Seasoning food on a tight budget

I've been watching some "emergency grocery budget" videos lately (you've gotta do something when you're feeling sick and can't do anything but being in bed, right?). One thing that I noticed was that most of these vloggers - no matter how good their intentions are - somehow assume that people have all these "pantry staples" on hand. I'm talking about basic items, or even less basic items, like rice, oil, flour, tinned tomatoes, but also the seasonings. And while that's true in some cases, there are also people that are truly broke, having nothing but empty cupboards and with a budget of maybe 20 euros/dollars for the next week or two weeks for ALL their groceries (been there, done that...). If that's the case, it's hard to expect your meals to be flavoured with dozens of different seasonings and all kinds of additional ingredients. With 20 euros, you want to stretch your meals as much as possible so seasonings just won't be as important as your main staples. In such a situation, it's more about filling your stomachs with whatever is the cheapest. 

Yet, at the same time, you still need to have a tiny bit of flavour in order not to feel very deprived when you're going through such a situation. Not having a lot to choose from for a few weeks isn't that difficult. But sometimes, these situations can go on for years. So I get that people want to "indulge" on at least some extra flavour, especially when you have to make do with so little already. Having been there, done that I definitely know that it can be a challenge, but still possible when you precisely budget and shop smartly. 

Bread: while bread toppings aren't strictly necessary, I find it kind of hard to eat bread as is, especially if it's not day fresh. I've found that toasting bread enhances the flavour (which is the very reason toast was "invented"- to make stale bread a bit more palatable). During rough times, I didn't mind to have just a bare toast with a cup of tea. We also had times when we just had margarine (because it's much cheaper than butter), which felt quite luxurious when compared to bare bread. Or even margarine sprinkled with some sugar (and cinnamon, if possible). That wouldn't even feel like "cheap food" to me honestly. It's not that healthy obviously, but with an extremely tight budget, that's not always the #1 priority. Bread can also be part of the main meal, such as a slice or two of bread along with a cup of soup. Which is good, because then the soup becomes the topping/easoning of the bread without needing anything else. I would advise using butter (or at least margarine, if butter is too expensive) over oil, because butter is more versatile/multi purpose. You can use it both for bread as well as cooking, whereas cooking oil isn't that suitable for bread obviously (unless you have olive oil... Which isn't quite what I'd expect for someone on a very low budget). Alternatively, you can buy peanut butter, and then use it for bread as well as for main dishes (you can make sauced and salad dressings based on peanut butter). 

Main meals:

Salt : the bare minimum, in my opinion, is salt. Black pepper would be nice too, but as long as you have salt, that's the most important. Salt can make such a difference to foods, even foods that initially would seem to be bland. 

Herbs/spices: if you don't have any on hand and your budget allows to buy a few spices, the ones I'd suggest would be black pepper, cumin, oregano, parsley (dried or fresh), ginger (ground is cheaper), and paprika. And cinnamon, especially to flavour up sweet dishes/breakfast foods. If you don't have money for all of these, just pick a few. Pepper, oregano and cumin would be good to start with. Usually, herbs and spices are more affordable at Asian/Middle eastern stores. Spices bought in supermarkets are just so much more expensive. And in my opinion, spices bought from those stores usually taste stronger too, which means you'll end up using less. That makes it even more cheaper. 

Onion/garlic: in my humble opinion, each meal must include either onion or garlic, preferably both! It doesn't just add a bit of nutrition - they're both great flavour enhancers. You don't have to use a whole onion or cloves of garlic, just a bit is usually enough to flavour your food so it doesn't taste bland. If you just have a tiny bit of garlic, the best thing you can do is to add it towards the end of the cooking time, so it tastes as garlicky as possible. As for onions: when I make a stew or soup of some sort, I sometimes add onion peels instead of whole chopped onions. I keep a container in the fridge with some onion peels; that way I don't have to peel and chop another onion (and possibly washing up another chopping board...), for as much flavour. If you're truly broke, that's an affordable way to add more flavour to your food. Even a small amount of chopped and sautéed onion does wonders to about any dish. 

Tomato paste: it's a key ingredient in most Tunisian foods, so needless to say, we go through a lot of it! Even for many non-Tunisian dishes, we use tomato paste. However, tomato paste has become ridiculoudly expensive lately. We're paying now exactly double for the same tin compared to three years ago! And it's not that it was that cheap back then. We definitely try to be more frugal now with the tomato paste, often resulting in a bit more runny sauce, but still with a nice tomato-ey flavour. When you're in that bad of a financial situation that you barely can afford seasonings, if you can afford some tomato paste, I'd highly suggest buying it. You can use a tiny amount just for some flavour. When I'm being lazy I sometimes make a "soup" of some tomato paste, salt, and garlic paste- and then add vermicelli. My children absolutely love this. If tomato paste is more expensive than pasta sauce/marinara sauce, that's absolutely an option as well. It's basically just tomato paste with added seasonings, so you can just forego adding extra seasonings. In an emergency, even ketchup would be an option. I must admit that we never ever have ketchup at home but on the rare occasion when we crave it, I make it myself. But if you do have ketchup on hand, just use that as a seasoning. It won't be as good as real tomato sauce, but most people will prefer ketchup over blandness. 

Stock cubes/bullion cubes: not as good and certainly not as healthy as real brother made out of fresh ingredients, but does a decent job to flavour up your food. Just one cube will do wonders to your rice. It's not limited to rice of course. You can flavour up soups, sauces etc. One cube will probably be enough for one 4 persons meal. Maybe one of package of stock cubes is not the cheapest item out there, but it will last a long time. The good thing here is that you can buy them per cube (for the same price you'd pay in a complete package), but that's probably not possible everywhere. Still, a complete package will not break the bank even on a very tight budget. 

These were the bare basic seasonings that I'd recommend when on a very restricted budget. If you have some more breathing room, I would also advise to have mustard, sesame seeds, marmite, soy sauce (and/or fish sauce), and any hot condiment of your choice on hand. BBQ sauce is also a versatile condiment to flavour up your food. I posted a mock soy sauce recipe, just in case soy sauce us hard to find, too expensive, or in case you're allergic to soy.                        And remember- the best seasonings are the main ingredients. If you use good, fresh ingredients, you'll likely use less seasonings. Although that can be challenging on an extreme budget, I must admit. 

As I mentioned, there were periods in our life when we had to go through similar situations; having to ration everything and calculate precisely so we wouldn't go hungry. Even though it was tough at the time, it really taught us to be resourceful and creative. Hopefully this can help people in similar situations. There are many people struggling these days, so I'm convinced tips like these are needed more than ever.