Struggle Meals Recipe and Tips

The Internet is obsessed with struggle meals like this. The cheap, resourceful food people make when the fridge is empty and money's tight. Struggle meals are going viral every. day because people are creating some of the wildest things to eat out of pure necessity, some of which might actually be genius. So today we're making and reading the Internet's most viral struggle meals to find out which ones are actually good and which should maybe be reserved for necessity. Now, I'm gonna be seeing these for the first time, so I have no idea what to expect. So we're starting with.

Why is that can so big? I don't know. 'Cause we're making a lot. I know who these people are. Honestly, every recipe on this TikTok account is tragic. I don't think I've ever eaten a Vienna sausage. The beans are good. Listen, I actually don't really have that much of an issue with. Bush's baked beans. I ate them when I was a kid. What about Vienna sausages? I ate Vienna sausages when I was a kid all the time.

You ever combine them? This is a white people struggle meal. Asian struggle meals are better. You're probably right. Oh, my God. What is on top of that? A piece of bacon. There's bacon in this? I will bet money this won't be good. Close your eyes. That gave me the ick. This next part is where things, I think, go awry for you. This feels like wrong to do. Dude, I still have three more. Where'd I put these?

This is an abomination. And let's put it in the oven. I don't wanna do this. The fucked up thing is it didn't even thicken. I bet you the beans are probably fine. Honestly, we gotta go in with an open mind because there are things that we. My mind is completely closed. 18 grams of protein per serving. 320 calories. But nutritious doesn't always mean it tastes better. That's true. Have you ever had a whey protein shake?

I don't like them. Are you eating the pink side or the red side? I'm going to go for the red side, brother. It's fine. I mean. i don't like it. Where's the sweetness coming from? They're brown sugar baked beans. I didn't know that. Never had sweet baked beans? F, dude. I'm giving it an F just based off how it looks. It's an F. You're right. All right, we're moving on. This is, like, might be one of the most viral struggle meals, which is like the Kraft mac and cheese hot dog.

This one's going to be good. I've never had this before. I've never had it either, but looking at it. like the sausage is seared. Can't go wrong with mac and cheese. It's hot dog. Highly emulsified cylindrical meat obelisk. Let's taste it first. We made a very basic Kraft mac and cheese. Pretty sure you know how to make that. My son is not going to eat this. No, he's gonna want it, though. That's the thing.

You know, honestly, I want to be a little more cultured. I'm giving him Spam. Dude. How is Spam not a part of any of the struggle meals? You know, I think it's an old school struggle meal. And a lot of the struggle meals that we have now are more modern. All right, I think we're there. We got some good color. They're hot. I'm going to dump them in. You ready? Yeah, I'll mix them. All right, dude, I gave you my wiener. Let's go.

Thank you, sir. May I? Yeah. Yes, chef! Going crazy, dude. 470 calories per serving, which is bananas. That's pretty high. 16 grams of protein. So the macro composition's pretty bad. This looks not great, but I have a feeling it's gonna be good. That's ass. I don't think it's ass. It's not good. Is that because we had higher expectations? I mean, it's Kraft mac and cheese, and hot dog.

My expectations weren't that crazy. This is better than the Vienna sausage beans, C tier. Moving on. Well, you grab some ravioli and you grab some tuna, bro. Oh, I've actually seen this before. I have not seen this. Heat it up first. Put some sugar and garlic. Mix it together. Tuna and ravioli. I'm telling you, bro. I have not heard of that. I've seen it a few times on the Internet. This is like a thing, you know?

Sometimes you just can't knock it till you try it. I'm knocking it. I don't like the way this sounds. Not the ice cream scoop! Oh, wait. We need sugar and garlic. No! Dude. Jarred garlic fucks me up, bro. I cannot. Look at this horseshit. This is like. ginger. This is, like, making me gag. I'm just gonna mix it all up just so we can't see the garlic. No. This has the best macros, at 37 grams of protein and a little over 500 calories.

I don't care. Me neither. I didn't think it could look worse, but it does. Just go. Don't think. Oh, ah. Why does it look like that?! I can't. I'll feed you. Cheers. You know what's funny about that? That tastes exactly like what I would imagine dog food to taste like. That is horrendous. I took too big of a bite. We got a trash can right now. I'm gonna spit it out. Somehow the combination of the flavor of this fake ketchupy tomato sauce combined with the tinned fish emphasizes the fishy flavor in it.

For the cost of this, you can get other things. Is there a lower category than F? 'Cause there are things in F that don't deserve to be next to this. This is so bad. This one is going to go in, I would say, F category. Moving on. This is what I used to eat as a struggle meal. So I'm just going to rip it in half, make it easy. And you put mustard on both sides. That seems like a lot. Cinna, that's so much mustard. Take these. What is that? Sometimes you can cut them in half. Is that a hot dog? Dude, it's Vienna sausages.

Why does it look like that?! Okay, you guys are going to hate me for this, but I love Dijon mustard, and there's not enough. What is wrong with that? Cinna, come on. Are you really asking what is wrong with that?. First of all, it looks like somebody shoved Frankenstein's toes in between two slices of over mustard bread. So we tear the bread in half and then decide to put an obnoxious amount of mustard on both sides. If this is good, I'll sub to Cinna on Twitch. If it's not, I'm blocking her.

The existence of this should result in blockage. Gotta rub it together to really emphasize that part. I like how she's like, I know this is a lot of mustard, but you rub it together, but it's still a lot of mustard. Oh, God, the juice splashed in my eye! Son of a bitch! I'm gonna go blind. If you like Vienna sausages, why? This is one of the highest amounts of protein per calorie out of anything we've had. 270 calories with 15 grams of protein. Watch this be good. Wanna touch Vienna sausages? I don't wanna. do that. You ready?

Dude, I hate the texture of Vienna sausages. This is not as bad as the bean one, but it's extremely bitter. I feel like yellow mustard would have been better on this. There's a world where this could be good. Honestly, if it was just hot dogs and yellow mustard, I feel like it would be good. Isn't Dijon more expensive? Yes. This is fancy mustard. Uh, D? Yeah. D tier. It still hits, bro. I don't care what anyone said.

Next we got the syrup sandwich. Mmm. It's just bread and Mrs. Butterworth's. I could see it being good. Yeah. It's just, it's bread and sweetness. We'll see how it competes. I'm dressing yours. Be generous with it. How's that? That's good. Four grams of protein, 240 calories per sandwich. So it's pretty low calorie. Oh, mine popped a leak. I'm kind of excited for this. I'm just gonna go in. That's good. This is a God level snack. So first of all, with Mrs. Butterworth, because it's so viscous, some of it soaks into the bread and some of it,

like stays in its gooey form in the center. Dude, this is really good. It's not overly sweet. The bread diffuses the sweetness of it. I mean, it's the same concept if you were just have like a grape jelly sandwich, but instead of grape jelly, it's maple syrup. This also deserves points because you don't need to do anything. You don't need to toast bread. You don't have to like, get butter to room temp. It's going in S for me. Dylan really believes it's an S. We move on. This is a struggle meal and if you are going to judge that, you should keep scrolling. It is four.

A lot of hot dog stuff. And it serves four to six. Good value on this. Four to six people? Dude, she's cutting up so many hot dogs. I mean, she said four to six people. Is this just like a chili dog casserole? Yo, she's putting tater tots on top. The thing is, like, I feel like these tater tots are going to be super soggy after baking them. Maybe they're not soggy because it's on top. They're at the bottom. Yeah, but like, things don't crisp up as well in the oven as they do in a fryer, but we'll find out.

I think she had way more hot dogs. Then. This is all. Honestly, I'm just going to mix the hot dogs. This is stupid. We said this was going to be a banger. Damn, this cheese is thick as. The whole family going to be farting after this. And then last but not least, this bag of tater tots alone is around 1,000 calories. Let's put it in the oven. All right. The tater tots look better than I thought they would. Not even a cheese pull. That's insane.

The total amount of calories for this is over 4,000 calories. That's insane. Per serving, this is definitely our most high calorie dish. It's 715 calories, but at least there's 25 grams of protein. Get a little bit of everything. A little dog, a little tater tot, little cheese. Cheers. Why does it taste like almost nothing? It tastes like the chili cheese dog from Sonic. I don't hate it. I don't love it.

It's just, like, very whatever. It's not bad, though. Look, I think if you're trying to feed a family of seven, it gets the job done. Six to seven of them, probably. Yeah. I barely taste the chili. My favorite part of this is the tater tot. Everything else after that is kind of like I'm almost, like, skipping around everything else to go for the tater tot. You're definitely getting your calories in while spending as little as possible, which I think is optimal. Right? You'll be fuller for longer, and you'll have more energy throughout the day.

Overall, like, not great, not bad. I feel like C. I agree. C tier. We move on. Let's not forget about the OG struggle meal. Oh, I did this when I was a kid. That's not really a struggle meal. You just did that because you're an asshole. When you're five years old, you're just an asshole. Supposedly, the OG struggle meal. This feels so nice. It's satisfying. I used to really, when I was a kid, I used to really compact this, and sometimes I'd throw it at people.

All right, cheers. This is harder to swallow. Learn to swallow better, gramps. For the caloric consumption of one singular slice of bread, D tier. Peak struggle meal. Water and flour. Oh, and then you. toss it on the pan. What? It's basically like a pancake with no ingredients. I guess it's just literally flour and water. I'm gonna put a little salt in there. Little pancake for you. I feel like these are theoretically good. I feel like it's just gonna be like a neutral.

It is what it is, but you can't knock it till you try it. So here's the calories for this. It's literally just flour and water. So, I mean, it's not crazy. We're going to try this by itself, then we're going to try with syrup. I feel like we have to. Actually tastes like a dumpling. Oh, it does. Like, there's a world where that's actually fire. The world has syrup in it. Well, this is sugar-free syrup, so we'll see how that goes.

I like it. It's really not bad, actually. Look, it's not going to go to A, unfortunately. We got a C tier. Moving on. One more quick thing in case you missed it. Listen up. I'm going to be at 2600 East Cesar Chavez, Austin, Texas, starting at 11:00am on September 12th for the grand opening of my first restaurant, Ben & Lynn's. We got the best fried chicken sandwiches and nuggets. So come on in, enjoy a sandwich, and come say hi. If you want any more information, the links in the description for the website and the Instagram for Ben & Lynn's. Love ya.

What are you eating? Sandwich. A sandwich. Hush. That's. what. what's in that sandwich? The bread sandwich. A bread sandwich. What's a bread sandwich? Honestly, this is how my son looks at me whenever I, like, take food away from him. What are the comments on this? I can't even. Oh, I just reposted it on your account. That's what an old man looks like, trying to use technology. Oh, come on! I think I can prep this one.

I think I'm qualified. All right, here we go. It's getting crazy. Boom. Dude, this is so good. This is making me mad. Why? 260 calories, 6 grams of protein. It's not a complete protein, though. I don't care. Protein's protein. I'm getting gains. No, it matters. Let's just get this over with. Oh, my God. It's like eating a slice of bread times three. I mean, it's as good as the quality of the bread's gonna be. If you like eating plain bread, I'm gonna stick with a solid D tier.

I don't think it deserves an F 'cause it's not gross. I'm okay with that. I was gonna say C, but there's so many things we're gonna be eating that I feel like it's too early for a C for this. D tier. Moving on. First we got the broke nachos, tortilla chips with the melted Kraft Singles. Mm. Nacho time. So we have tortilla chips going down on a plate. Looking nice. I got the cheese. Oh, bro. Sorry, sorry. Bro, I made it look nice, and then. I think I might be stupid. This is taking me longer than it should.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Hey, hey, hey, hey. You're professionally trained. I'm opening American cheese. What are you talking about professionally? Hey, I have the fourth one already. How did you do that so fast? 30 seconds. Whoa. Probably another. That is not. Yeah. That stinks like a foot. American cheese is really only good on certain things, not everything. The Tapatio might help. I fuck with Tapatio. Did he throw hot sauce on the video? I don't remember that.

Think so. Oh, he doesn't? Oh. Well, we have hot sauce. He doesn't do it in the video, but it's definitely a thing. Boom. Dude, look at that. So this is 400 calories with 14 grams of protein. This is a health meal. I love that. That looks like an old person's face. I'm not excited for this. Cheers. It kind of just tastes like nothing. Yeah, it's funny. It stinks worse than it tastes. Mm. I'm gonna try one with the hot sauce. This looks horrible. I'm gonna. I'm not gonna lie.

This looks really fucking bad. I mean, all the flavor is coming from the hot sauce. So if you like the hot sauce, it's really good. This seems like more of, like, a texture thing than it is a flavor thing. Honestly. It's not that different from, like, chips and queso, but, like, without flavor, but you have the texture of the queso. I feel like I would give this a B. That seems high. And you're still eating. I kind of like it. You're going A? No. Whoa, whoa. I think B.

It's addictingly mid. Shug, here's an easy three-ingredient struggle meal that my family absolutely loves. And you don't see me season the ground beef because, shug, this is already seasoned. I already found the first problem. I'm not gonna season this 'cause it's already seasoned. If this shit is not seasoned, that was a fucking lie. How much do you wanna bet this comes out under-seasoned? If it's under-seasoned, it's going into the D tier for me. I just want you to know I'm locking in my bet.

Next thing I added in was some frozen broccoli. It doesn't look bad, though. I will say that. It will be better than the ravioli, though. We got the classic Vigo yellow rice. We got the seared meat already ready to roll. Oh, don't forget, this is the perfectly seasoned yellow rice. You mix it, add your water. Beautiful. We're going to add a little bit of frozen broccoli. Not all of it. Cooking frozen broccoli for 20 minutes likely is going to render it completely overcooked.

I will say, like, nutritionally, this is one of the healthiest ones we have. Congratulations. So we have our finished rice. How long ago was this cooked? Two years ago? Well, first of all, it does not look as good as hers. This looks fucked. I think this broccoli is so overcooked, we might as well just mash it in there. This is like a meal prep dinner. Yeah. They call it a dog bowl. Here we go. What do you think it needs? Salt, pepper. But it's not as bland as I thought it would be.

I agree. And it seems really healthy. This might be one of the most normal meals out of the struggle meals. If you literally just added more salt, maybe some other seasonings, this would be. This would actually be really good. I might even put this in S territory, but because of how she specified it. B. No, A is fine. I know I said I was gonna put it in the D category if it wasn't seasoned perfectly, but it's pretty dang good. Even though it's not seasoned perfectly. But it is seasoned more than I thought it would be. A tier. So when I was a kid and my parents left me at home alone, there was one meal that I always resorted to: rice because we always had a rice cooker.

Oh, hell yeah. And soy sauce. That's all me right here. Soy sauce and rice. Oh, yeah. But sometimes I got lucky, and my mom had just. Oh, pork floss! It's gonna be an S tier also. This is probably one of the healthiest ones on the list, if you think about it. I am so excited. I love all these things, so I feel like this is gonna be good. I mean, yeah, that's fire. I can't give this anything less than an S.

The pork floss adds more than I thought it would. I've never had pork floss with straight rice. It's fucking good. This is my favorite thing we've eaten today. Moving on. Oh, it's just something about them hood pizzas. It's whatever bread you got, whatever ketchup you got, whatever cheese you can muster up, and whatever sliced meat you can summon. This is a work of art. Whoa. Did you hear the way he said work of art? This dude's voice is luscious. The pizza, on the other hand, I guess we'll find out.

Deeply inhale. Okay. I don't want to inhale that. Would you like to ketchup these? Or do you want me to ketchup? I got it. That was a good spread there. I like the way you did. You're putting quite a fucking lot of ketchup, dude. We don't need that much. Why'd you put so much on that one? So it looks good. Looks bad. You gotta, like, take some of this off. That's insane, bro. Mr. Perfectionist over here. These are struggle meals, dude.

Yeah, well, I'm struggling to look at what you just made. How much cheese? A little more. Doesn't this remind you of those Lunchables? It does, actually. Yeah. But this is actually getting heated, though. And we happen to have pepperoni. I'm gonna do quad peppies. We're gonna wait for a couple minutes for that to broil. All right. I mean, this actually doesn't look half bad. That looks like a pizza.

Calories and protein, dude. The sides got crispy. Cheese melted. The bottom is soft, though. Do we fold this? I just eat it like this. Ooo, cheese pull! It's kind of good. I like the edge a lot, but, like, the closer you get to the middle, it gets really, really soggy. But flavor-wise, that part I'm cool with. Yeah, the sogginess does kind of throw it off. I feel like if you toasted the bread before you did this, it would be better. So there's a little bit of a down and a little bit of an up on the texture.

I thought I was gonna hate the ketchup on there, but this is like a whole new thing. It's better than the bread sandwich. I like it more than the hot dog mac and cheese, which I'm surprised about. Yeah, me too. But I would much rather eat this. So with that logic, it's going B. This is like an upgraded Lunchables pizza. Yeah, exactly. B tier. Whoa. Wait. What did he season that with? I was not expecting this full-grown man. Look at this guy.

Look how happy he is. Look, he's like, this is about to be so good. If it's gonna make me do that, turn the cameras off. That's crazy. sick. Was his tortilla in the video even toasted? I don't think it was. Yeah, it was heated up, I think. No shot. I think it was just a flaccid tortilla. Oh, well, we're heating ours up. You don't trust me to season my own tortilla? We roll them up. Two tortillas for three big old grams of protein and 110 calories.

Dude, this is about to be S tier. If it had butter on it, it would probably be an A or an S. I'm not mad at it. It's honestly not bad. It's actually surprisingly good. It's kind of, like, addicting to eat. I mean, it's the same reason that, like, tortilla chips are so good. Right? This doesn't have the crunch, but it does have the toasty corn flavor. It's basically a soft tortilla chip. Yeah, I think it's a B.

I can agree with that. Yeah, it's nice. B tier. On to the next. This is my meal. I call this girl dinner. This audio is crazy. The meal itself isn't bad, but. This is something that I used to have when I was a kid. Some people would consider it a struggle meal, others would not. I think it's a delicacy. Let's make it. Two slices of bread. Ooh. What are you doing? It's actually not even that hot in here.

Stick your finger in there. It's not that hot. No, look. See? My fingers are fine. I'm convinced. You have no feeling in your fingers. This is gonna take a minute. Whoa. How did you do that? Do you mind if I do the honors? Actually. Dude, you can butter my bread. First of all, I think you need to go pretty aggressive on the buttering here, so that's plenty. I think we both used to eat this as kids, so I know it's gonna be good.

Top secret. We're gonna put the tray on this so it keeps them warm, and then we're gonna hit it. This is just cinnamon sugar. All it is sugar mixed with, like, a teaspoon or two of cinnamon. All right, so now we're gonna wait. It's gonna soak into the butter. This is so key. This is what my mom used to do. You know those little. at a pizza shop where they have, like, the parm and the red pepper?

Oh, yeah. Glass jar with the. She would buy those. I actually don't know if she ever bought it. She might have just gotten it, but she would put cinnamon sugar in that and then would do this, and then shake the cinnamon sugar on top, and then this would be my school lunch. Anyway, looking back now, I started to realize why I might have been fat when I was a kid. It's just this every day. Yeah. Like, struggle meal. or not, you will get fat off this. We have our beautiful cinnamon toast. If you put 2 tablespoons of butter per bread, which is very possible, you're looking at close to around 200 to 300 calories per slice.

Cheers. That's so good. I have to stop myself from eating the whole thing. I'm eating the whole thing. This is so good. It's bringing back traumatic memories of people making fun of me when I was fat. That is phenomenal. Just from a pure culinary standpoint, texturally incredible. It's crunchy, but soft and you have, like, three layers of texture at the top. You have, like, this. juicy, buttery little crunch of the cinnamon sugar. Then you have the pillowy, soft center, the crispy bottom, and then all those flavors come together. I'm in.

I'm making this at home every day. Oh, you're gonna get fat. No, I'm trying to bulk. Do you think this is the macro composition you need? Where's the protein, bro? This is all fat and carbs. That's all I need. I'm okay being bullied if I can eat this. S tier. Moving on. What meat is this? It's refried beans. It's a bolillo roll, sour cream and queso fresco. Fresco? Yeah, queso fresco. Honestly, this is probably fire.

Dude, these bolillos smell kind of like peanut butter. They do, dude. You are loading it up. It looks kind of good, honestly. Here are the calories, so it's, like, relatively nutritious. Like, it's not bad. Objectively. Like, this is probably gonna be good. Cheers. I feel like the beans could use more seasoning now that I'm tasting it, but we didn't do anything to doll those up. Imagine if you threw, like, a little pat of butter, garlic, onion. I did not think I would like to.

The bread's a big thing for me in this. Crispy on the outside, soft and fluffy on the inside. I'm trying to think how I would compare this to the bread pizza, because texturally, it's a lot better than the pizza. Way better. A lot of struggle meals have to do with what's in your fridge, what's in your pantry. Right. So theoretically, if you add stuff to this, this becomes so many different things. I think this is easy A territory, A tier. Moving on. My girlfriend grew up rich. I grew up poor. Today we're having her try some hood struggle meal.

Says she wanted some chips, so I'm going to show her the hood chips real quick. Oh, it's the ramen, yo. Dude, I love this. Sprinkle that now. I did this when I was a kid. Yeah, dude, this is just going to be good. We have what they're considering chips. You don't need to do all the smashing. Like, the noodles in these are very brittle. Like, if you just squeeze it, they should crack up.

Now I'm going to open it up. All right. I got my chili flavor packet. I mean, I think this is going to be phenomenal, but I haven't had it in a long time. I haven't had this flavor before, so honestly, it just depends on how good this packet is. Oh. Wow. Dylan. Great job, buddy. 370 calories, 4 grams of protein. So not great for you. Cheers. It's great. I'm good. That's great. I love this. Do you love it enough for it to be an S?

Maybe, bro. This is just as good as any, like, convenience store chip, in my opinion. I would say S tier, but it's your channel, so you get final call. I could eat this whole thing. This is addicting. Probably will. Look, I'm happy with S tier. I know people are gonna be mad at it. I don't care. We're giving it an S tier. It is what it is. Oh, fried bologna. Whoa, whoa, whoa. What is on the bread?. Whoa. Yo. Wow. Do you really need oil to fry bologna, though?

It's got enough fat, doesn't it? American cheese, mustard. I mean. this is gonna be an S tier. Get out of here! What? This is gonna be so fire. That is gonna be good. This is the white person palate. Yeah. Oh, look at that. She cuts it essentially into strips so it doesn't open up. Pop it in. And now we let them cook. Wow. Banger. Dude, we got a way better sear than her. Just dissing. the original creator. Not my fault that she doesn't get a good Maillard, dude. American cheese going on.

Done. So I'm gonna pop this guy on so that it melts. We'll let it sit in the pan, then we'll transfer it over. Okay. Looking good. Can you cut the crust off mine, too? Dylan, that's enough out of you. Bro. That looks pretty good. There's no way that's not good. All right, we've got our final sandwich. 450 calories, 17 grams of protein. Not a great ratio, but it's got protein, it's got fat, it's got carbs.

The caloric density's there, so whatever. Cheers. That is good. Although the lack of the bread being toasted is killing it. This is just a lot better than I thought it'd be. It's really good. Watching the video, I was like, I'm gonna diss this when I try it, but this is nice. My real dilemma is whether it goes into A or S. To me, if the bread were toasted, it would be an S, because her directions specifically do not toast the bread.

I think it's an A. I'm okay with that. We move on. Peanut butter jelly quesadilla. They were all saying quesadilla. You just eat it like this, straight up. That's it. Got peanut butter jelly inside. This is going to be fine. All right, so peanut butter on one side. Putting peanut butter in a hot tortilla. A little bit weird. Yeah. This feels wrong. Just because something is different doesn't mean it's wrong, Dylan. Whoa. That's sick. Holy innovation.

Plated up nice. I'm excited for this one. Calories, on the other hand, are not great. 400 calories. This is my bulk up meal. This is your get fat meal, dude. No. It has what, 14 grams of protein? 12. Close enough. Cheers. Peanut butter and jelly always tastes good. If you took a donut and sliced it in half, you took an English muffin and sliced it half. You take anything that is bread-like, and put peanut butter and jelly on it, it's probably gonna be good. I have a textural problem with it, though. I really. why?

I prefer bread, bro. I like how thin it is. Okay, fair. I think if you toasted the tortilla longer, I also think with a better tortilla would be better. But I mean, honestly, the more I eat it, the better it gets. This one's an A for me. I would say A tier. The time has come. We must choose the best S tier item. I think we say it at the same time. You ready? Three, two, one, cinnamon. Rice. Toast. I knew this was gonna happen. There's so much nostalgia. And. you're getting carbs, you're getting protein from the pork floss. That's actually a good point.

Boom. As an everyday meal, obviously. Rice. All right, I'm with you. Yeah. The best S tier item. The winner. Rice with soy sauce and pork floss. God tier. So that being said, love you so much. Subscribe. Bye.