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

Of course you can food shop cheaply if you want to cook recipes from scratch. You just need to choose recipes that don't use poncy expensive ingredients.

We spend about £100 a week, 2 adults and one child, cooking everything from scratch. However we have built up a selection of dried herbs and spices and make good use of the freezer. Eating fresh, home cooked meals is more expensive but we prefer the taste and health benefits it offers.

I disagree. When I had fuck all I cooked from scratch. With whatever was cheap or allotment growers might have offered me. Mostly legumes, veg and rice.

The shop bought biscuits may be 'cheap' but with the amount of crap in them we're paying with our health tbh.

Yep. Therein lies the problem. And it doesn't stop at biscuits.

You can definitely do that for two adults at £100... Some of my spices I even buy online because it is cheaper than what you get in the supermarket. Shop in the cash and carry quarterly and try out a few things here and there. I buy following in bulk sizes:
Olive oil - 5L
Rice - 10kg
Quinoa - 1kg (I think)
Spices like cinnamon I buy from Amazon such as seven hills. Rajah also a decent brand more likely to find at home.
Fresh herbs we buy in but used to have a herb garden, right now I only have rosemary but will bring the others back next year.
Nuts I've also bought in big bags they really do last a long time.
Many recipes can be tweaked.

Some things like preserved lemons or even soy sauce you'll find in the "ethnic" aisle sometimes at much better prices.

And do buy soy sauce by the litre instead of in those silly 100ml bottles. When garlic is fresh and cheap, I buy a kilo, plus 600g of ginger, and I puree and freeze it in an icecube tray. When a curry wants garlic and ginger (they all do), I take a cube or two out of the freezer and add it to the onions I'm frying.

yes, you can buy a packet of biscuits for 50p. And if you only have that option, then you have my sympathy but as biscuits are a treat and not a sustaining meal, then it's probably as cheap and much healthier to start from scratch if you have even a rudimentary kitchen. I started adult life as student in a flat share of four people. We cooked from scratch and put enough food for 4 (sometimes more) on the table every night at 7:00. Lots of beans and lentils. Everyone shopped and cooked, and the clean up was shared around.

That's precisely my point, I make them from scratch, but it costs more. Due to the billion pound food industry we have have become disillusioned as to what the cost of food is, we expect it to be cheap, companies have achieved this with harmful processes and chemicals to make food transportable and long life as possible which makes it cheaper to handle and sell. It's a privilege to have the money and the know how to cook healthier food. People who say cooking from scratch is cheaper are talking from a place of privilege, and likely ignorance.

Spend £100 a week for 2 adults and 2 kids and mostly cook from scratch. You could do hello fresh - we sometimes do that for adult meals when we get bored of our usual batch cooking staples - about £10 a dinner though you can usually get a deal and/or bulk out certain recipes to last longer

I buy dried spices and herbs in bulk, not in small jars. I use the same spices and herbs regularly. It's cheaper than buying jars of paste and recipe mixes. If you are wanting to cook all international cuisines, different every night on a monthly rotation or something it might not be economical. If you are like me and have five regular recipes or variations then it's affordable.

YABU

You just buy the spices and store cupboard ingredients little by little.

You don't say I'm having Chinese Monday, Italian Tuesday, Mexican Wednesday and Indian Thursday so I will go and buy the contents of the herb and spice shelves at sainsbury's all in one week. Just buy slowly.

Once you've got your store cupboard ingredients keep it topped up. I'd never run out of soy sauce or some kind of garlic and chilli products.

Lateral Cooking starts with this approach, but it ends up being quite technical. It's very useful as a guide to building cooking skills. The idea begins... if you can do this, then try this to achieve something better. I enjoyed it, but it's cheffy.

I 100% agree with the poster who said that students should be taught home economics. I'm an oldie and went to a vv academic school, but we were still taught how to cook. Don't know how I'd have managed without that - though I also learned a lot from my mum.
One of the problems is, I think, that ready meals have programmed people to want inferior (IMHO) versions of international foods that require ingredients that are not cheap or plentiful here.
I'd suggest looking at the many excellent websites -mostly vegan - that show how to cook good things from cheap local ingredients, such as potatoes, cabbage, carrots, onions, swedes, parsnips, apples, pears etc etc etc.

Simple short term remedy - if in doubt, pancakes. Or bubble and squeak. And learn how to make flatbreads or - even better - a simple loaf. And, if you can cultivate a 'light hand' - soda bread is delicious. You can add chopped fried onions or spring onions to the dough.

Otherwise, lentils plus garlic and onions and tinned tomatoes and boiled potatoes make a very filling and excellent soup. Lentils and any sort of nuts and herbs make a nice pate. Again, research vegan recipes.

For meat etc look out for yellow sticker bargains. Otherwise - for raw ingredients, not processed stuff - I agree with poster who said Lidl is your friend.

For tahini in hummus I just use sesame seeds, that's all tahini is anyway and I was finding I wasn't getting through a jar in enough time and it's so expensive. My local deli shop sells sesame seeds for 90p a pack!

I like to add 2 cloves of garlic

People keep talking about hummus. It's easy. Take a can of chickpeas (supermarket value range at 40p is good enough) and puree it. stir through some olive oil and a tablespoon of tahini and a generous pinch of salt and then squeeze lemon juice into it. Herbs if you grow them are lovely, but that is the basic greek recipe. For a 60p can of beans and a £3 jar of tahini that you will still be using a year later, you can produce 400g of hummus that would cost £1.50 for 75g in a tub from Tesco.

Release yourself from recipes. Buy veg you like / is in season and protein/ grains … start chopping an onion and throw stuff in as you go. Oven on with lots of things once or twice a week (roasting veg / casseroles) stir fry / curry / salads as you feel like it. Start the “what shall we eat for dinner” based on what you have. We don’t eat meat so maybe easier.

There definitely needs to be a cookbook which shows what other recipes you can make from half used ingredients, does one exist?

If you are buying herbs and spices look down the world food aisle. So much cheaper than the little bottles.

This.

I know what you mean about cooking from scratch being expensive. The first time I want to follow a recipe exactly so I have a base line before I substitute things. I priced up one recipe from my DC's cookbook at over £12 for a salad which was mainly lettuce and tomato!

Do you have a friend who also cooks who might be willing to swap less often used spices with you? Then you would each only need to buy half as many spices.

I'd also look for recipes which use an ingredient in a quantity which matches the sizes it is sold in. Having to buy two or three packs of something has really pushed up the price of things when I have done recipes. I've started checking typical pack sizes online now when I'm looking at a new recipe.

Time to bring back home ecnomics in school!
Yes, I am old, but I can batch cook and make cheap ingredients go a long way. Currently have several bags of ( free, picked by me) blackberries in freezer. Will buy bag of sugar (will do for 2 batches) and a lemon. This will give me about 6 jars of jam for about 20p each

I’d love to make hummus homemade but again, cheaper to buy it from a shop than the initial outlay of all the ingredients separately.

It isn't. If you make it simply you can make LOADS and freeze it

I find it much cheaper to cook from scratch but you need time to build up a supply of spices and staples. I find batch cooking, sourcing food in the reduced aisle and freezing items really helps. I also have fresh herbs/chilli's and grow onions and potatoes. I make my own mayo, butter, pasta sauces, pesto, bread and pastry and I find it costs so much less.

@userophfk783 yes, you can buy a packet of biscuits for 50p. And if you only have that option, then you have my sympathy but as biscuits are a treat and not a sustaining meal, then it's probably as cheap and much healthier to start from scratch if you have even a rudimentary kitchen. I started adult life as student in a flat share of four people. We cooked from scratch and put enough food for 4 (sometimes more) on the table every night at 7:00. Lots of beans and lentils. Everyone shopped and cooked, and the clean up was shared around.

It is much harder at the moment but I find myself using a lot of recipes from BBC good food, there are lots of ideas for cheaper healthy meals on there. Using the slow cooker helps I find too. I also raid the reduced section in sainsburys on a Sunday, at our one there's always lots of meat and fish at least half price which can be frozen and used another time, I can't remember the last time I paid full price for meat or fish.