To think it’s impossible to food shop cheaply if you want to cook recipes from scratch

@ALovelyCupOfNameChange , all true, but I cook on bottled butane (no mains gas supply). A 45kg bottle lasts us nine months or so and costs about £53 delivered.

I do agree with this. I gave some specific advice earlier on getting the cost down.

But a lot of this relies on having the kitchen equipment, money for electricity - boiling chickpeas might be cheaper, but if you’ve a tenner left on the leccy for a week, it’s going to eat that up.

it’s cheaper long term, but much more expensive in the short term.

Basic skills, like making a stew, are the door to an infinite range of meals. Take and dice an onion, dice a carrot and a stick of celery, fry them slowly in some oil with a half teaspoon of salt and some pepper. This is the starting point for almost every casserole recipe. A bay leaf, some protein. Half an hour simmering with a little water and a stock cube. The cheapest cuts of meat (shin of beef, oxtail) left all day in a slow cooker while you are at work will give you a great result. The more you experiment, the better you will get.

You're talking nonsense, OP. Homemade hummus is insanely cheap compared with shop bought, if you factor the cost of tahini over the number of portions it will make. Homemade curry is cheaper than ready meal curry, if you are comparing like for like with quality.

Take youir time acquiring spices, look up which substitutions you can make for obscure or one-off ingredients, and pad things out with vegtables and pulses. Cooking from scratch is much cheaper than relying on ready made dinners in many instances.

Baking is one of the big outliers, as at home we are generally using butter but factories can use cheaper fats. However, things are much nicer with butter so it's worth the difference in my view. Homemade shortbread is a qorld away form the 50p biscuits a PP was mentioning.

If you what to try lots of different recipes all at once with ingredients you don't have and won't use again the yes that is expensive but the dishes you've described are good cheap eats.

The expense of making hummus is the jar of tahini once you have invested in this then you can make lots cheaply as well as tahini dressing which is great for salads and to drizzle on roasted veggies

Nann bread is flour and yeast which I'd be surprised if you don't already have, and then an egg and natural yoghurt

It sounds like you don't have a good store cupboard and coop build one up a few ingredients at a time

I spend £100 a week for one adult and three teens (so basically 4 adults) including toiletries and cleaning products. I cook from scratch every day and we eat a fair bit of meat. I also use spices, herbs etc. although most of our meals only take around half an hour because I work.

Today we had chicken in homemade bbq sauce, potato wedges, sautéed courgette and broccoli, just as an example.

I don’t make my own hummus but we don’t eat many processed foods at all.

I’m always baffled by these threads.

You can also substitute flavours, and create whole new dishes.

Yes, I made chilli with garam masala and chilli flakes for ages before buying cumin and cinnamon separately.

I have this book which is full of ideas to use up leftover ingredients.

www.amazon.co.uk/Leftovers-Handbook-Z-Ingredient-Inspirational/dp/1908974087/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=1PPX4PBTCHM5X&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.93SpQxBwHhqTenlgqzUWT83if8LNncCLHIxG6iJHjD-_BgHKRb0_0t_jvGMsH_mnaPGCramSCG36uTIIZgsJasaforfw9B9sW0b78Zj677HCw19Pa3HXmJvxFdRaGZ_1F8xTZ_28dm8muI2R1gjLR0Qg7FG1RGzGBsuSLTfuzIhmg5KMolmAM28HTP02DUY1.wJJH93MS1YYgU3Ac6xq82fq4veOA1sNBoSrIV1Ffpn4&dib_tag=se&keywords=the+leftovers+handbook&qid=1722194896&sprefix=the+leftovers+handbook%2Caps%2C90&sr=8-1

I think some of this relates to 'taste' too- it's not so hard if you all like curry, bolognese , chilli etc - but some people don't and you can end up making multiple meals. For instance my H loves ramen and I could give him a chicken ramen 3 nights a week and he would love it, same with stir fry's- my ex H basically wanted meat or fish every dinner with veg and wouldn't even try anything veggie. I found that bloody boring so used to end up cooking 2 meals every night. (Although I did use to make more and freeze) - things like pizzas- my son was used to the idea a large good quality pizza fed 2 or 3 on slices - and came with a nice salad - his friend expected a large pizza to himself and nothing with it (and he wasn't from a well off family) I do think expectations and taste do come into it too and many people would actually turn their noses up at a bowl of dahl and rice ( without even trying it)

You can substitute tahini for cheap peanut butter

Homemade hummus knocks spots off bought, really. Put a bit more salt in it, and a bit more oil, and garlic and fresh lemon juice and dust the top with a little paprika.

Grow your own herbs then freeze them in ice cube trays.
IKEA probably do a cheap set of spice jars that you can fill with refill packs rather than buy an expensive jar. Or bulk buy and store in a Tupperware container.
I buy frozen basil and coriander because it gives a better flavour than dried.
You can buy ready mixed flavours which saves having multiple jars of obscure spices.
You can also substitute flavours, and create whole new dishes.

I've never made a homemade hummus that is better than shop bought in all honesty!! I know I'm off topic but still... some things aren't worth the bother!

There are free foods that are tasty and nutritious on this rainy island. I guess unless you live in a very urban environment. You only need Google or insta for the know how.

@onetwoshoe You are simply wrong! It's not more expensive, but it is more time consuming. You can buy dried chickpeas very cheaply, but you have to think ahead to soak them overnight and cook them (thus tripling their weight). So a £1 bag of dry chickpeas will turn into 2kg of cooked garbanzos, which is enough hummus for 40 people. The flatbreads are easy: Flour, dried yeast, and not much more than time to mix, knead, prove, roll and cook in your frying pan.

@userophfk783 I totally agree with your underlying sentiment, but the obesity crisis in the UK and elsewhere in the world is mostly down to the food industry, ultra processed foods and excessive amounts of palm oil and corn syrup. Quick, fast, cheap and tasty (although I don't like it). Yes, I certainly spend more on food than the average, and I spend a lot more time and energy cooking it now that I am 68 and not rushing to be out doing something more exciting. But at 19 and 20, we managed to eat a nutritous balanced diet that also tasted decent on student grants in 1976-7.

Supermarket plants are often about 20 in one pot. If you have some spare pots (or food containers) and soil then you can split them up a bit and they last longer with more space. Pinch out growing tops to use and two side shoots then grow making a bush.

Have you looked on social media for inspiration ? Instagram has a lot of budget family meal experts like Cardiff.mum , tamingtwins who have websites with full recipes of budget meals.

It’s even cheaper to cook 4 portions, eat 2 and save the 2 extra for another night. The Instagram account BeatTheBudget is another great account for batch cooking. She cooks like 5 portions, freezes 3 and defrosts 2 portions from a previous week’s meal prep.

Spices are cheapest from the international foods aisle (the South Asian section has massive bags of spices )

It also depends on what the objective is, if you just want to eat cheaply, yes you probably can find a way to eat a bland diet cheaply, if you want to eat with variety not only for pleasure but for the health benefits that brings, then that costs money. And yes,
it frustrates me when people make out that it is easy for everyone, it isn't. If it was, we wouldn't have the obesity crisis we have in this country.

I make hummous by putting a can of chickpeas in a nutribullet container, add garlic, lemon juice, salt, chilli, cumin and tahini and whizz up. Eat it over several days, no dramas.

If you want to eat cheaply, veg and beans in endless combinations.

Basil cuttings grow roots really easily in a glass of water. Then you can pot up and keep on the windowsill. Makes one supermarket plant last even longer. Also make and freeze pesto in ice cube traysfor a pasta sauce.

@Lentilweaver I cook from scratch myself, but I am privileged to have the funds to afford the fresh food, cupboard and freezer space, Tupperware, and ability to understand the health benefits. People here are wildly unaware of what it is like for a lot of people. It can be possible to cook some things cheaply from scratch, but depending on what your diet looked like previously, it may not be uniformly cheaply, it wasn't for us and we are a generally healthy, slim, educated family.

One simple way to save on herbs and spices is never buy them in jars, that's such a waste of money. You're better buying them from an Asian shop in bigger amounts. Way cheaper, often a broader selection, and a rapid turnover means they aren't old

If you don't have an Asian shop close by, go into the world food aisle of your local supermarket. As an example, 37g of M & S cumin is about £1.50. You can get 100g of East End cumin from Tesco for £1.30. And it's brilliant quality.

You don't need to cook Asian foods. Though it's cheap to cook simple versions with bulk spices. There are cheap European peasant foods with readily available ingredients.

Can I jump on this and ask how you make your naan and flat bread please? X