Home cooking on the cheap is easy with this basic kitchen setup

I’m here to help anyone willing to learn. I have no illusions that many of my readers are under 50, but you fellow middle-agers might want to clip this piece for your grandchildren who could benefit from some basic home economics.

Equipping your first kitchen in your first apartment is not only affordable, it’s downright cheap. That is, if one is willing to buy used.

Below, we’re going to talk about setting up your first kitchen on a budget. Then I’m going to throw in two easy, cheap recipes that even the most reluctant would-be cook can master.

DoorDash math

Before we get to the practical advice, let’s describe the problem. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it. Open social media, and you’ll find young people who believe that fast food or DoorDash is cheaper than buying groceries and cooking.

The illiteracy and innumeracy of so many members of the Gen Z cohort is not an exaggeration, and it’s not a joke. It’s also not “just them being naive on social media.” If the responses to online discussions about food cost are to be believed, it’s actually true that millions of young people are so innumerate they’re never going to be able to cover their daily living expenses.

This is hard to explain because it’s nonsensical.

Take this X post that shows the unit cost of a burger and fries meal bought from a fast food joint compared to the unit cost of buying the ingredients and making the food at home. The fast food meal costs $14.99 and feeds one person. The homemade version using ingredients from the store comes out to $5.43 per person, yielding four meals.

So far, so obvious, right? Wrong. Take a tour of the responses to that post and find young people who say that, no, the groceries actually cost more than the fast food meal. How? They add up the total cost of all the groceries instead of comparing the unit per-meal cost when you divide the grocery bill among the four meals it yields.

Frozen assets

That’s how bad off the kids are. Even more, young responders seem not to understand that you can store leftovers.

This one is representative: “The point is. If you’re a single person. As most young people are now. It is cheaper to get the fast food than to get the groceries. Make one meal and watch the rest rot, or be forced to eat cheeseburgers every night for a week.”

Make one meal and watch the rest rot? Why let it rot instead of eating the leftovers or putting them in the freezer? We see why right there in the text: This young’un thinks it’s unbearable to be “forced to eat cheeseburgers every night.”

After trying my best to explain reality to these children using unit price comparisons, I gave up. They want a luxurious convenience lifestyle, and they’ll defend that desire to the point of absurdity.

But there are also many Gen Z people who could budget their money more wisely by returning to basic home cooking and self-sufficiency like we older people remember. The trouble is that they haven’t been taught. Their parents didn’t teach them household management, and schools dropped home economics. The young have been trained by culture and social media to believe everything is too expensive and that they’re powerless to do anything about it.

That means it’s on us older people to give some remedial home and life training. Think of this piece as the first installment of Uncle Josh’s Finishing School for Generation Z.

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Josh Slocum

Make frugality great again

Equipping your first kitchen in your first apartment is not only affordable, it’s downright cheap. That is, if one is willing to buy used instead of insisting on having brand-new for no good reason.

You can often buy kitchenware at thrift stores for about one-quarter the price of new. Like most of my generation, I equipped my first apartment at thrift stores. As a homeowner in my 50s, more than half my house is secondhand goods.

Basic kitchen equipment

This assumes you have a stove and fridge, as almost every apartment does. If not, an electric burner or two can be bought for $20 to $50. A dorm-size fridge can be bought secondhand for about $75.

Once you have those covered, I recommend:

• 1 large skillet
• 1 large sauce pan with lid
• 1 small sauce pan with lid
• 1 large pot big enough for boiling pasta or making soup, with lid
• 2-3 mixing bowls
• 1 spatula
• 1 pair of tongs
• 1 good chef’s knife for cutting meat and vegetables
• 1 drainer/colander
• 1 cutting board
• 3-4 assorted wooden spoons
• Enough plates, glasses, and flatware to serve 4

At any thrift store I’ve been to recently, you can buy everything above for a total of less than $50, maybe a lot less.

From here you can buy additional pans, utensils, and more as needed. But this basic setup is enough to make many meals, including the two recipes that follow.

Cheap and cheerful

My mother started teaching me how to cook when I was about 8 or 9 years old. This used to be considered normal, and it should be now. If the young person in your life doesn’t know how to cook, these are great places to start. Anyone who can follow directions can make these meals. They’re tasty and nutritious, and they’re inexpensive.

I will use typical prices at my local grocery stores to estimate per-meal cost. My calculation will give a final per-serving cost. Leftover bulk ingredients can be used for other dishes, or frozen and stored for later meals.

Each recipe assumes four servings, but you’re likely to get six in reality.

Bean and sausage stew

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 pound dried beans such as navy or white beans ($2)
• 1 pound Italian sausage ($6)
• 1 medium onion (89 cents)
• 2 stalks celery (about $2 for a whole bunch, use two stalks)
• 1 bay leaf (about $5 per jar, about 20 leaves per jar)
• Olive oil for sautéing (negligible cost on a per-serving basis)
• Salt and pepper (essentially free on a per-serving basis)

PREPARATION:

Put the dried beans in a large pot and add about twice as much water as beans by volume. (The beans will expand and absorb much of the water.)

Salt the water well and add the bay leaf. Bring to a boil, then cover and simmer for about one and a half hours. Stir occasionally, and check for doneness by biting into a bean.

Meanwhile, heat a skillet with some olive oil on low to medium heat. Chop the onion and celery. Crumble the sausage into the pan and add the onion. Sauté for about 10 minutes, stirring, until sausage is cooked through and vegetables are softened.

Add the sausage and vegetable mixture to the simmering beans for the last 15 to 30 minutes of cooking time.

When the soup is done (beans are soft), finish it off with a bit of cream for a hearty stew. Hot sauce is also nice. This goes well with a green salad and crusty bread with butter.

Estimated cost per serving: $2.65

Baked chicken, potatoes, and fresh vegetables

This is the kind of cooking I was raised on, and I still cook this way. Working in restaurants taught me fancier exotic dishes, and I like them too. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve returned to American home cooking as a mainstay. Plain food, cooked well and nicely seasoned, will never steer you wrong. The price is right, it tastes good, it’s good for you, and it fills you up.

You can use this paradigm of meat-starch-vegetable with any kind of meat.

INGREDIENTS:

• 2 pounds chicken legs, or thighs and drumsticks ($4)
• 1 pound fresh carrots, peeled and cut into sticks or pennies ($3)
• 2 large russet potatoes cut into 1.5-inch chunks ($2)
• Olive oil to coat the bottom of a large glass baking pan (negligible)
• McCormick Montreal Chicken Seasoning (about $5 per jar)
• Salt and pepper for the vegetables (negligible)

PREPARATION:

Coat a large glass baking dish with olive oil.

Season the outside of the chicken with the Montreal seasoning. Then, work your finger under the skin and pull it back. Season under the skin.

Take your potatoes and carrots and toss them by hand in the olive oil until they’re coated.

Place the chicken and vegetables all in the same baking dish, and bake at about 375 degrees for about half an hour. You’ll know it’s done when the chicken juices run clear and the skin is getting golden brown. Don’t worry about exact timing; this is forgiving.

Estimated cost per serving: $2.75

Bon appetit!