There are actually a lot of canned and frozen plants other than beans and rice. Tofu is really good (also rising in price, but still not as bad as meat), and keeps an extremely long time in the fridge. I get a bunch of no salt added canned vegetables for super cheap because I have disabilities and I cannot prepare everything from scratch, and make a really good vegetable soup full of protein from peas and beans, for really cheap. The reason I get no salt added is because then I can add bouillon and spices to make my own broth, which would be grossly salty if I also used salted canned food. Although the number of cans vary, we call it 9 Can Soup. Because that's what it had the first time. I also use fresh potatoes if I have any on hand. One of the cans are usually tomato sauce. Sometimes I'll add a few cans of salted veggies if I got them from a food bank, I just rinse them.

Yeah man Tofu is a great complete protein! But is tricky to cook and if you don't do something special with it, it will taste like nothing and feels mushy. This is why tofu gets a bad rap.

If you are interested in cooking with tofu! Here is a killer tofu marinade I do. I am in love with this tofu and would eat it like cereal every morning if I could. This goes well with any Asian, rice or veggie dish:

Ginger-seseme tofu:

• Firm or extra firm tofu

• Take the package of tofu and cut it open with a knife, it looks like you can open it with your hands but you cannot. Keep this package as a marinade binn for later

• drain all the water from the package and squeeze the water out of the tofu by placing it between some heavy things or even with your hands, the more water out the more flavor in but try to keep the shape intact

• Now mix together the marinade in a bowl with:

  1/4 cup soy sauce

  1/4 cup rice vinegar

  2 tablespoons lime juice

  2 tablespoons brown sugar

  1 tablespoon minced ginger

  1 tablespoon siracha

  1 tablespoon sesame oil

  2 cloves garlic minced

• Cut up the freshly squeezed tofu into dice sized cubes and place them back into the original container

• Add the marinade into the container with the tofu and put into a fridge, let sit anywhere from 30mins - 4 hrs

• Finally, bake in an oven set to 425f or air fryer set to high for 30mins flipping half way.

Protip! - freeze and thaw the package of tofu. Something about freezing tofu alters it's structure, this allows wore water to be drained and more marinade to be absorbed, almost 2x more!

If you try hope you enjoy!

I know that was a lot so if you want quick foolproof tofu that solves the texture problem but relies on the flooring of what it is put with:

• Press water out of the tofu like above

• Cut the tofu into the same dice sized cubes or shred it into a mixing bowl with your hands

• Toss with 1.5 tablespoons of cornstarch

• Fry tofu in oil, flipping until golden brown

Phew' this was all phone typed, hope it makes sense. <3

Edit: fix formatting

Since you mentioned being interested in using tofu, my favorite (by far) vegan youtuber Nisha just published a video all about tofu.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZCq3fir5pw

I'm not about to go to multiple stores 2-3 times a week to get what I need

That's called "shopping". It's very common.