Because.. "Why not?"

Oh wow, I need to say this. I'm a black woman almost 60 years old. I was raised in a predominantly black neighborhood in the 70's. A Vietnamese family moved across the street from me. I became friends with a very smart young lady name Anna, if i remembered correctly and she and her family would invite me over from time to time for dinner and they would serve something like this but it was chicken over rice, I never forgot that and would sometimes look for this because it was so good. Awesome post, thank you for sharing. It brought back a wonderful memory.

I’m living alone and I’m 19. Life is hard for me right now, I go to college and I work after for two hours at a gas station then I have a night shift at 8 pm at the local grocery store lasting 2 and a half hours. I have to study for my exams and i have to do my assignments too. I’ve been struggling real hard to provide only for me. I never knew how hard stuff would get. Even a simple sandwich and drink can be one of the best meals I’ve ever eaten, I miss my childhood and parents, they have passed. I hope everything will get better and I hope all this struggle will be for the better for me.

Being broke/poor really makes you appreciate any warm meal, like having a warm meal instead of something quick from a bag or like some white bread sandwich makes you feel so good! Rice and soy sauce is still one of my favs

It called Abon. Cracked a raw egg and mix with hot rice. That was my struggle meal . Some top with green onions.

The simplest meals are the best ones to be honest.

I entirely agree, rice and soy sauce is amazing

completely relatable except i eat it when i'm not struggling too

girl i cant believe i used to be shamed for eating white rice w soy sauce its so delish! i sometimes added canned tuna also cause we usually had that in the cabinets.. bringing back memories of a lonely childhood lmao

At one point in life, we’ve had just a bowl of rice as a meal.

My grandfather was a farmer and used to process amd smoke his own meats. I’ll never forget, he made this one dried meat that looked very similar to this in a Smokey BBQ flavor and in a teriyaki flavor… I’ve been looking for something similar my entire life. THANK YOU! I will be trying this!

I can't relate to all these cooking channels with their fancy ingredients, no one cooks everyday, sometimes you just gotta take a piece of bread and bowl of rice and add some random thing from the fridge

Times are tough but with simple meals like this will most definitely get you through, makes you appreciate the little things more! 😅❤

Some parts of Mexica make that pork floss. They call it “machacado”. Goes amazing with scrambled eggs and some beans.

Latch key kid, home alone, and couldn't use the stove. She's very relatable. But instead of a rice cooker, I had a toaster oven, and grilled cheese was my after school meal.

Yes!!! Rice for breakfast, fried egg, dry meat and avocado works Sooo well too. Even Machaca 😊 Nori too 😋

A protein with rice and a veggie is my go to when I don’t feel like cooking a big meal . It’s healthy and filling. Can’t beat that.

When I was in West Africa, they taught me the struggle meal of rice, sprinkled with chicken flavored Maggie seasoning, and a little red palm oil. If you had some sliced onion or cucumber, you're really ballin'! And yes from hanging out with my Asian friends I got rice, soy sauce, and we put sesame oil too. I like to put pepper flakes on both versions.😊

This can’t be a struggle meal tho cause this is actually good

I be hitting that home alone sauce at 5sec

I remember our home alone meals for me and my younger bro were toast with cinnamon and sugar and those packets of powdered mashed potatoes and some kind of deli meat. Then we’d go in the living room and watch penguins of Madagascar be on the internet completely unsupervised and see something traumatizing. Good times man

Everyone always looked at me like a dang freak for eating rice with soy sauce. I'd grab that at school when I just wanted a little something to tide me over until I got home, until the school forbid that. They forced us to buy full meals and not just sides. Utter trash school rules, but I'll still grab some rice and douse it in soy sometimes.

This looks so comforting!

Scrolling thru shorts hungry AF as soon as I saw this I had to made it

"Why not" will always be iconic....

My cousin had a Chinese landlord who used to gift him a huge container of pork floss around Christmas and we'd always tear it up with some rice and beans. Goes great on ramen too.

This is what my meals Start to look like a couple days before I get paid 😭

Adobo is my favorite rice + meat combo dish. My step grandparents would make it for the entire week when they’d visit and i never got tired of it. Chicken, rice, steamed veggies with either tea or low sugar juices are all you really need to eat pretty healthy.

Mine was warm rice with ghee, salt and pepper! As an Indian, ghee was a staple. That struggle meal just slapped.

Growing up with a Korean single parent rice was always available and seaweed so that was my go to meal when we were home alone.

I like how you was spending time with us to keep telling us your life

I usually dice 3-4 cloves of garlic and fry em until soft(not burnt!) and add leftover rice with some salt and red chili paper. It's honestly soo good. You should try it!

Pork floss on rice with an egg, fuckin’ delicious. I’d never heard of the stuff until I started cooking at a Creole/Vietnamese fusion place in New Orleans. I started putting it in the fried rice I’d make for family meal. Same basic dish but y’know, with the rice fried. I love posts like this because of the comments, I really enjoy reading about others’ formative food memories. Food and cooking are truly universal human experiences and I always feel connected to other people when I see stuff like this.

I love thisssss😩❤️

This was one of my childhood meals lol

As a Japanese I always made onigiri with only salt and rice. It seems like too simple. But I loved it when I was a kid.

i love that stuff!!

One thing about the struggle it thought mi how to hustle 💖💛💚

We make the meat floss in Northern Nigeria called Dambun Nama and it looks exactly like this. We make it out of beef and chicken usually, though I've had ostrich dambu. Rarely, you see fish dambu which is very oily and nice.

Honey, when I was younger a “struggle meal” was code for “we’re broke.”😂😂😂

Actually looks good 💯

Lisa a baller fr if she eating rice. The real struggle comes when you have to eat chao and pork floss 😂

Rice has saved me more times than i can count. Perfect budget meal

White rice + soy sauce is the absolute goat, that was my fav childhood dish and still holds a special place in my heart

This is my essay writing meal, little effort, very quick easy to eat.

Beautiful meal❤❤❤

Ngl as a Vietnamese American. This is my struggle meal right here with the rice with soy sauce and the pork stuff lmao.

My struggle meal is something my mom showed me. Its a tortilla with ham and cheese folded in half then put on a pan. The cheese melts the ham gets warm and the tortilla is just perfect. At my house we always had left over tortillas.

This is like another version of tuna and rice with soy sauce 😂👌 can’t beat it

My combo is rice, chicken and soy sauce!

I remember during the 1970s, there were times where all we had was beans and rice. There was always rice leftover. We used to get the free packaged government commodity food. My brother and I would take the dried powdered eggs, spices, mixed it with milk, leftover rice and fry it in leftover recycled oil to make our lunch. Later, we learned to mix it with onions and soy sauce. It was food that kept us full and satisfied...

Simple food can be the most satisfying gourmet meal.

rice and soy souce hehe ultimate nostalgia

I can’t seem to find much yorushika band covers on youtube. Thanks a lot for the amazing performance!

The American childhood equivalent for me was buttered pasta (or maybe just olive oil) with salt and pepper. Buttered white rice with soy sauce was also a favorite, especially later when grown and living with roommates during hard times. A rice cooker is one of the best investments.

This lets me know, a lot of us struggled, and we all learned the STRUGGLE IS REAL…whether black, white, Asian, Indian… we survived!!!!

Damn you just took me back with such nostalgic things 🤣 i ate it like that too but without soy sauce

relatable, Im vietnameese and this is what I eat when my parent left me at home

We always had rice ready to eat in my family. Both my parents worked a lot and there'd be those evenings where they'd call us and say "heat up the rice and whatever frozen veggies you guys want for dinner." As an adult, I still eat a ton of rice and veggies.

When my family was broke broke to the point we couldn’t get anything fresh from the supermarket. Mum would always make us rice with Maggie seasoning soy sauce and just fried egg. That’s it, it lasted us for a couple days even more if you don’t get tired of the taste.

I love it! I tried them before, they are so good! ❤

this has unearthed fond childhood memories of broccoli congee and pork floss on a cold winter's day, with a sprinkle of soy sauce of course!

About 90% of the time, my mom comes up with the best struggle meals that don't even feel like struggle meals. Ones that are basic struggle meals and ones she'll throw together when she doesn't know what to cook and it works. One of my faves is white rice and cornbeef

I had gotten let go from a job because they downsized and fired all the temps. My dad just 'knew' it was because I was 'lazy' and was so upset that he grabbed a social friend and told me I'd be house-sitting for a few days. (Mainly just to get me out of the house to avoid 'confrontation'.) During this time I made one meal because I didn't want to be a bother and it lasted almost all five days for me. I spent all five days at the other house, watching two small dogs, and playing Dark Souls (as it had just come to PC). I put wild rice, black beans, chicken breast, tomato, and some spices in. I couldn't have used more than $20 of materials. I cooked the chicken until it was easily shredded, then added more water and cooked the rice and beans, adding the tomato mix with some spices later. My actual struggle meal as I was dealing with major depression at the time.

Oh gosh! Pork floss! 🤤 I've never done rice and soy sauce though. I always did rice and fish sauce!😊

Pan fried spam slices and rice was and still is my fav

As a Filipino American, i must say that this is so relatable on every level. Except the chopsticks part, i just ate with my hands and suffered sticky skin later

White rice and pan fried beef link cut up into small pieces to “stretch” the meat. I fed this to my son when I used to be broke, broke. There usually wasn’t enough for me cuz I needed it to last til the next day. He’s 17 and he STILL loves it, even though we’re not broke, broke anymore. God is SO good🙌🏾!

this is SUCH a taiwanese meal! I visited Taiwan just 2 weeks ago since it’s been years and every food stall was selling these ingredients in one way or another. so comforting and filled with love

Something very similar is also my comfort food! My mom would always make white rice with canned corn beef hash and it was literally so good!!

Omg growing up in philippines my beloved cousin introduced us to rice,soy sauce,and pork oil (mantika) soooooo good!

I add a little sesame oil too. *chefs kiss*. We eat rice, soy sauce and sesame oil with fried eggs sometimes, and as a kid my parents called it “Chinese specialty”. Still one of my most nostalgic meals. Also, as a kid said “soy sauce and sesame oil” more often than “salt and pepper”

Yessss!!!! I used to eat this is college and med school!!! 😂

Yeahh that's my favorite too. Like whenever i see some leftover rice i used to fry it with soya sauce and egg. Great combo 😋

I used to be a really picky eater. Rice with soy sauce, and spaghetti with butter were my two comfort foods.

When my best friends sister was vegetarian, she would make a meal similar to this! It would be rice, eggs, green beans and soy sauce. Such a simple but filling snack. Also, I’m pretty sure they sell pork floss to kids here in the US as fake “chew tobacco”. Fake container and all. 😂

not me watching this home alone... im starving

A very expensive struggle meal if you have pork floss.

My mom would put a few dashes of Italian dressing on rice. For some reason I thought this was delicious and a delicacy. Years later, i Realize she was waiting for the paycheck to hit her account so we could go buy real food! Great memories and I like seeing how folks of all cultures dress up their rice.

Yummy!!! That pork floss is amazing in my opinion 😊

On god i barely watch the regular season but im tuning into most of the playoff games forsure lmao

As a Vietnamese American, I can confirm I (and the rest of my family ) love that combo. The simplicity of it I guess just really draws me to it.

There is also pork floss in Nigeria, my mum would always give me some as a snack, sooo good

My wife is Korean and she cooks us "struggle meals" too, but she calls it, "poor man food" which we really love, thanks for sharing ❤❤❤

As a Vietnamese person myself this so relatable

Omg that stuff was always in my house as a kid and I never to this day knew what it was called !!! God bless you omg I am so happy right now 😂❤

Her struggle meal 2.0 would've been a 3 course meal for me... Cheers to humble beginnings! ✌🏾

The rice and soy sauce combo is an Asian child classic.

BRO I THOUGHT I WAS THE ONLY KID THAT HAD THIS 💀

Yum. Found it on Amazon and added to cart. Thanks!

When I was in college I had two halfasian roomates who when they moved in brought with them a rice cooker and 50lb bag of rice. It was a completely game changer. Though they made fun of me when I'd just eat it with soy sauce😂 I bought the next bag.

When I was younger, our struggle meal was cornbeef and rice. Folks would season the cornbeef, add onions sometimes corn. 🌽 Was one of my best meals growing up!! 😋

My personal struggle meal when I was left home alone was rice and dried seaweed.

Didn't know about shredded pork. Looks like something I'll really love

As a fellow Vietnamese, I definitely have had these on days where there really wasn’t much at home. In the Southern dialect, we called these “chà bông”

As a Cambodian, I can confirm that rice and soy sauce(and hard-boiled eggs) was my sister's go-to meal...

a fried egg on white rice is the asian version of peanut butter and jelly for kids

Had these exact same meal when i was home alone years back too. There’s also spicy pork floss versions and i would also add more sriracha sauce too! Lol

I remember growing up in Indonesia sometimes I used to eat rice with chicken floss and it would always make me happy lol

My struggle meal was just balogna on a buttered bagle with mustard... Simple, I still eat it 🤷🏼‍♂️😅