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Poorman’s Meal is a delicious recipe shared by Ms. Clara, who lived through the Great Depression. Please click HERE for the video of Ms. Clara making the Poorman’s Meal. This was a fun recipe to make with my kids after we watched the video together. We’ve made this recipe a handful of times and I thought it might be a relevant recipe to post during this quarantine time. The ingredients are inexpensive and have a pretty good shelf life.
Poorman’s Meal
Ingredients (makes about 6 servings):
- 6 regular sized Russet potatoes, washed peeled and cubed bite-size
- 1 large yellow or white onion, sliced or chopped
- some vegetable oil for cooking (about 3 Tbsp. or as needed)
- optional: about 1/4 C. water
- 4 hot dogs, cut into bite-sized pieces
- about 2 Tbsp. salsa (I like using Pace Chunky Mild Salsa)
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions:
- Put the cubed potatoes and the chopped onion in a large frying pan (I used a large cast iron skillet).
- Drizzle the cooking oil on top and turn the heat to medium. Let potatoes slowly brown, and mix them around every few minutes so they cook more evenly. If you want to add about 1/4 cup of water to help the potatoes soften, you can.
- Once the potatoes are tender to your liking and the onions are cooked, add the bite-sized hot dogs and salsa. Gently mix. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
Another tasty, budget-friendly recipe using ingredients that don’t go bad very quickly is Healthy Lentil Soup.
*Inspired by THIS video of Ms. Clara.
Summary
Recipe Name
Poorman's Meal (Depression Era Recipe)
Published On
Average Rating
4
Based on 20 Review(s)
Recipe tags:
- budget
- budget friendly
- depression cooking
- depression era
- Dinner
- easy
- great depression recipes
- hot dogs
- inexpensive
- Lunch
- meal
- ms. clara
- poormans
- potato
- recipes
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I’m curious how you came up with the number of potatoes. I viewed the video of Clara making this recipe and nothing is mentioned about the number of potatoes to use, nor are there any visual clues in the video about the number of potatoes used.
Hi Kurt, That’s a good question! I don’t remember how I came up with 6 potatoes, but I may have made a guess by eyeing the chopped potatoes in Clara’s pan in the video. There is probably some wiggle room with this recipe to add more or less of any of the ingredients depending on how many people you’re feeding and personal preferences.
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I ended up using 5 large potatoes and that many potatoes just about filled my large 12-in MadeIn carbon steel skillet. The upside to using 5 potatoes was that I got 5 large servings from my efforts.
I must not have used high enough heat because the potatoes didn’t brown. They ended up kind of mushy. I’ll have to try using higher heat the next time I make the recipe.
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Thank you for letting us know how it went for you! Yeah, I think a little higher heat may be helpful, but the times when my potatoes browned nicely were when I didn’t add very many potatoes. Of course, without so many potatoes, there aren’t as many servings, like you mentioned.
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A possible solution is to brown the potatoes in smaller batches. Let everyone add hot sauce, at the table, instead of in the pan. My family prefers the potatoes brown and slightly crispy. The hot sauce softens the potatoes in the skillet. I have a large family and this is a meal we enjoy very much. Also can be used at breakfast with fried eggs. My Mother made this when I was a child and she grew up during the depression. Thank you for sharing!
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Linda, thank you for the suggestion to let everyone add their own hot sauce at the table! As you said, this would probably help the potatoes stay crispy in the pan and in addition, people would probably appreciate being able to omit the hot sauce or salsa or add as much as they’d like. I grew up in a large family and our meals often contained potatoes, I was lucky they were one of my favorite foods 🙂
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I made this a completely different way, I roasted the potatoes in the oven first with some olive oil, salt and pepper to make them crisp, fried the hot dogs and onions together and then added the potatoes to them later for a few minutes with about 2 tablespoon water and it came out very good.
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I made this tonight and I used 5 potatoes, I turned up the heat to medium high and they browned nicely. I did use 1/4 cup of water but I also covered the pan which helped them soften. It turned out great and my boyfriend loved it! Thanks for sharing 🙂
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So glad to hear, Shayna! Great idea to cover the pan to aid in softening the potatoes 🙂 Thanks for sharing!
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