I'm working on going vegan for a variety of reasons, and while 90% of the time it's a peice of (dairy and egg-free) cake, there are the occassional days when I wake up late for school with absolutley nothing available here (no left overs, no peanut butter, etc.) and hardly any money, so I end up eating the cheap, junky-lactofilled-food provided by the school. I used to take frozen bean and cheese burritos at these times, they'd thaw during the day and I could heat them in one of the microwaves provided by the school, but obviously now that I'm trying to avoid cheese that presents a problem. Amy's burritos are very tempting, but they're expensive and we're not the most well-off of families. So, any prepacked cheap vegan food I could get for emergencies?



Thanks in advance!

Fantastic Foods - Fast Naturals are very good. I'm pretty sure they're not all vegan but several of them are, you'd have to do some research. They also might be priced too high, not sure.



http://www.fantasticfoods.com/script...d66cf6709b48a6

I thought the Fast Naturals were difficult, personally.



If Amy's burritos are too expensive for you, I'm honestly not sure what's cheaper than that for portable vegan convenience foods... Luna bars are usually only $1.29 where I shop...



Yves has some refrigerated penne and lasagne dishes that are easy to heat up and eat. You'd need to keep them cool all morning, though.



Plus, lots of fruit, nuts, and seeds... (though those can add up, too, especially if you're buying organic)

The ones I had were just add water and nuke.

You can nuke a packet of vegan ramen noodles pretty easily. Just get the water very hot, then let the noodles sit for 3 minutes. VERY cheap, too. Of course, you'd have to bring a container.



Epski, I'm jealous: Luna bars are $2 for me.

I'm thinking of the food line that John offered as free review samples last time, with sauces in separate packets from noodles, and the noodles being boiled... you must be thinking of something else. My bad.



I eat their soups a lot, primarily vegetarian beef and vegetable barley. Very much looking forward to the new "low-carb" combination of the two.

The Korean store by my house has these huge Kim-Chee flavored noodle bowls for 89 cents, and they're really good. There may be other vegetarian flavors but I like that one so I haven't looked yet.

I agree that Amy's foods stuff is really too expensive. This is pretty much the case with all pre-packaged vegan food, though. For lunches, I will often pack PBJ or a bagel with hummus or toffuti "cream cheese". I will also suplement with cashews and fruit.





ebola

I'm fairly sure these are vegan but you might want to double check. Atheno's has portable hummos and pita wedges. They run about 3 dollars but you could also bring along some veggies with it because there really is a ton of hummos in the container. They have roasted red pepper and plain available.



I've also found hummos to be good on bagels, I like it better then the fake cream cheese...

Pre-packed vegan stuff tends to be relatively expensive, like the Amy's burritos. Convience food seems to kill the wallet.



You could occasionally cook up a large amount of whatever you like in burritos and freeze them. Bulk dry beans are extremely inexpensive, canned beans are fairly cheap and easier to work with than dried (if that's an issue). Cook up some pintos with garlic, onion, green pepper, spices--whatever you like-and mash them with a potato masher. Then fill burrito wrappers, add any thing else. Freeze them and take one with when needed, they'll save a while.



Also, oatmeal is super cheap. All you need is a bowl, oats, water, a banana, and the school microwave.. After a couple minutes..presto, excellent meal. Don't forget the spoon.



Canned soup?

Soy yogurts like Whole Soy are on sale for $.99 sometimes, and they are good to grab for a quick breakfast. You could buy a box of whole grain bars for about $2.99 and have about six bars. Of course, these are snack type of foods, not whole meals.

I buy canned soup, like Amy's for about $1.49 per can on sale, and I heat that up for lunch sometimes.

I like veggie refried beans, with some onion and some salsa on a whole wheat burrito. I just put it in the microwave for like a minute and a half. Its sooo good! I wish I could have one now

As others have said, many granola bars are cheap (Health Valley)

and there are cheap vegan soups....

You can always buy fat free refried beans (usally vegan)

and make burritos and there are vegan cheese recipes and Tofutti is good

if you like to buy premade stuff.



You can also make soup and freeze it in containers when you

have time and grap them on hetic mornings, same thing with

cheeseless calzones. This is thrifty and the whole family would enjoy it.

Hummus is cheap to make and just buy some pitas or crackers.

You can also make up Falafel and Sauce or baked tofu for sandwiches.

There's always the super thrifty black bean and rice burgers (yum).

If you need some recipes, I can PM them to you.



Shannon

Just a note - the Athenos hummus packs, the pita bread in them is not vegan.



Stuff out of vending machines: chips, fritos (not a healthy breakfast, but hey), Goldenberg's peanut chews, Lemon Oh's cookies, Grandma's Peanut Butter Sandwich Cremes. (These are just my usual vending finds).



Nature Valley granola bars (with the exception of Oats n Honey), unfrosted pop tarts...



You could always make a few of your own bean and salsa burritos and store them in the back of the freezer. I do this, and it's mego cheap. Just get a pack of tortillas, can of black beans, and a jar of salsa. Take ten minutes to roll up a few, and you won't starve for a month or so.

I gotta stop buying the pre-packaged convenience foods... My grocery bill would probably drop by half, hunh?