What I Actually Eat in a Week as a Vegetarian International Student (On a Budget)
Spoiler: a lot of peanut butter, a lot of rice, and one sad dining hall salad.
Let me paint you a picture.
It's 7pm on a Tuesday. I'm standing in front of my tiny dorm microwave, holding a container of leftover dal that I made on Sunday — day three of eating the same thing — and I am genuinely excited about it. Not because I have no standards. But because (a) I made it myself, (b) it actually tastes like something my mom would recognize as food, and (c) everything else available to me right now is either meat, mystery, or $14.
Welcome to my life as a vegetarian international student in the USA.
First, let me set the scene
Before I moved here, I had a very optimistic vision of American food culture. Salads! Farmers markets! Colorful smoothie bowls on Instagram! What nobody told me was that:
- The salads cost $13 and contain mostly air.
- The farmers market is open on Saturday mornings when I am unconscious.
- The smoothie bowl people have a meal plan and a part-time job.
I have a meal plan too, technically. But the dining hall is a minefield when you don't eat meat. The pasta has chicken broth. The "vegetarian soup" shares a ladle with the beef stew. The one reliable option is the salad bar — a sad, fluorescent-lit corner of wilted romaine and exactly one chickpea, which I am now convinced is the same chickpea every day, just rinsed.
So I cook. Mostly. On a budget that makes me do mental math in the grocery store aisle while trying to look casual.
My weekly grocery list (and the feelings attached to it)
Every Sunday, I go to the store with a list, a budget, and an unreasonable amount of hope.
The constants — things I always buy:
- Rice (the big bag, always — this is non-negotiable and also my entire personality)
- Lentils or canned chickpeas/kidney beans
- Peanut butter (the Costco jar that takes up 30% of my shelf)
- Bread
- Bananas (cheapest fruit, most reliable fruit, I will not hear otherwise)
- Frozen mixed vegetables ($1.29 at Aldi, the greatest invention of the modern era)
- Milk
The aspirational items — things I buy when I feel rich:
- Paneer ($7 for a small block. SEVEN DOLLARS. I hold it in my hands like a treasure map.)
- One mango (eaten over the sink, alone, like a ritual)
- The good basmati rice, not the $2 bag that tastes like cardboard sadness
The desi store haul — happens once a month, budget goes out the window: Spices. All of them. Hing, jeera, mustard seeds, curry leaves if they have them. I spend money I don't have and I feel absolutely no guilt because cumin costs $1 at the Indian grocery and $6 at the regular supermarket and that is just a form of daylight robbery.
Total weekly spend: roughly $35–45, depending on whether I've had a hard week and need the comfort of cheese.
A day-by-day account, unfiltered
Monday — hopeful. it's a new week.
Breakfast: Peanut butter toast. Two slices, spread edge to edge (the spread must reach every corner — this is important to me and I won't explain further). Coffee made in my tiny pour-over because the dining hall coffee tastes like regret.
Lunch: I go to the dining hall with optimism. I leave with a plate of salad bar contents and the quiet grief of someone who just wanted something warm. I ate it. It was fine. The chickpea was there. Just the one.
Dinner: Dal and rice. Made a big pot on Sunday and this is day two of it. I eat it at my desk while watching YouTube videos of street food from home. This is either comforting or masochistic. Possibly both.
Tuesday — fine. totally fine.
Breakfast: Peanut butter toast again. I have accepted this. The banana makes it feel different.
Lunch: Leftover dal, microwaved in the library microwave. Someone walked by, sniffed, and said "that smells amazing." I said thank you. I did not offer to share. This is survival.
Dinner: Instant ramen with an egg cracked in. I added soy sauce, chili flakes, a few drops of sesame oil I've been rationing since September. It tastes like the packet made an effort. I respect that.
Wednesday — someone brought free donuts to class
This changes everything.
Breakfast: Oatmeal with honey. I'm eating well today. I can feel it.
Lunch: Two donuts. Yes this is my lunch. No I will not be taking questions. (I did check the ingredients for gelatin first. They were clear. We proceed.)
Dinner: Stir-fried rice with frozen vegetables and soy sauce. The $1.29 Aldi bag of mixed veg is doing so much heavy lifting in my life right now. I think about it warmly.
Thursday — called mom. cried a little.
Not about the food. About everything. But also a little about the food.
Breakfast: A granola bar, eaten standing in the elevator at 7:52am. I have an 8am class. This is who I am now.
Lunch: A cheese quesadilla from the campus café. $7. I thought about buying it for three days. I budgeted for it. I ate it slowly, with intention, at a table by the window. It was worth it.
Dinner: I called mom while cooking and she walked me through making paneer bhurji over video call. I was missing three spices. She sighed like only mothers can sigh. It still turned out to be the best thing I ate all week. The secret ingredient was, clearly, her being on the phone.
Friday — weekend energy. I feel alive.
Breakfast: Cereal and milk. I poured the cereal first and then the milk until it was perfectly even. Some things just need to be right.
Lunch: Subway. Veggie patty sub. I asked them to change their gloves before making mine. They did. It was fine. It was better than fine, actually — I got extra avocado because I asked nicely and made eye contact.
Dinner: Friends ordered pizza. They got one veggie pizza for me, placed at a designated corner of the table, not touching the others. I have trained these people. I am proud of us.
Saturday — went to the Indian grocery store
The clouds parted. Angels sang. I bought hing.
Breakfast: Poha. Real poha, from flattened rice I bought at the desi store last month and have been saving. I made it with mustard seeds and curry leaves and it tasted exactly like Saturday mornings growing up. I sat with it for a long time before eating. Sometimes food is a time machine.
Lunch: I skipped lunch because I spent two hours at the store reading every label — checking for animal-derived ingredients, non-vegetarian "natural flavors," hidden gelatin. This is my process. I don't rush it. I bought $60 worth of spices that my bank account did not approve of. I approved of them. I am the one who has to eat the food.
Dinner: Rajma chawal. Kidney beans from a can (soaking overnight is a beautiful concept that I, a person with homework, cannot always execute), rice, a proper tadka, actual spices. I called mom to tell her. She asked if I added enough salt. I added more salt. It was perfect.
Sunday — meal prepping like I have my life together
Breakfast: Peanut butter toast. She has returned. The circle is complete.
Lunch: Leftover rajma. Even better the next day. This is not an opinion. This is fact supported by evidence.
Dinner: I make a big pot of dal for the week. Seven containers. Labeled with the day. Stacked in order in the fridge. Some people call this OCD. I call it a system. A very good system. A system that means I never stand in front of my fridge at 8pm wondering what to eat, because I already decided on Sunday, and Sunday-me was very responsible and is owed a debt of gratitude by every future-me this week.
Things I've learned that no one tells you
The dining hall is not your friend, but it's not your enemy either. Learn the schedule. Find the one decent vegetarian option (mine is the stir-fry station on Thursdays — I'm there every Thursday, I have a whole routine). Eat the salad bar without shame. Bring your own dressing from home. This is legal.
The Indian/Asian grocery store will save your soul. Go once a month. Buy in bulk. The prices are so much better and the ingredients are actually the right ingredients — not "a substitute that sort of works if you close your eyes."
Batch cooking is not a chore. It's an act of self-love. Future-you, tired at 9pm after a long day, will open that fridge and see labeled containers and want to send a thank-you note to past-you.
Let yourself buy the $8 mango. Not every week. But sometimes. You're far from home, you're doing hard things, and mangoes are one of the great joys of being alive. Budget for joy, even a little.
The real budget breakdown
| Item | Cost |
|---|---|
| Rice (big bag, lasts a month) | $8 |
| Lentils / canned beans | $4–6 |
| Oranges | $3 |
| Bread | $2.50 |
| Bananas | $1.50 |
| Frozen veg | $3 |
| Peanut butter (Costco, lasts forever) | $3/week amortized |
| Milk | $3 |
| Occasional treat (cheese, paneer, mango) | $5–10 |
| Total | ~$35–45/week |
Is it glamorous? No. Is it nutritious, mostly homemade, and connected to where I came from? Yes. Do I sometimes eat peanut butter straight from the jar at midnight while studying? Also yes. We contain multitudes.
Closing thoughts (and a confession)
There's a kind of intimacy in cooking for yourself far from home. Every time I make dal, I'm having a conversation with every person who ever made it before me — my mom, her mom, a whole chain of women standing in kitchens, adding salt by feel, not by measurement.
I don't have the kitchen I grew up with. I don't have the spice rack that lived above the stove, or the pressure cooker that screamed just right, or someone asking if I'm hungry before I've even had a chance to notice I am.
What I have is a hot plate, a $35 weekly budget, a very large jar of peanut butter, and a dal that tastes — not exactly like home, but like a home I'm slowly building for myself.
That's enough. Most days, that's more than enough.
Are you an international student figuring out food abroad? Tell me your most creative budget meal in the comments — I need new ideas and also just want to feel less alone in this.
Tags: international student life, vegetarian on a budget, student cooking, desi abroad, budget meals, expat food diary
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