When we first started cooking for ourselves in college, my roommates and I made some truly horrible meals. Now, a few years post-grad, there are dishes from my college days that I still make when I need them, whether the grocery budget is extra tight, the ingredients in my fridge are running low, or I just don't have the time and energy to whip up a five-star meal. Enter: the struggle meal.
Assuming I wasn't the only person who succumbs to a struggle meal every now and then, I asked my coworkers at Delish—people who cook and write about food constantly—what their go-to cheap eats look like. Spoiler alert: They did not disappoint.
But first, here are some of my struggle meals: When we were 19, my college roommate and I fell into a routine of making grilled PB&Js with startling frequency. We always had bread, peanut butter, jelly, and butter on hand, so it just became a thing. I’m also a sucker for a deal, so I routinely come home from the store with six cans of chickpeas or a dozen oranges—a real-life example of the people you’d read about in your math textbook. To this day, I make a dish that is basically just chickpeas, onions, lots of olive oil, and a ton of spices. It’s pretty dry and definitely not excellent, but it gets the job done and is super quick and simple.
Whether you're "struggling" or not, here are some easy, quick, and comforting meal ideas from Delish editors.
“I think canned tuna is the best hack. I’ll make a sort of poor man’s spicy tuna bowl with rice, sriracha, mayo, rice vinegar, and some veg. Sometimes I also do just a simple tuna salad or a tuna salad sandwich. It lasts forever and is shelf-stable and versatile."
-Alejandro Valdes Lora, Test Kitchen Manager
"I make a salad with kale, goat cheese, and pecans, and honestly, it isn’t that good. I always have kale, so it just makes sense, and it’s quick. Most of the time, I eat it sitting on the floor."
-Julia Smith, Director, Community & Audience Development
"I almost always have leftover rice in the fridge, so sometimes I’ll just throw it together with a vegan chicken bouillon. It gets kind of soupy, which is nice and makes it feel like a little bit more than just a bowl of rice. I used to always use Trader Joe's chicken-less bouillon, but they don’t make that anymore."
-Camille Lowder, Digital Food Producer/Editor
"Sometimes when I get home from work around 5:30 and I’m just standing there staring at the fridge and nothing looks good, I’ll cave and order a salad from the bodega. Generally, romaine, beets, carrots, tomato, feta, olives, and some sort of creamy sauce. Really, all I want is a pile of greens. And then I try to add a protein from the fridge, most of the time I have chicken on hand."
-Taylor Ann Spencer, Food Editor
"Stir-fry is super easy. I’ll make that a lot with whatever veg I have in the crisper and teriyaki sauce, I almost always have teriyaki in the fridge."
-Amanda Mactas, Temporary Associate Editor
"Just rice and ketchup. I used to add an egg when they weren’t so expensive. Sometimes I’ll throw in whatever I have in my freezer, or I might have a frozen pizza or something and just make that."
-Izabela Campos, Assistant Editor, Audience Development
"Other times it’s just a bag of Quest protein chips, maybe some beef jerky, and whatever is left in the crisper."
-Taylor Ann Spencer, Food Editor
"I have this ramen noodle hack. I’ll make the noodles and drain most of the liquid, and then toss them together with whatever vegetables I have in the fridge and the seasoning packet for a sort of quick, almost stir-fry. If I have the luxury of an egg, I’ll soft-boil it and add it on top. Sometimes, though, I’ll just skip dinner altogether and go straight to ice cream."
-Samantha MacAvoy, Senior Editor
"My mom used to make this, and now I do too. You take plain chicken and combine it with Lipton’s onion soup mix and Thousand Island Dressing, and bake it into a sort of Thousand Island chicken. My mom used to say she invented it—and I never believed that—I told her she must have seen it on the back of the Lipton’s box once. It is a recipe, actually, Russian Chicken, and you add apricot to it. So that’ll be my next experiment."
-Amanda Mactas, Temporary Associate Editor
"I make rice and beans skillets often. Yesterday I actually made one. It was just brown rice, black beans, sour cream, soy chorizo, and hot sauce, but it changes depending on what I have on hand."
-Lindsey Ramsey, Senior Director, Content Operations
"When I was a vegetarian, I made this sandwich a lot, which was basically just whatever vegetables I had on lavash bread. It was really pretty good. I might need to make that again."
-Taylor Ann Spencer, Food Editor
"I can’t remember who started it, but in college, all of my roommates and I started putting sweet chili sauce on everything. We were all vegetarians, so sometimes there really wasn’t much in the house, and I started making either rice or quinoa with shredded cheese, black beans, and sweet chili sauce. It was gross, but honestly it was really good...It’s still good.”
-Taylor Worden, Digital Culinary Editor
"Tortellini or ravioli. I like to throw in a protein like meatballs if I have them, but a lot of times it's just plain tortellini. We have that a lot in my house."
-Megan Belair, Editorial Business Manager
"I don’t know if it’s even a struggle meal, but ramen noodles. Just ramen with an egg. But when I was vegan, I used to make a lot of meals that were just kind of potatoes and tomatoes in a pan."
-Jadel Myra Biteng, Temporary Test Kitchen Assistant
"I just have an instant-noodle obsession. I make them a lot and then just throw in vegetables, maybe an egg, really whatever I have at the time. But yeah, definitely instant noodles."
-Jillian Elliott, Temporary Editorial Assistant
"Pasta. It’s just so easy, and who doesn’t like pasta? Last night I actually made one. It was around 9:30 p.m., and I had some sliced bell peppers in one container, onions in another, and some kale, and just threw it all together."
-Francesca Zani, Food Editor
"For me, it’s black bean quesadillas. Sometimes I’ll throw some other veg or protein in, but where it gets to be a real struggle meal is when I don’t have the right kind of cheese. I’ve made quesadillas with Parmesan before, which was not great."
-Cat Sillars, Temporary Community Producer
