Beans are about the cheapest and best vegetable you can eat. High protein, high fiber, and versatile. Cook up a bunch of beans, mash some of them, mix in a bunch of taco seasoning and stuff in a wrap with some cheese and rice. Super filling and delicious. Add some seasoned taco meat if you want.

It really depends on where you live. Certain commodities are cheaper depending on their availability and ease of access in relation to the world market or national market.

For instance, in Europe, the price of rice tends to vary between 2€ and 4€, while in Brazil, a large producer of rice tends to vary between R$4 (0.72€) to R$10 (1.79€) at most, because we are a massive producer of it.

Potatoes are incredibly nutritious, cheap, and can be cooked in a million different ways! From extreme simple fried slices, to more fancy double scooped baked potatoes, there are plenty of ways to incorporate it into a diet!

Rice, lentils and tomato sauce does the job for me. It's my go to lunch. Cheap, easy to make and very nutritious. Buy tomato sauce with spices already added or add the spices you like.

I buy these trailmixes at the grocery store that are an assortment of nuts and dried fruit. They are a little over 5 USD a bag and contain about 1800 calories per bag.

https://www.budgetbytes.com/ might tickle your fancy?

for me i've always had alot of congee lol which is like a rice soup/porridge, soak/wash rice and then throw it into the freezer into ice cube trays (the freezing of the water absorbed rice will shatter the rice grain) then boil that frozen waterlogged rice cube into your favourite broth. or you can skip the freezing process and use the instant pot porridge setting.

• i've found the easiest thing was canned chicken from costco, with some msg/chicken bouillon was the quickest broth that is my favourite. i prefer it thinned down (basically a thicker chicken soup), then you can throw toppings like veggies or bacon/eggs ontop

My suggestions would be:

• vegetarian chili

Can just use beans and no meat. Intensity of flavor is up to your taste I usually go with rather spicy but it can be mild too. Can take a bit of time but if you make one large pot it can last days and just needs to be reheated

• shakshuka

Relatively easy to make and is rather flavorful. Again here spice level is up to you

Both of these go well with bread, rice, or potatoes

Lots of beans and bean-like foods (chickpeas, lentils, peas, soy beans) can be made into a variety of shapes. If you have a pressure cooker you can even cook them relatively quickly in mass and freeze most of it for later. No idea how much that costs in your country, but it's supposed to be cheap.

You can just make regular bean "soup", or you can "fry" them in a pan (specially lentils). You can eat chickpeas like popcorn or you can mix them with flour and something sticky (overcooked rice if vegan, egg whites otherwise) and make burgers. Just remember to put something oily like olive oi or butter for taste.

You can also do some really low-nutrition despair foods by mixing wheat flour, salt, water and butter, and frying that in a pan. It's not healthy, but it's filling and easy to make, tastes like bread. But of course, if you add to this you can make other cool stuff like pancakes (less salt, lots of sugar, baking powder).

All of the fried stuff get a very homogeneous consistency so they might be fine for your sensory issues.

On the matter of taste, you just need a lot of seasoning.

Egg fried rice is cheap, easy and vegetarian. If you cook your veggies with garlic, onion and chillies, and you top it off with soya sauce you're gonna have an intense taste lol. It might be a 'weird consistency' though, since it's quite soft, but you'll have to be the judge of that.

Bananas are pretty cheap right? Idk but they’re delicious and can be made into bread, cookies, or chips if you have them too long.

Um, if you like bell pepper and onion I can recommend coca de trampó. It's like pizza a lot more oily and takes longer to bake. My bastardized version of the recipe is:

• Chop 2 medium sized bell peppers (red and green or whatever you like), an onion and a medium tomato. You can chop them to strips or squares. Put everything in a bowl.
• Add a bit of oil (should be olive oil but if it's too expensive just use seed oil), enough to soak everything. Add sweet paprika. Add crushed tomato (like a cup or cup and a half, I normally add a whole can which is like 400g).
• Mix that evenly.
• While that macerates, make the dough by adding half a cup of oil and a cup of water.
• Add flour while stirring so as to avoid lumps, until the dough doesn't stick to the bowl.
• Spread the dough in an oven plate (if you have a small oven like me you can make two)
• Put that in the oven for like 10 minutes at 200°C, or until it you see the surface "solidify".
• Take out the plate and spread the vegetables over the base.
• Put everything back in the oven for like 30-40 minutes depending on how hard you like the dough to be.

Hey, it may be oily as hell but it's so fucking good

Unrelated to above: you should also have frozen vegetables in the freezer so that you can cook them quickly whenever you need. Also have cans/jars at hand for the same reason. If you cook something that takes long, go all in and make at least a kilo so you can store for later in the freezer. Get glass tupperware.

Look up texturized soy recipes. Ill give you one later.

These are not the absolute simplest recipes, but they are nutritious, flavorful, inexpensive, take a shorter time to cook relative to other Indian recipes due to the prep ahead of time, and will serve you well. https://myheartbeets.com/category/method-cooking-style/onion-masala-recipes/

One of my go to recipes is this one, the easy way:

https://youtu.be/iKMI1xkU_oo

This can be really spiced up to intensify the flavor and it's very filling and easy

Peanut sauce is easy to make and goes with everything. Just add some boiling water a bit of peanut butter, add some heat and soy sauce and its done.

Dice up a sweet potato into an oven safe pan and toss with olive oil, salt and pepper, and whatever spices you like (I like to use paprika, chipotle, cayenne). 400 degree oven. After 25 minutes take it out, create some space, and crack some eggs in the space (may have to add a little more oil). Bake for 5-7min, depending in how done you like your eggs.

Easy healthy breakfast that fits in one pan and doesn't take too long. You can prep the sweet potatoes the night before and do other things while it cooks. I like to add an avocado too at the end.

This week I made enough chili for four large meals, and it took under half an hour and was very cheap. Just canned beans, lentils, tomatoes, chilis + dehydrated vegetable protein + spices.

I regularly eat rice, tofu, and a bunch of vegetables stir fried, relatively easy. You can also fry it to reheat it and add more stuff and seasoning, soy sauce, nuts, whatever. Pretty easy.

Are you able to do an initial semi pricey investment to set yourself up for future meals? Cause there's some recipes I have that cost like a dollar per meal but you gotta pay like $30-40 in groceries to have all the stuff. You'll stretch that money to its max but there's an initial investment. If you're looking for cheap and easy but you can't spend ahead that's a different category. Also how good are you at food? Cause if say you have solid knife skills a lot of veggie stuff is quick and easy where if you don't it isn't as much. I've got a few but need to narrow things down a bit

Super duper cheap (uses food that’s already going bad), Castilian Bread Soup. Old bread, garlic, oil, and if you want ham, salami or other meat bits that aren’t their freshest… chop it up into tiny cubes, and throw it in.

I’m out and about so I’d have to get you a good recipe later.

How short are you on time and do you have access to at least a stove, a frying pan, a pot, a knife and a cutting board? Because sometimes when moving you may suddenly find that everything is already packed and/or disassembled. In which case you may be stuck with only instant noodles as an option.

But in general, assuming that you have at least a few basic tools you can always make rice or pasta, add a few vegetables and a very basic sauce and spice it to your liking. You can hardly go wrong.

Soylent or Huel?

Black bean burgers or at least the patties have a nice consistency and strong flavor, curries in general are cheap, fast, and can be vegan or not vegan and are also strongly flavored.

My go tos are Rice and Beans, Hummus and Veggies, Mujadara (lentil rice combo with onions), or some other combo of grain + vegetable + protein, whether that be a wrap, sandwich, or bowl form.

Dried goods keep well, are cheap, filling, and healthy. I use an Instant Pot to cook them quickly, and that saves money in the long run.

Examples of protein includes Tofu, Chickpeas, or even nuts.

I also add a sauce, usually a creamy sauce like Hummus or a vegan Chipotle Mayo, and keep pickled or fermented vegetables like Red Onions.

Adding these all together, you have near-infinite combos. Make your protein, sauce, and veggies on your first day, and your grains, then combine in different ways throughout the week. It's a good, time and money efficient system.

What cooking equipment do you have access to?

If soups work for your sensory issues, then that might be your answer. You'll generally want to start by sautéing some onion in oil, then add your rice or potatoes or lentils or (dried) peas and a bunch of vegetable broth, also other veggies if you have them or feel like them. Cook until the consistency of the rice/potato/lentil/pea is where you want it, adding more broth if there's too little liquid left. Season with whatever spices or herbs you have.

Is say that's the bardic shape, but there are many actual recipes out there. I make one with red lentils, sun-dried tomatoes and rice that's delicious. I'd say the important things are onion, powdered vegetable broth (every German supermarket has a cheap good version of this), and some kind of starch and protein

The good ol' reliable carbonara spaghetti with cheese sauce.