$1 Meals: Bacon and Tomato Breakfast Fried Rice

It seems to me that many people would like to see some ways they can eat a $1 meal, or in some cases, a meal that costs $1 to make for 2-4 people. Accordingly, a lot of my recipes focus over the upcoming weeks will be on options that use up leftovers, meals that cost $1, and meals that cost $2. The cost of the meal is $1 if you already have some staples in the house. If you need to buy everything to get started, it will cost more. I’ll put up prices, with each meal in this series, for “just starting out” and “have most of what I need.”

This specific meal is both a “using leftovers” and a $1 meal. It actually cost less than $1 for me because I shop sales, but that’s what we want to see people start working on doing. $1 is the max we’re looking for from anything in this category of recipes. Any time you see recipes listed as “it costs this,” the author of the recipe is assuming you had all of the staples already and is listing the cost of the recipe itself.

As you’ll see below the ingredients list, there’s an analysis of both the real and starting costs of this meal. The starting cost, meaning you have literally no food or staples and had to buy everything for it, it massive, at $9.45. That can be dropped by more than a third if you choose to not add bacon. The real cost, meaning the cost of just what you’ll use, is $1. It was 63 cents for me because I buy my rice in 20# bags, comparison shop, and shop sales, and is 51 cents for me when I leave the bacon out.

That starting up cost is why people say it’s expensive to eat home cooked foods. We want to see y’all maintaining staple items in your home so you don’t have to go buy everything each time you want to cook.

Something to keep in mind, however, is that if you did need to spend $10 to make this, you have a whole lot of that food leftover for other meals.

In future recipes in these categories, I’ll list real and starting costs in the ingredients lists themselves, without the long-windedness you’re going to see below. It’s long when we talk about the costs below specifically because I want to make sure people are thinking about how they’re spending money at the store so small habits that reduce cost of living can be learned.

For those of you relying on food banks and pantries for a lot of your food needs, swap in pasta (about half a bag) if you got that instead of rice. You can add beans instead of the bacon, more eggs, or leave it out completely. If you got tuna in your box? Tuna is just fine in fried rice or pasta, and it makes a lovely breakfast as well!

Here’s what you’ll need

2 cups cooked, old rice (1 cup uncooked)

1 slice of bacon, chopped or sliced (roughly two tablespoons)

1/2 chopped roma tomato (or 1/3 cup other chopped tomato)

1 tablespoon of sesame oil or other oil or fat (saved animal fats also work really well here)

1 egg

salt and pepper

2 tablespoons of scallions (or other onion)

Let’s Talk Money

I’m going to talk now about how I personally am doing this shopping, and what foods cost. Be aware that the cost of foods where I live may not be the same as the cost of foods where you live, so my figures may be higher or lower than what’s going on for you.

Eggs

Here in Houston, I find that at least once every 2-3 months, at least one chain grocer will sell its eggs for about $1 per 18 eggs. When this happens, I buy 3-5 crates, depending on how much I think Ross can handle with my stocking such a large portion of the fridge with eggs. Eggs are the cheapest animal protein you can get, and even when they’re expensive, they’re still cheap. The last time I bought eggs, they were 97 cents for the 18-pack. As a result, my one egg cost $0.05. Yes, 5 cents. If you paid $3 for a dozen, which is pretty standard in a lot of markets these days, your egg cost you $0.25. So 5 times as much as I paid for my egg. Shop the sales, y’all. If you’re buying dozens, those are averaging around $1.33/dozen large eggs these days. That sets you at about 11 cents per egg. So we’ll say for eggs that the cost is 11 cents for one, $1.33 if you’re starting from scratch. Again, eggs are the least expensive animal protein out there. If you’re into animal protein and also like saving money, eggs are your friend.

Also? Stop looking at the expiration dates on your eggs. A lot of you are throwing away perfectly good eggs! If you’re unsure if your eggs are good, put them in a cup or bowl of water. If they’re just down there on the bottom, 100% fresh. Standing up or a little bit floating (up to the middle), here are your eggs for hard boiled, egg salad, deviled, etc. Whatever you use hard-boiled eggs for. If they float? Get rid of them, and do it without breaking them. Floaters are bad eggs, filled with gross smells, as you may remember Templeton discovering in Charlotte’s Web. Please stop throwing your eggs away based on the date the carton says.

Rice

White rice costs, for a 2# bag, around $1.50. For a 1# bag, it’s going to be around 75 cents. We used about a cup of long grain, and a pound of rice has about 2.5 cups in it. That’s 30 cents per cup. We’re now sitting at a starting cost of $2.08 if you need everything, 44 cents if you’ve got the items we need so far.

Oil and Spices

If you need salt and pepper, plus some inexpensive oil, you’ll spend about 40 cents on a tub of salt and about $1.50 for a generic brand, small container of pre-ground black pepper. We can reasonably say you’re spending less than 5 cents on spices if you have them already, so we’re now sitting at 49 cents if you had these already, $3.98 if starting out with nothing. Oil, at its least expensive, is about $1.25 for a 16oz container. From the grocery store; this is cheaper at the dollar store. You’re using about another 5 cents for the oil, so our meal is now 54 cents if you had stuff, $5.23 starting out.

Veggies

Roma tomatoes are running about 24 cents at all major grocers here, so that is 12 cents for the half. Scallions are about 50 cents per bundle (typically of 5 or so), and you’ll use about half of the greens from one green onion (5 cents). Now we’re looking at a total cost of $5.97 starting out, 71 if you’ve already got what you need.

Bacon

I’m not sure what happened, but we just don’t eat a lot of bacon anymore. Since Child Tester is perfectly happy to eat that pre-cooked box bacon and does not require that I cook bacon from raw anymore, I buy that at Aldi. The price at Aldi is always $2.59 for the 12 slices in the box (22 cents per slice, rounded up). Walmart, which is the grocer everyone in America tends to have access to, sells theirs for $3.48. I think we should use the WM figure (29 cents per slice), since everyone has that store and not everyone has Aldi. Our total now for the entire meal is $1.00 at the higher Walmart bacon price if you had what you needed, quite a lot more at $9.45.

Thought y'all might like to see how it looks amidst all the babble.

Here’s what you’ll do

Heat your oil in a pan over medium-high heat. Add in cooked rice with a bit of salt and pepper, and move it around a bit as it fries. Once it’s about 3/4 of the way browned the way you like your fried rice, make some space in the pan and put your egg in, season it with salt and pepper, and scramble that bad boy. Once it’s mostly scrambled, stir it into the rice and add your veggies and bacon, if using. Stir this around another minute or two; you don’t want the veggies well cooked since this tastes better with some fresh food flavor in it. Serves 1-2, depending on how much y’all eat. Ross and I both ate this and were satisfied, so I assume 2 servings is the standard yield since he’s a giant and eats as such.