillas, and it tastes better than my other struggle meal, which was a single cup of rice with whatever spices I had on hand and hadn’t put on the previous day. I lost a lot of weight around then. Still haven’t fully gained it back ten plus years later, and still struggle eating regularly more than once or twice a day.

Scramble some eggs plain and mix into rice and some canned corn. Butter + Sriracha + soy/tamari . We call it "bachelor stir-fry" and it's especially good if you can get your paws on some sesame oil!

A whole string cheese with a piece of bread wrapped around it. Still goes crazy honestly. You just can’t let anyone else see you eating it 😂

If you live near or attend a large university, the real struggle meal is just food from free events on campus.

When I was a grad student I’d show up to every event on campus where I knew there’d be food and fill up a Tupperware or two. Didn’t matter if it was connected to my department or not.

Store brand white bread.
Mayo or Miracle whip, whichever was cheapest.
Sliced American cheese, cheapest variety.
Maybe some pepper, if feeling enthusiastic.

Toast bread with a bit of ketchup and a slice of cheese on top, sprinkle a bit of salt if necessary, then bake until the cheese bubbles. I call it the poor man's pizza.

Long live poverty nachos

Cook 2 bags of ramen and strain it. Add a can of tomato soup and some cheddar. I like to call them regrettios.

2nd up is ghetto pizzas. Make some toast put on tomato sauce and cheese also pepperoni if you can afford it

Fried chick peas (I use cans since they’re more convenient, but even cheaper dried beans are fine too but you have to soak for 24h and then boil them first). But either way, seriously cheap, loaded with protein and fiber, and delicious:

Rinse beans and dump into a large dry pan on high heat. Move them around until they have mostly dried up and just barely start sticking to the pan. Then add oil - just once or twice around the pan is plenty - and some salt. Then let them fry in that little bit of oil. Move them with a spoon every so often to keep from sticking too much.

After about 15 min you have these golden brown crunchy and slightly salty little things. They’re great, and go with everything as a side dish.

Struggle broke or struggle sad?

Hot dogs with white bread instead of a bun goes CRAZY imo

Beans and rice are so healthy and cheap, with so many variations. It's always beans and rice for me.

Spaghetti with tomato and avocado. Add some olive oil, sunflower seeds and a bit of cheese if you are feeling rich. *Avocado is really cheap where I live, you can literally get them for free

Rice and black eyed peas, cooked with some millet leaves for color. Fry slices of onion in about 1 T of oil and pour it over the top. Then sprinkle a mix of fine crushed red pepper, bullion, and salt over it.

Most of West Africa has this in one form or another on the regular.

https://www.knorr.com/us/en/p/spanish-rice-side.html/00041000022685

Depending on your level of struggle, these rice packets cost about ~$1.25 USD and cook in 7 minutes, you just gotta stir 'em a bit.

To that I'll add some protein, either some sausages I cooked on the George Foreman grill and sliced up or a packet of flavored tuna. This is mostly no effort or unattended.

For veggies, I'll steam up something fresh or microwave some frozen mixed veggies. Either way this can be done in 3-5 minutes, unattended.

Some effort, but still very low. You can get everything started at once while you stand there and stir the rice packet on the stove, everything should wrap up in less than 10 minutes and you'll have a relatively complete and filling mill for hopefully less than $5 USD but I don't even fucking know anymore with inflation, tariffs, and out of control groceries. Should still be more cost effective than a lot of alternatives, though.

EDIT: The rice packet can honestly be quite a bit for a single person, depending. You may want to pad it out with a few more things like mushrooms and beans, then you can split the meal in two. Eat half now and save half to be microwaved later to stretch it out and for when you have no prep time at all.

Tuna with saltines.

I had water on stale bread with sugar 💀

Used to be rice with a fried egg. In my family we call it Ghibli rice. Nowadays I just bake my own wholemeal bread and that's the cheapest eats there is. So cheap you can afford the nice butter!

Hotdogs in ramen, hands down.

Our poverty "treat" as kids was toast with tomato sauce and a slice of government cheese, for a makeshift pizza.

Bacon and white rice with pickles.

Rice + blackbeans + whatever is around + a tortilla = poverty burritos

Also, potatoes in many forms.

Rice and beans. Mine are usually white rice and black beans. Beans cooked with a little onion, green pepper and garlic. Salt and pepper. Hot sauce.

I eat it regularly, to the point I have a tiny slow cooker that I pretty much just use to cook beans.

My mom used to make my sisters and I cinnamon toast for breakfast when we were kids, pretty much like you describe only on toast.