I ate like a KING on just $5 a DAY

there's a misconception that eating well on a vegan diet has to be expensive i disagree in fact i think you can eat like a king or a queen on a budget and keep it 100 plant-based to prove it i made a week's worth of amazing meals on just five dollars a day this week i got all of my groceries at aldi big thank you to aldi for sponsoring today's video so let me show you what i got on my grocery run it's sunday afternoon which is when i like to do some of my meal prep for the week before i do that though i'm going to show you the groceries i got it all did yesterday bag of sweet potatoes three pounds of these babies bag of lemons got two pounds i think this is eight lemons bag of onions this is two pounds that looks like seven onions two limes if you've seen my past video on 10 cooking tips you know how much i love using citrus in my cooking both the zest and the juice so we're gonna use these limes and lemons in a bunch of different dishes this week i also got four avocados normally i would not include this in a budget video because avocados are usually quite pricey but these were 45 cents each at aldi which is amazing so that's why i've included them three heads of garlic i love garlic because it's so versatile and it's an expensive way to add a lot of flavor to your food bag number two button mushrooms button mushrooms bag of baby spinach some broccoli cilantro soy milk original unsweetened we'll use this in a few different ways this week organic tofu this is the extra firm variety oh and we have some strawberries in here almost forgot about these beans they're already opened because i started soaking them yesterday for my meal prep i'm not gonna use all of the beans here this is a two pound bag i'm gonna use about half this week and this is also a two pound bag and i'm only going to use a quarter this week and these will stay good in your pantry for quite a while so it's not like they're gonna go to waste brown by smithy rice i love brown rice two pound bag as well so probably won't get through all of it this week but again it is shelf staple and some flour a very big bag of flour that i obviously will not get through during this week but again i'm just gonna store it in my pantry and it will stay good for a while all right last bag we've got some crushed tomatoes and some diced tomatoes we've also got some salsa medium heat chunky variety walnuts these are already chopped which will be convenient for me and i'll use this in a few different ways this week we've got six bananas this last item is a little bit of a splurge but i had a couple extra dollars in my budget so i got a bar of dark chocolate 85 dark chocolate i have a minor chocolate addiction so definitely be having a few squares of this throughout the week one last thing i am not including the cost of salt and pepper oil and spices in my meals this week because i don't really feel like calculating the cost of one teaspoon of oregano but also i have these things in my pantry at all times and i'm going to be using fairly minimal amounts in each meal okay grocery haul is done so let's get started with some meal prep i'm gonna start by making some saucy black beans and a tomato sofrito and to prep i diced up one of those onions pretty finely and chopped up six cloves of garlic i added half of the onions to my instant pot i love cooking beans in this thing just a little bit of olive oil in there as well and i used the saute setting to cook them until they were just lightly browned followed by half of the garlic and we'll use the rest of the onion and garlic in a few minutes pour in the water followed by a half pound of those dried black beans those were soaked overnight and i seasoned this with kosher salt and black pepper and snuck in a little extra seasoning with a bay leaf and i used the pressure cook setting for nine minutes in the meantime let's make the sofrito which refers to finely chopped aromatics cooked down in oil there are countless variations of it in latin and caribbean recipes add the rest of the onions to some olive oil in a large frying pan with a pinch of salt once they're golden and softened toss in that remaining half of the garlic along with dried oregano and red pepper flakes cook this for a few minutes and then pour in a 14 ounce can of diced tomatoes i normally make this dish with fresh tomatoes but the canned variety fit into my budget a little bit better and since it's not tomato season right now i don't think we're losing too much flavor by using canned tomatoes cook this down at a rapid simmer for 10-ish minutes until most of the tomato liquid has evaporated and then season with some salt and pep now let's go check on those black beans to get that really lovely saucy texture that's not watery scoop out a few ladles of the cooking liquid then we'll add the tomato sofrito directly to the beans and of course if you don't have an instant pot you can totally cook the beans on the stove or even use canned beans but cooking your own beans from scratch will always save you money i use the satay setting on the instant pot to rapidly simmer this until it thickened up it took about 15 minutes and finish it with a few more flavoring agents fresh lime juice a drizzle of olive oil and some chopped cilantro and of course a little salt and pepper to taste this beans smell so good i can't wait to have them this week and if you've seen my recent video on meal prepping you know that i think it's counterproductive to try to batch cook one big meal and eat it every single day of the week because inevitably you get tired of eating the same thing and you just order take up at least that's what i do instead what i like to do is meal prep a few different things that i call building blocks like these black beans that i can eat in a few different ways throughout the week that way i have lots of variety in my diet and i don't get tired of it but i don't have to spend that much time in the kitchen either let's roast some sweet potatoes in the oven i'm peeling about two pounds of sweet potatoes i bought a three pound bag from aldi i'm going to save the rest of the potatoes for another recipe this week and just chop the potatoes up into cubes nothing fancy put these babies on a rimmed sheet pan and toss with about a tablespoon and a half of regular olive oil kosher salt and black pepper to season and get in there with your hands and toss it all together make sure you spread them out evenly so there's no overlap otherwise the potatoes won't roast they'll steam which is pretty sad pop these in the oven at 425 degrees fahrenheit i tend to roast these for 30 to 35 minutes and for a really nice even browning flip them every 10 minutes hello monday morning start of the week time to make some breakfast although i do have to say i don't actually eat breakfast most days because i'm often cooking testing recipes all day long so i'm testing and then eating and testing and then eating so i don't really fuel up with breakfast in the morning but this week i have a writing heavy week so i'm gonna have breakfast and also kind of felt like cheating if i only did two meals in this five dollar day video so we're having breakfast so we're going to make an easy tofu scramble super simple the first thing you want to do is whisk together your spices i'm using turmeric paprika red pepper flakes and black salt indian black salt that is what gives the tofu scramble this eggy flavor then i'm going to add some of the soy milk into the mix and gradually whisk it together until there's a nice sauce grab the tofu and drain it and then we're going to squeeze out some excess water with some paper towels and then just crumble it up into some chunks and because i love putting onion and garlic in basically everything i'm going to also add a little bit to the tofu scramble not a lot maybe just like i don't know a quarter or a half of a small onion and maybe like two or three cloves of garlic got a large frying pan here a nonstick one and i'm gonna heat it up with just a little bit of olive oil medium high heat once that's hot i'm gonna add those onions cook just for maybe three to four minutes five minutes until it's just getting golden then add the garlic cook for one or two more minutes stir frequently and then we'll add those tofu chunks and i want to fry those until they're lightly browned maybe five to seven minutes you don't want to stir too often because otherwise it's not going to get that nice brown coating now to mimic the texture of scrambled eggs a little bit more we're going to pour in that spiced sauce with the plant-based milk it's going to add some moisture to the scramble and if you like yours wet you can just cook it for 30 to 60 seconds i prefer mine a little bit drier so i'll cook it for a couple minutes and i use the tofu scramble to make a breakfast bowl i paired it with the sweet potatoes i roasted yesterday and some of the black bean with tomato saute that i made yesterday as well and i finished it all with some chopped cilantro not bad for a monday morning breakfast this is why i love meal prepping building blocks on the weekend so that i can make really flavorful tasty meals without that much effort so let's give it a try get a little bean a little scramble potato i should be eating breakfast more often this is so good and it's really hearty so hopefully it'll keep me full for quite a while i'm going to go do some work on my cookbook and then i will check in with you at lunch time i wanted to try something new for lunch today so i'm going to attempt to make a simple flat bread recipe found it online on a website called wellvegan.com requires just five ingredients looks really simple so excited to try it out i've got my trusty measuring scale we need one and a half cups which is about 185 187 grams a little bit more a little bit more and a little bit more okay we also need one and a half teaspoons of baking powder baking powder it's awesome one and a half teaspoons of baking powder and a teaspoon of salt i'm using sea salt and that's all we need for the dry ingredients squish whisk and now for the liquid ingredients all we need is a half cup of plant-based milk so i've got the soy milk i have for the week 120 milliliters for those who like to measure in metric and two tablespoons of olive oil also going to whisk the liquid and the instructions say to slowly gradually pour this into the flour so i will try to do that and whisk at the same time i think i need a better whisk let's try it with the proper whisk we'll add some more the instructions say when it's too tough to whisk which obviously it is to start using your hands so oh that's squishy i feel like i should be wearing an apron for this this feels pretty good it's a little just a tiny bit sticky just going to let it rest in this bowl cover it with this towel for 10 minutes and then i will show you how to cook it or i don't know i've never made it i'll i'll start cooking it and we'll see how it goes all right little ball of dough it's kind of fun we're going to cut it into four equal parts bench scraper is super helpful for this and each of these go in half cute cute cute cute now i'm gonna roll these into balls and we want these flatbreads to be six inches in diameter i think i got that part down but mine are shaped real funky so we'll see how this goes [Music] for the minimal ingredients involved and how easy this was to put together i would give this five out of five super budget friendly very tasty and i'm really excited about lunch now so i use one of these flatbreads as the base for my lunch and to dial up the flavors even more i added a drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkle of oregano and sea salt i topped it with some of the black beans with sofrito which yes i already had with breakfast but i am kind of obsessed with them and i'm using them in a totally different way here so i don't think i'm gonna get bored then i added half of an avocado that was perfectly sliced if i don't say so myself squeezed a little lime juice on top added cilantro and look how pretty it is this lunch came together even better and even more beautiful than i expected so i'm pretty pleased with myself and i'm very excited for lunch all right dinner time i'm going to get started on our white beans i'm going to keep it pretty simple i'm going to saute some onions and garlic and then i'll add the white beans with some water salt and pepper in the instant pot i love cooking beans in the instant pot because it's hands off so i can get some work done while dinner is cooking the advantage of cooking these beans very simply is that i can use them as another building block so i can incorporate the beans into different meals throughout the week i cook these beans for just four minutes in my instant pot i love how quick that is and i'm going to set aside half of the beans i scooped them out with a slotted spoon to use them later this week to the remaining beans i'm going to boost the flavor a little bit drizzle in some extra virgin olive oil for a richer mouthfeel and body and season them with salt and pepper while the white beans are cooking i'm going to get started on our broccoli for dinner let's start on the broccoli stalks first often times these get thrown away but they're really tasty i'm using a wide y-shaped vegetable peeler to thinly shave the stalks when they're this thin they're a lot easier to enjoy raw and when i get to the point where i can't shave them anymore i use a sharp knife to slice the stalks really thinly or into matchstick pieces i'll set the stalks aside for now and get started on the broccoli crowns i like to cut the broccoli into florets and then slice each floor into a couple of thinner pieces that way they cook really quickly and cutting through the bottom of the stem makes this process a lot cleaner and easier i'm spreading out the florets on a sheet pan and then i'm going to put them right underneath the broiler just like this plain no oil or seasonings at least not yet i broiled these for four to five minutes until it was lightly charred on top though you want to keep an eye on it because every broiler is different i flipped the florets and then broiled for another few minutes until they were perfectly charred meanwhile i grabbed some walnuts and quickly chopped those up really finely these walnuts from aldi are already pre-chopped so this was pretty quick we're going to toast these walnuts almost like breadcrumbs in a frying pan medium heat with just a touch of olive oil cook this for three to four minutes until the walnuts are getting toasty and golden then add in a pinch or two of red pepper flakes a little bit of lemon zest and a bit of sea salt cook this for 30 seconds and stir frequently to prevent burning then take it off the heat and spread it out on a plate to cool down and to assemble this all add the charred broccoli florets to the raw shaved stalks add most of the toasted walnut crumbs squeeze in some lemon juice season with salt and pepper and toss everything to combine then drizzle in some extra virgin olive oil and give it another toss i just love how elegant and fancy this broccoli salad is you never know that it's actually really easy to make and budget friendly i took some of the white beans that i just cooked and flavored them with a little bit of lemon zest lemon juice salt and pep and a pinch or two of red pepper flakes these seasonings are really simple but they make a big difference with these beans and i serve these lemony white beans with some of the brown basmati rice i got at aldi i just cooked the rice in my instant pot with water yes my instant pot is magical for brown rice i use one and one quarter cup of water to one cup of rice and i cook that at high pressure for 20 minutes [Music] okay let's get a bite i really love the slight smokiness from the charred broccoli it kind of adds this unique interesting flavor it's very light refreshing very lemony and it feels a little bit heartier with the white beans and rice overall a very healthy tasty meal a little bit healthier than i'm used to eating for dinner but i really like it and i enjoy this delightful and wholesome bowl outside in our backyard because eating outdoors is one of my greatest pleasures and one of the reasons i love living in california and for my post-dinner treat i brewed a cup of mint tea and enjoyed it with some of the dark chocolate i got at aldi it's 85 cacao so it's not too sweet and it is really rich and chocolatey just how i like it i started today with my favorite morning ritual which is to drink some indian spice tea i just steep one teaspoon each of cumin seeds coriander seeds fennel seeds and fenugreek seeds and boiling water and i write in my planner which helps set the agenda and my priorities for the day since i bought a big old bag of spinach i figured it was time to get kraken on eating some spinach i've rolled up some spinach leaves and sliced them into ribbons and then added those to some of the black beans with sofrito and heated that on the stove together so today's breakfast was pretty much the same as yesterday's epic breakfast bowl but i also snuck in some greens and topped it with some cilantro time for lunch and i'm making myself a burrito bowl i read some brown rice added in those black beans which i haven't gotten tired of by the way because they are so good and i've been eating them in all kinds of different ways and i took the remaining half of yesterday's avocado out of the fridge just tore it up into chunks with my hands and finish this bowl with cilantro and salsa for extra flavor [Music] okay a little too hot but very tasty burrito bowl situation for dinner i thought it would be fun to do something a little bit different with those white beans we cooked yesterday but i'm not eating the same beans every single day because you know i don't like doing that so i'm going to take these white beans some onions garlic the rest of the sweet potatoes and improvise a sweet potato white bean soup i've got two medium onions and i'm going to slice them pretty thinly i'm also slicing three cloves of garlic and that probably sounds like not very much for me for a soup but the white beans we made have a lot of garlic in them so i feel like it evens out i'm gonna dice the potatoes quite finely so that they cook quickly in the soup i heated up some olive oil in a dutch oven somewhere between medium high and high heat once it was hot i added those two sliced onions with a bit of salt and cooked for about five minutes until fawn started to appear on the bottom of the pot then i started adding a few splashes of water to deglaze the pan and this is how i like to caramelize onions it's a lot quicker than doing it over low heat as long as you don't mind stirring fairly frequently and adding water along the way and caramelizing the onions instead of just sauteing them it's going to build more flavor into this soup once the onions were golden brown i added in the sliced garlic lower the heat to medium to prevent that garlic from burning and continued cooking in the same way deglazing with a bit of water along the way until the garlic was soft and the onions were jammy now for some spices to boost the flavor i added cumin paprika oregano and red pepper flakes and cooked those into the onions for 30 seconds or so and the full recipe with all the measurements can be found in the blog post which i've linked below then i poured in some water scraped up any brown bits on the bottom of the pot to soak up that extra flavor and added the white beans that i cooked yesterday and had set aside along with the diced sweet potatoes and a 28 ounce can of crushed tomatoes and seasoned generously with salt and pepper i simmered the soup for 20-25 minutes until the sweet potatoes were really tender and the soup was nicely thickened and then i dumped in several handfuls of some chopped spinach and cooked just until the greens were wilted i finished the soup with a little extra flavor from some chopped cilantro lemon juice and of course salt and pep to taste and then i added a little lemon zest for a bright citrus thing and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil for some richness this is a great affordable organic olive oil from aldi and i enjoyed this bowl of soup for dinner with one of the flatbreads i made yesterday better than i expected i was a little nervous about the soup because i made it with water instead of vegetable broth obviously water doesn't have any flavor but i think there's a lot of kind of techniques i used in the soup to build other types of flavors i caramelized the onions so we got that nice deep onion umami flavor i added some garlic obviously the white beans had some flavor in them already because i cooked those i finished the soup with a little lemon juice which i think rounds it all out and the lemon zest is really nice as well all in all for a budget soup i think it's pretty good after dinner i sliced up some of the strawberries i bought and had a little bit of dark chocolate because as i mentioned i am obsessed with chocolate for breakfast this morning i had the rest of the tofu scramble with a side of roasted sweet potatoes and i added a little extra flavor with salsa and cilantro i also had a banana and a cup of herbal tea i drink about five cups of tea a day so i will not be including the cost of tea because this is a what i ate in a week video not a what i drink in a week video busy day today so i assembled a bowl of leftovers for lunch the one up broccoli salad brown rice white beans and half an avocado it was a beautiful evening today so i stepped outside in our backyard to have a glass of wine disclaimer drinks were not included in the budget of this video see website for detail exclusions may apply max and i try to do an outdoor evening happy hour together at least once a week it's a great way for us to unwind and talk about non-work related stuff i've been really bad about eating enough greens this past year this never-ending past year and i'm sure many of you can relate but you know what's a really good way to eat more salad greens add an avocado so i mixed together one perfectly ripe avocado added some lemon zest for a fresh citrus flavor a big roll squeeze of lemon juice kind of just eyeballing it here and seasoned with salt and pep and mashed it all together and for the salad greens i sliced up some of the spinach into ribbons and added it to the avocado lemon situation and tossed everything to combine i am very into this ratio of avocado to spinach i served this salad with a bowl of the soup i made yesterday and finished it with some lemon zest and cilantro on top and it looks like a little over budget today but i think we can make it up during the week good morning i started my day with a cup of herbal tea surprise surprise nisha loves tea just kidding none of you are surprised because by this point you all know i am obsessed with tea well hello it is wednesday morning nope it is thursday morning and i am in the middle of making some breakfast i really enjoyed the savory breakfast i had earlier this week but today i'm doing something a little bit sweeter i'm making a brown rice pudding using brown rice soy milk bananas it's super simple all i did was add some soy milk to a saucepan along with the brown rice then i added a couple spices cinnamon nutmeg and ginger and then i added a tablespoon of organic sugar and a half teaspoon of vanilla technically sugar and vanilla are not in my grocery list but they are pantry staples that i always have on hand and i use just a little bit so i hope you don't mind the brown rice pudding has been simmering for 40-45 minutes at this point now i'm going to add in a little bit more soy milk and half of this i'm gonna mash up this banana and we'll cook it until the brown rice is tender but still has a little bit of a chew for that remaining half of the banana i decided to caramelize it for a very delicious topping for the brown rice pudding i sliced the banana into rounds heated up just a little bit of oil in a frying pan medium-low heat and cooked the banana slices for three to five minutes flip them once they were browned on the bottom and cooked for two to three more minutes until they were nicely caramelized the brown rice pudding is really creamy and i topped it with those caramelized bananas and a handful of walnuts for a nice crunch this definitely exceeded my expectations it's actually quite sweet from the ripe banana so i probably don't even need the sugar or could use less of it i really like the crunch from the walnuts because the pudding is creamy caramelized bananas add a nice little touch i'm definitely going to be making it again probably adding some variations along the way maybe some cocoa powder maybe some orange zest i think there's a lot of fun ways to jazz it up for lunch i decided to use up some of those lemons i bought i zested a good amount of the lemon squeezed in some of the juice again just eyeballing everything here and season with some sea salt freshly cracked black pepper and just a pinch of chili flakes for a kick then i drizzled in some of this extra virgin olive oil from aldi it wasn't on my grocery list oops but it was already in my pantry and then i just dumped in a handful of the spinach which i finally chopped and mixed it all together i had this as a side salad alongside the main meal which was my sweet potato white bean soup and a flatbread which i reheated on the stove i got a little snackish this afternoon so i went for a raw sweet potato just kidding i'm not a serial killer i had a banana instead i had soup for dinner for the last two nights and two nights in a row is pretty much my limit for eating the same thing so today i'm going to try something a little different i've got some mushrooms and walnuts i'm thinking of making kind of a faux meat situation loosely inspired by the vegan taco meat in my crunchwrap supreme video from last year though a lot more budget-friendly and simpler because i'm just working with what i got to make this walnut mushroom meat start by toasting three quarters cup of walnuts toasting the walnuts brings out their natural umami and minimizes the bitterness and they need four to five minutes in a frying pan over medium heat while the walnuts are toasting just roughly chop up a one cup of mushrooms we're going to pulse the toasted walnuts in a food processor several times until they're minced and then toss in the mushrooms season with salt and pep and a mexican-ish spice blend you can find the exact spices and quantities in the blog post and then just pulse a few more times until the mixture is very finely chopped but you don't want to blend it completely otherwise it'll get sticky oh and just a tiny bit of lime juice to bring all the flavors together moment of truth this honestly tastes a lot better than i thought it was going to taste given how few ingredients there are it's really smoky from the smoked paprika which i love and all you need to do to finish this walnut mushroom meat is to add it to a hot pan with a bit of olive oil medium to medium-high heat i like to cook it in two batches so the crumbles have enough space to brown and just three to five minutes until it's browned and a bit crispy i was really pleased with how tasty this was even max who is usually skeptical of this kind of stuff really loved it i really loved tonight's dinner so much it felt like a mexican inspired pizza i had the last of my flatbreads which i heated up on the stove i added some of the leftover black beans with sofrito on top along with a good amount of this walnut mushroom meat added half of an avocado and garnished it with some cilantro for flavor as well as cover after dinner we walked over to our local park to enjoy the sunset mostly though i just watched this dynamic father-daughter duo play table tennis but without a table or a net maybe there's another word for this sport who's to say good morning i started the day as usual with a cup of tea but i changed things up a little bit i enjoyed my tea outside instead of inside when it was time for breakfast i reheated the leftover brown rice banana pudding and i sliced the remaining strawberries up for the topping i added the berries to a saucepan with a bit of water and some lemon zest to give them a little extra flavor and dip i cooked the strawberries down until they became jammy and syrupy about 10 minutes and also top the pudding with a couple of fresh sliced strawberries for textural contrast and a handful of walnuts for those healthy fats for lunch i made a really hearty grain bowl reheated some of the leftover brown rice added some roasted sweet potatoes and the rest of the walnut taco meat and i grabbed half of an avocado that was left over in the fridge and finished with a bit of salsa and cilantro i loved how easy and quick it was to throw this bowl together with all of my leftovers i had plenty of leftovers today to make dinner but my family wanted us to come over for dinner instead and who am i to say no to family time and free home-cooked indian food and to get a full shopping list and all the recipes i made this week head down to the blog post which is linked in the description box below and then head to your local aldi to pick up these wholesome and affordable plant-based groceries bye

Channel: Rainbow Plant Life

Views: 963,176

Keywords: vegan budget meal plan, vegan meal plan, what i eat in a day vegan, vegan what i eat in a day, vegan what i eat in a week, what i eat in a week vegan, budget grocery shopping, vegan budget meals, vegan on a budget, vegan on a budget meal prep

Id: bnO7xZeUYvI

Length: 25min 52sec (1552 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 05 2021

Reddit Comments

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Love her content

[u/basic_bitch-]

Love this. I hate meal prepping like most other people do it too. I don't know what I'm gonna want to eat 4 days from now and I don't like eating the same thing more than two days in a row. So I prep staples, just like she does, and mix/match throughout the week. It's so much easier.