I would say keep skipping breakfast if you're not hungry in the morning.  Otherwise maybe just have some fruit to tide you over or for something more substantial you could hardly get simplier than a fried egg over rice and kimchi, or even just a peanut butter sandwich. If you work at a public school, your lunch is taken care of, otherwise I really think if you're living alone here eating out one meal a day, say getting a couple gimbap rolls or a bibimbap, can be cost- and time-effective and relatively healthy. Otherwise I would make enough dinner that would leave some leftovers to spare for the next day's lunch. There's nothing wrong with pasta for dinner (though I'm sure BasedCowboy would disagree) as it's easy to add vegetables by stir frying them and tossing them in with the sauce. You can do canned tomato stuff or do a simple oil pasta, and it's not hard to learn how to make a decent cream sauce.  Otherwise fried rice is a no-brainer, again adding veggies as you see fit. Things like miso soup and kimchi stew dont take too many ingredients and can be learned easily, and they store well for days in the fridge, so you could make a large batch to last you a while. Things like green onion are hard to buy in small quantities, but can be chopped up and stored in the freezer. Just simply cutting up some tofu into cubes and covering it with a little soy sauce and sesame oil can be a nice little side dish.  It also goes well with fried kimchi. Buy laver for your rice meals! Find 반찬 that you like from the local vendors and supplement your meals that way. In the colder months, simply roasting some sweet potatoes or sweet pumpkins could be a meal all their own.

Or just sneak over to Paris Baguette for a couple meals per day like I do^^

Hope that helps~

What do you have to work with with regards to equipment?

If you just have one of those mini frig/freezers and two gas burners, I would give up on cooking and just go raw or mostly raw.

Cheap and healthy is a bit of an oxymoron, as the cheap stuff is typically processed garbage and empty calories.  Fresh fruits and vegetables are quite expensive, relatively.

What type of budget were you thinking per week, per month?

My wife and I have two full-sized refrigerators/freezers, and a full-sized freezer, a fully stalked pantry, etc., with most of the cooking equipment, etc. needed to do pretty much anything and everything, yet don't do much cooking during the week.

The weekend is when dishes are made and most meals are prepared.

That said, I'm not sure how to help you without finding out more from you.

What do you consider healthy? Cheap?

How much time are you looking to spend shopping, preparing, cooking, and cleaning up for a party of one every evening?

It sounds exhausting, yet if you are truly motivated to improve your health, I'm sure you will find a way.

Do you have any special dietary restrictions?

What constitutes a "real" meal to you...what does that mean?

Cooking for one is often not worth the time or effort.

When I am in bachelor mode, I like to make a pot of rice and a pot of beans (from dried).  A scoop of each gives you cheep energy and protein. 

Fruit and veg is expensive in supermarkets here, but the market stalls and truck vendors sell stuff for reasonable prices.

Bell peppers are 1000-1300 won in any store, carrots are cheep too.  Cukes and zukes (called "green pumpkin" here for some reason) are also good value.

The trick to shopping, I find, is to think in terms of food groups.  Don't get hung up on anything specfic.  Food is more seasonal here, so you might pay way too much for something specific, when an alternative will do just as well.

Also, eat local.  If you used Campbell's CoM soup as a cheap sauce back home, you will find it is NOT so cheap here.

Best advice, get a slow cooker (crockpot). So many simple and easy meal recipes that you can get via the internet.  Best part, buy the ingredients, set it and by the time you get home, or wake up its ready.  No mess, no fuss!  Enjoy!!!!

Dark circles comes with lack of sleep and dehydration. Drink plenty of water. Mushrooms are cheap as here, great to steam. Veggies flux a lot in their price, but going to a local market (pick up some basic Korean), will see you save loads of cash. Eggs are cheap, boiled, steamed, fried (not healthy), or scrambled are all quick ways.

I was like you in my first year. My kitchen was tiny and I only had one burner so pretty much relied on pasta (even that was a pain to cook if I wanted more than 1 pan) and other crap like ramyun. That grew old pretty quickly.

These days I make curry quite often (from paste with coconut milk, both of which can be bought in bigger marts). Korean curry is also super easy to make though just not as tasty imo. I throw whatever random veggies in there as well as a protein if I want. I don't always bother with meat though. Then, with the left over rice you could make fried rice which is super easy.

I also bought a little toaster oven- you could get one second hand pretty cheap. With this I cook salmon, chicken, stuffed peppers, stuffed zucchini, baked pumpkin or sweet potatoes. I'm going to see what I can do with tofu soon as I'm trying to lower my intake of meat.

Fajitas/tacos/burritos or some version close to those also make a nice change and are easy-ish to make in a small kitchen. The only thing is needing the different components but they are still tasty even with the bare minimum.

On a lazy night I'll make beans on toast, scrambled eggs or mashed avocado on toast. Or these on top of a baked potato (a budget version can be made in a microwave if you don't have an oven). Other toppings: tuna-mayo, cheese, chilli - which is also easy to make and have with rice.

Soups are also really easy to make at a basic level and you can pretty much throw any veggies in and it'll likely taste good  I was able to find chicken stock cubes in Emart which helps as I am too lazy to make stock from scratch.

I hope these give you some ideas. I'm sure cooking Korean food is probably the best option, but I prefer to not eat that at home haha.

If I'm at a loss I'll google whatever ingredients I have, like "zucchini chicken easy" and see what comes up. I also just bought a few simple cookbooks from the book depository (free shipping worldwide) to give me some more ideas.

Quote from: chupacaubrey on September 29, 2016, 10:57:25 AM

Salmon, also served over greens. I try to limit this though because salmon is supposed to be basically poison.

That is pretty much bullshit.

I would love for that to be true.

Best advice, get a slow cooker (crockpot). So many simple and easy meal recipes that you can get via the internet.  Best part, buy the ingredients, set it and by the time you get home, or wake up its ready.  No mess, no fuss!  Enjoy!!!!

Nice! It is so easy. Hit the local market the day before and get veggies you like (carrots, onions, potatoes, and many others don't need to be refrigerated), and even grab a raw chicken for 5,000 won, thrown in some spices, and set it on low before you go to work in the morning. That over rice will last one person a couple of days. You can even leave the leftovers in the slow cooker in the fridge for the next day. So easy. You can even make your pasta in the slow cooker. Basically just google "slow cooker recipes" or " ______ in the slow cooker."

Other than that, like others said there are so many easy recipes available ( and remember, you don't have to use everything it calls for)

Also, for anyone that doesn't know. You can do eggs straight in the slow cooker and move them around every once in a while, and when they are done they have a kind of grilled flavor...Tasty

Thank goodness for Emart and tortillas! Don't forget quesadillas ^^ super tasty and relatively quick depending on what you wanna throw inside.

Right?? Unfortunately I've already overindulged and am tired of it for a while