Do you have a kettle? Either electric or stovetop. There are plenty of just add hot boiling water foods our there for when you are too tired to really cook. Ramen, oatmeal, freeze dried soups. I’m not much of a cook, but I love my kettle.

Stir fry is one of my big go-tos. All you need is a pan and spatula or tongs, whatever veg you have on hand, oil, salt. You can mix in seasonings but honestly if cooked well I don’t find it to be that necessary. Fried rice or rice stuff is in a similar vein. Cook whatever random stuff you have around, remove from the pan, start frying the rice, throw in an egg, add it all back into the pan briefly.

Street tacos are baller and you can put all kinds of things in them and make them work with just about any dietary restrictions. I prefer to go heavy handed with the seasoning but you can make it work with only a couple spices. Best with two pans, one to heat up the tortillas. Making pico de gallo is good knife skill practice and extra can the thrown on nachos directly or quickly turned into salsa.

All the soup and then some seriously there are so many great soup recipes and tricks. I love egg drop because it can be as simple as broth and an egg, though usually I put in some frozen veg and thicken with corn starch. If you eat meat and have these in your area, you can grab one of those hot held roast chickens for cheap. Lazily process it, throw all the bones and whatever is stuck to them into a pot and make a quick and cheap stock. Plus now there is a bunch of chicken laying around ready to be a chicken noodle or chicken tortilla soup.

If your stove has an oven: Ratatouille is surprisingly easy to make, costs basically nothing, and can be done in an oven or a slow cooker. Jalapeno poppers can also be weirdly cheap and easy to make. Really anything where a main component is a veg and you put it in the oven. Roast broccoli only needs oil and salt to come out great.

I like to make savory oatmeal and have pre-measured containers for breakfast prep. Oats, salt, pepper, brewers yeast. Just add water. I mix in cream cheese and put a fried egg on top. It’s cheap and filling and you can really push what you’re adding to them and at worse still come out with something okay enough.

I hope these are the kinds of things you’re looking for and they get some ideas going. If you have questions about anything or need inspiration let me know! I’ve been living with a chef for a lot of years and have a decent bit of knowledge I can share

Boil pasta and drain.

Add tuna/sausage/vegetables (sweetcorn/cucumber/carrots work, pineapple if you are daring)

Add sauce, BBQ, Mayo, sweet chilli

Add cheese to taste.

Pick a combination that sounds good.

Tuna, mayo, sweetcorn

Sausage, cherry tomatoes, BBQ sauce

Eat enjoy. Got me through many tight times.

First off, I’m really sorry. There are a lot of things you can do just using a hob and one or two pans. One of my recent go-to meals involves frying up some vegetables (courgette/zucchini, peppers, some sweet potato etc), flavouring with some spices (cumin, dried chili) and herbs (thyme, basil) and then stiring that into some rice that’s been cooked in a saucepan with the lid on.

Add some egg and stir the rice through the vegetables in the frying pan if you want to make it egg-fried rice.

tasty

Being tasty is mostly a matter of spices. Apart from your dead microwave, what do you have in your kitchen?

Check out your local thrift store. They normally have microwaves on the cheap.

As far as cheap quick and easy it’s hard to beat Midwestern style “salads”. Egg salad is something I eat fairly often. Mix hard boiled eggs, mayo or miracle whip (I use light), and sweet pickle relish in whatever proportions you prefer. I generally add some frozen peas and top mine with Tajin powder but you can add veggies, nuts, seeds, cheese, seasonings or sauces… whatever you want to customize it. To make a different kind of “salad” replace the eggs with ground, chopped, or shredded meat (home cooked, deli, or canned) of whatever type you prefer or a can of beans with the liquid drained. It can be made into sandwiches, wrapped in a tortilla, used as a dip, served over rice, noodles, cooked or fresh veggies, it can be eaten cold or hot, if you add a lot of veggies, pasta, or rice and some liquid it can be baked off as a casserole maybe topped with cheese. The meat/eggs/beans should be cooked before they go in so all you have to do is dump it in a bowl and mix it up.

For a dessert “salad” there is cottage cheese salad. Mix a tub of cottage cheese, a can of fruit (pineapple is the norm but I use oranges because I don’t like pineapple and it’s suppose to be drained but I don’t), and a small package of flavored gelatin (sugar free store brand works fine) in a large bowl then fold in a tub of whipped cream. Sometimes I add some cherries and/or walnuts. Any fruits, nuts, or seeds can be added. It has to be refrigerated for a couple hours so the gelatin can set up.

Just dropping in to thank everyone for the ideas, encouragement etc, and a bit of an update.

I bought some onions and added them to my edible-but-not-very-tasty rice, and fried them together, and it tastes a million times better. I have pasta and tuna as backups, and will keep referring back to this thread every time I shop. The positivity in the thread also got me to clean my fridge, which was absolutely filthy (I don’t even know how it got like that) to mark the beginning of new kitchen habits. The fridge is still depressingly bare, but it’s clean and that makes it less depressing haha. It’s nice having more bench space where the microwave was… it almost looks like a kitchen now.

Thanks again! 👍

Cooks Illustrated Best Skillet Recipes.

This book changed my life.

I used to live off of Spanish tortilla when I was a student. All you need is potato, egg, onion, salt and pepper, and a bit of cooking oil for your pan. You can also add other ingredients like muahrooms, tomatoes, sausage, or bacon when you have it.

Here’s my favorite quick and not-too-tricky recipe for beef chilli. It’s healthy, delicious, and can last you for days. The only equipment you need is a stove, a large pot, a ladle or spatula, and a can opener.

1. Add 1 tbsp olive oil to pot, on medium heat
2. Add 1/2 large white onion (chopped) and 1 bell pepper (chopped) and cook on medium heat for about four minutes (while stirring regularly). 
3. Add 3 cloves garlic (finely chopped) and 2 tbsp of tomato paste. Stir everything and cook for a couple of minutes.
4. Add 2 lb of ground beef and cook until broken up and browned (about 7 minutes on med-high).
5. Add 2 can of chopped tomatoes & 1 can of tomato sauce 
6. Add 1 can of black beans
7. Add 1 can of pinto beans
8. Add 1 can of kidney beans
9. Season with 2 tbsp. chili powder.
10. Season with 1 tbsp dried oregano
11. Season with 2 tbsp ground cumin
12. Season with 2 tbsp ground coriander 
13. Add salt, pepper, and (optional) Worcestershire sauce to taste
14. Continue to simmer on low heat for 30 minutes, stirring thoroughly once every five minutes

Lots of good ideas. I haven’t seen the basics such as Mac and cheese and even hamburger helper. They aren’t great for you but if you don’t have a lot of money or are just feeling lazy that day, it’s an option. Grilled cheese/sandwiches and Soups also come to mind.

Assuming you have an oven, you can bake a lot of the things you would normally put in a microwave. Pizza rolls, chicken nuggets, chicken patties, whatever. Usually there is baking instructions next to the microwave instructions and even air fryer now. Browse through the frozen section and see what catches your eye. Might find something new to try. You can find frozen ravioli in the freezer section you just need to boil in water and add sauce (when they float, they’re done.)

It’s been mentioned but pasta and a sauce and protein of your choice is a winner. You can buy canned or take the opportunity to learn how to make some. Usually, the more from scrap you can make it the cheaper it will be. A lot of times recipes do go nuts and have some ingredients I don’t have on hand, usually it’s not a big deal to skip one as long as it isn’t like a main one. Like for spaghetti sauce you probably want oregano and wouldn’t want to skip it. Sometimes trying new stuff is trial and error. Very rarely is it inedible if you screw up, it’ll just be “off.” it’s just part of the learning process. You can also look into substituting an ingredient if you don’t have that exact one. I’ve learned how to make due with milk if I don’t have something like half and half which is something I don’t just have sitting around in my refrigerator.

Nof sure what country you are in but in the US, there are stores like Ross and Ollie’s that buy good from other stores at a discount because that other store wants it gone. If you have something like that it’s worth a look. I got an 80$ hand mixer for 20$ and a coffee maker for half off. My mother in law has bought several air fryers as gifts for like 20$. Browse through one of these from time to time and you might find a good deal on a microwave. They usually have lots of pots and pans too either as sets or single pans if you need one. If you’re not sure what a good pan looks like then do a little research. I think Alton Brown had a Good Eats episode just on pans that was very informative.

Last thing that comes to mind is while you’re cooking on your stove, keep an eye on Facebook marketplace to see if someone is selling a microwave if that is something you are willing to do.

OP, lots of great advice here.

The biggest take away is that once you have the skills, you can work with any tools. Better tools just make it easier. Work on learning how to cook, it sounds like you have some basic cookware that can probably work for many things.

For example, I have extensive cookware, in cast iron and stainless. A few inexpensive non-stick aluminum too. I’ve had anodized aluminum.

They all cook a little different, but I could probably make most of my 300+ recipes in any of them (stuff with rubber handles can’t go in the oven). It would just take a little re-thinking to work around how each pan/pot works.

I can brown on non-stick, and even develop fond (which is tricky).

As other have said, your best bang-for-the-buck will be inexpensive sets or cast iron. Keep in mind that inexpensive non-stick is trickier to work with (mostly because the pans are thin, so controlling heat is harder), and they wear out faster than better cookware. I’ve replaced quite a few over the years.

After decades of cooking and trying the “latest fad”, I lean heavily toward stainless, but only a few brands. There’s a lot of crap stainless out there, selling cheap… And in this case you get what you pay for.

These folks did some good research on stainless, and explain the difference more concisely than I can. Their research comports with a lot of other reviews and docs I’ve read over the years - I’ve even cooked with some of these brands, like the Cuisinart (which I own), the Tramontina (which I’ve gifted), and also a brand not listed - Heston (which is quite expensive, but really nice). My experience is they all cooked the same, which is to say they heat surprisingly quickly, hold heat well (similar to cast iron, though not as much thermal mass), make browning a snap, and require surprisingly lower burner settings than even good anodized aluminum.

Plus stainless is a breeze to clean - a quick deglaze and everything comes right out. I’d even argue it can run through the dishwasher (though it may dull a little, it’ll cook the same).

To come full circle, look for easy, one-dish recipes as a great place to start.

I think both America’s Test Kitchen/Cooks Country and Good Eats are great places to start to learn how to cook. ATK/Cooks Country has a bunch of recipes, and they design them to be simpler than what you’d find in something like The Joy of Cooking, while explaining how they changed a recipe or process. Good Eats is great for learning how’s and why’s, what’s going on when doing certain things - Alton is big on visualizing the chemistry and process of cooking.

One downside to no microwave for a single person is reheating leftovers becomes more challenging. Lots of dishes, especially casserole/stews, etc, reheat very readily in a microwave. Which reduces your cooking effort - you can make a pot of stuff, throw it in the fridge and have it for dinner tomorrow too. I do this, even freezing portions so I can have it next week (so I don’t get bored eating the same thing 3 days in a row).

Edit: find an inexpensive 4 quart pot to add to your collection. It’s a very useful size - great for boiling water for pasta, potatoes, etc.

Toss cubed Tofu and some hardy veggies in oil with some spices. Back at 350 (Tofu may need longer than your veggies, depending on what you pick). Serve over Quinoa or with bread.

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