a simple one is ramen. you can take the cheap instant noodles and make them gourmet by adding things like a soft-boiled egg, some sautéed mushrooms, a bit of miso paste, and fresh herbs. looks basic but tastes fancy.

French Omelette.

Upgrade instant ramen easily: homemade broth (soy sauce, garlic, butter, bouillon cube), boiled egg, sautéed mushrooms or frozen veggies, and fresh herbs. Cheap, but restaurant-quality.

Most French dishes, especially country French dishes, use mostly pedestrian ingredients, but the results are gourmet. Initially, when looking at the recipes, it may seem daunting, but once you do it, its pretty straight forward. A favorite of mine is Coq Au Vin. Its main ingredient is chicken thighs and red wine. Just use an inexpensive red wine that you are willing to drink (not a cooking wine). The wine should not be an expensive one, since you are cooking with it, the heat will change the wine. I normally use a pinot noir or a burgundy (whose main grape is a pinot noir). I found a good box wine for burgundy for about $10. It has about 3 to 4 liters so you can make this dish many times. Since Coq au Vin is essentially a stew, it keeps well in the fridge and is good all week.

risotto. The 'hardest' part is stirring. You can make it as cheap or indulgent as you want.

Baked potatoes loaded with butter, cheese, sour cream, and whatever toppings you love. Simple, filling, and oddly luxurious!

Also drink some of the wine while you cook.

Carbonara. You need just a few ingredients, minimal effort, and look like you are amazing cook. Not to mention how tasty and fancy it is

Roasted vegetables.  That's what I make when I want something super delicious but I don't want to go to the store.  Depending on what I have it could be cabbage steaks, roasted potato wedges, mixed root veggies, roasted broccoli in a lemon garlic bath from Barbara Kafka's Roasting, popcorn cauliflower, etc. They all start with extra virgin olive oil and salt, then get other herbs and spices added depending on what I'm making.  Rosemary from the back yard, garlic, cumin, citrus, etc. 

Everything gets cut into pieces, bathed in EVOO, salt, etc, spread on a sheet pan, and roasted at 450 F. I do fuss over them at least once or twice during cooking.  I pull the pan out of the oven and rearrange things. The darker crispier stuff gets moved to the middle and the wetter paler stuff gets moved to the corners and edges. That way it all gets beautifully caramelized and crisp.

Carbonara, creme brulee, souffles,

Pasta aglio e olio, spanish tortilla, pasta e ceci, potatoes rosti, thin socca with fresh greens topping

Crepes?

French omelette. Butter, eggs, salt. It’s all about technique.

It's going to depend on what you can get cheap in your area, of course, but hollandaise or bearnaise sauce turns even frozen vegetables into something super fancy feeling, and it's not particularly expensive to make.

Ganache truffles- that is, chocolate truffles made if a ganache core coated with cocoa, or coconut, or crushed nuts, etc. are also gourmet feeling- even moderately good chocolate will work.

Homemade bread- use a no-knead, long-rise lean recipe- is pretty much nothing but flour and water, and really makes a meal special.

Kidney beans and rice with taco seasoning.

When in doubt, ramen with any meat/fish/eggs/veg is on hand

Omelettes, probably the two easiest ways to tick every box quickly & without wrecking the bank, imo

Once a month I usually grab all the random handfuls of stuff left in the freezer & cupboards, throw it into the slow cooker to make some form of bizarre technically-a-stew

r/EatCheapAndHealthy is full of great ideas for budget-stretching meals. The biggest life hack is beans and rice! Super cheap, healthy, and filling, and can be the basis for more exciting meals with whatever flavourings and veggies you have lying around.

Try hitting up some food pantries. You might find a few things useful. Like a can of pasta sauce and a box of elbow macaroni. Makes decent impromptu pasta meal.

It would make it easier to answer if you posted where in the world you are located and what type of foods/ingredients are available to you.

I like frying up some potatoes with kielbasa and having a side salad.

Chicken &, rice in a cooker of choice

https://www.budgetbytes.com/

http://ongov.net/dss/documents/good-and-cheap.pdf

r/eatcheapandhealthy

Quinoa with a fried egg on top sprinkled with bang bang seasoning from Sam’s Club. You can cook a lot of quinoa ahead of time and just heat it up in the microwave when ready.

Look up copycat recipes for places you like to eat. Make a bunch and freeze them.

If you're time poor, I'd suggest investing in a multifunctional instant pot. Mine is an 11 in 1 and I love it. I use the pressure cooker function most. A meal in 15-20 minutes on a busy day with minimal prep and work has saved my sanity many times.

In fact, I'm planning on using it this week bc I have an odd work schedule.

Search YouTube for sheet pan and crockpot dump recipes. Julia Pacheco is my favorite. She even does “eat for a week on $20” and 3-5 ingredient recipes.

You might consider a meal kit. It’s definitely more expensive than doing it all yourself, but cheaper than eating out and simplifies things a lot.

Here is a nice free basic cookbook http://ongov.net/dss/documents/good-and-cheap.pdf

Also check out http://budgetbytes.com

I kept these imgur albums because i still live in hope that my kids will have use of it one day.

Actual poor student cookbook

&

25 Foods for the broke and college

​

Hope that helps.

After reading your edit- I highly recommend you work on learning to make red beans and rice with a good broth from bones you can get for cheap from a local butcher. It’s a more versatile dish than you may think and it’s cheap and filling.

If you can’t live on red beans and rice, the adjustment you need to make in your life is not the food.

try r/eatcheapandhealthy. they'll have all kinds of recipes.

Check out the show "Struggle Meals" on Tastemade. It's all about making good meals (and I mean GOOD) for under $2/serving and with limited cooking tools and skills. There are many free channels you can stream it on. Enjoy!!

Either keilbasa and potatoes diced and pan fried, or egg fried rice with veggies in a skillet.

I make what we call cheesy chicken pasta. Brown a cut up chicken breast, onions, bell peppers if I have them. The for the sauce two small cans of cream of chicken one can of water. Let it simmer while the pasta cooks. Take off the burner, add shredded cheese. Stir to melt. Toss in pasta. It feeds my family of one adult, two teen boys and my daughter. With leftovers. You can use any protein. Costs like maybe $5 all in.

Ramen with an egg and spinach. Total comes out to about $0.85 of ingredients

Omelettes are my friends. Eggs. Salt. Pepper. Onions. Can toss in anything suitable.

Chickpea and frozen vegie rice bake with Moroccan seasoning. A cup of rice makes about 4 meals.

This 1 pan rice dish is yummy & you can add ground beef or chicken too

https://www.thechunkychef.com/stick-butter-rice/

Same sort of recipe with 2 boxes of dirty rice- make in a pan with beef broth & 2 cans of black beans & again can add meat if you want

Egg fried rice! It's cheap, all in a wok/pot and taste delicious 😋 Recipe below if interested Egg fried rice recipe

Cook rice in broth.

https://www.budgetbytes.com/category/recipes/cost-per-recipe/recipes-under-10/

r/eatcheapandhealthy will have info for you, too