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

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

We freeze a lot - including leftovers. For example, I make 12 naan at a time and freeze 8 of them for lager. Much cheaper than buying them from a takeaway or supermarket, yummier and UPF free. They're only flour, yogurt, oil, milk, yeast and salt which I already have in the house topped with butter and garlic (and occasionally coriander if I have some in but not essential).

I used to buy spices from the small shops near me rather than the supermarket as it was cheaper until I saw this on 'bulking', and have gone back to the supermarkets

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0hhy1ft

I have two suggestions for exactly this.

1. Thrifty Lesley - she has a website, just search for her name. She specialises in cheap, tasty food. You can search by meal type, but her best work are her meal plans. Each week is based on a few fresh ingredients, with the shopping list, and links to the recipes. She aims for about £15 a week, although with food costs rising, some of the plans are £18 for the week. Most plans are for 2, and she aims to have little left over.

1. Download the Supercook app (free). You add all of the ingredients that you have in the house into your "larder", and then the app will search the internet for every possible recipe you can make. You can search by cuisine or main ingredient. The app will also highlight recipes you can make with just one more ingredient. It's absolutely brilliant for recusing food waste, as I can search for something to make with any leftover ingredients from other meals.

A friend grows chillis in his poly tunnel, lots of different varieties, hot ones, mid-range and mild. In september, I buy a kilo of them, sort them and freeze them with labels. Hot for Thai meals, and so on. They can be fine chopped frozen and it's easy to take the seeds out when you don't want the extra heat.

Yes it's more expensive to cook from scratch on the whole. You can buy a pack of biscuits for 50p but good luck making them for that. I've recently started cooking from scratch more (everything, not just meals) and our food bills have rocketed.

Herbs and spices - go to local Indian or Chinese shops, cheap as chips. If not available to you try Home Bargains - 59p a jar for herbs and spices also Asda very cheap in their International food sections.

I use a 'refill' shop for my spices. You take in your own container and buy as much or as little as you want. You can even just use a paper bag and put a small amount in. Most of the cost of supermarket spices is the cost of the jar.

GradGirl, I totally get you. Most of it is easy, but paying someone else to make it for you, their overheads and utilities cost money, and then they need to make a profit. .

You can make a basic flatbread with yogurt and self raising flour. They are really really good and keep for the next day in a Tupperware.
Lidl have a good herb and spice selection or the world food aisle has packets you can pop in old jars. You can freeze all but basil from the fresh selection. Basil grows well as a windowsill plant from seed (again, lidl is your friend)
aldi is good for fresh herbs.
fresh chillis can be frozen, but again lidl and aldi do the jars of chilli, ginger and garlic that are really good - it’s worth checking the world food aisle section for these if you’ve not got a good one local.

I don’t eat hummus but isn’t it just chickpeas and tahini? A tin of chickpeas are quite cheap in the world food aisle.

It does add up for herbs and spices, but once you’ve got them your only replacing one a month or so. My plan when my children leave home / uni, I’m going to send them off with a whole spice rack to get them started.

Herbs and spices are cheap, you just need to build up a supply. £1.30 ish each for a reasonable sized jar at M&S. I don’t buy in bulk anymore as I’m only cooking for two and they can go a bit stale.

Tahini isn’t that expensive when you consider how much you get out of it. I love it, makes a nice dip to serve with flatbreads/chicken/salad when it is mixed with yoghurt and a bit of salt.

I spend about £100-120 a week on food for two (no booze, pet food or toiletries in that). I could get that down, but I like nice food. When you think that something fairly mediocre out for lunch, grilled chicken salad panini with a soft drink x2 type thing is £30 ish, I don’t mind my grocery bill.

Buying those tiny jars of spices is a false economy for me. I buy economical large bags from Asian shops. They last for ages anyway.

£100 for 2 people should be easy, I cook for 4 adults on that.
You can buy dried herbs and spices, which last for a while if you keep them in a dark cupboard, and you can grow some of your own, or get them in pots from the supermarket.
I've found that thyme, rosemary and marjoram/ oregano grow very happily in my not so sunny garden. Pots of coriander, parsley and basil do well in the kitchen, even the coriander, which is more temperamental lasts for months if I remember to water it enough.

There is a book called Saving Dinner, by Leanne Ely, and another called Saving Dinner Basics, same author. She also has a website, savingdinner dot com.

Very useful for meal planning and building up your pantry gradually.

It is perfectly possible for a family to eat well and healthily on a budget but I acknowledge that getting set up with the herbs and spaces that ring the changes costs. I would recommend Diana Henry's books on chlcken (365 ways to cook it) and Food from Plenty as good and healthy starting points for economical home cooking likely to please most people.

Agree with pp- you need to batch cook.
Make a list of maybe 10-15 meals you would like to eat regularly, and set out a meal plan with those meals across two weeks. Buy fresh ingredients ie so you can make from scratch, make a big batch of each meal each time you cook and then freeze (or eat next day!) the rest - after a couple of weeks you will have a stock built up. I try and do this but it always all gets eaten even If I think I make loads!!! I’ve really enjoyed cooking more and I also have an outstandingly organised fridge which I enjoy 😁😂 I used to hate cooking.. so the only way I could get into it was to buy only lovely ingredients and have a lovely fridge! It’s worked in our household 😄 I spend maybe £150/160 a week for three of us, which is pretty much all of our meals per day, we live in France so more expensive here I think but this is still cheaper than I used to spend when I cooked much less and we ate crappy food.

If you're planning to cook seven different recipes per week, perhaps involving half a dozen different cuisines, yes, you will spend a lot on ingredients.

If you plan on cooking maybe three meals and adapting leftovers then you'll spend less.

For instance, shepherds pie made with mince on Monday, empanadas and salad on Tuesday, pasta bolognese made with mince on Wednesday, pasta bake on Thursday, with spinach and cream added to Tuesday's leftovers, leftover clearout on Friday, Saturday roast, leftovers on Sunday, maybe hash on Monday...

I have a decent spice cupboard (takes up the whole top shelf of a double cupboard). I have built it up over the years buying in bulk from Turkish supermarkets.

Once you have your collection it makes cooking from scratch easier and cheaper.

£100 a week for two people?? I spend about £50-60 and I thought that was a lot. I cook from scratch about 5-6 nights a week with a pretty wide variety.

There's some initial outlay for spices...but it shouldn't be much unless you're doing all your shopping in Waitrose.

Do you eat meat every night? That will pull the cost up significantly.

YABU
It takes a while but just by adding in an ingredient or 2 a week to your shopping you can soon build up a larder of ingredients to use many more times.

From scratch is infinitely better and nearly always cheaper. You just have to plan carefully, use seasonal and local stuff.

My son and his GF have got into cooking. It’s frustrating to see them shop wastefully and fail to plan leftovers. Eg. They made something that required fresh coriander and a tiny bit of parsley. And juice of half a lime. The coriander is essential but the tiny bit of parsley wasn’t. The lime juice could be taken from the bottle I always have in. They bought a pack of four chicken breasts and cooked three.

Cooking frugally requires some knowledge of when you can substitute ingredients and tweak.

Nan and hummus are definitely cheaper homemade. For flatbreads though I do the mix with Greek yoghurt and dry pan fry the dough. Quick and cheap and delicious.

It really depends on how well stocked you are for store cupboard basics.

I have a big spice and herb collection, and a constant stock of dried goods. They are all replaced as needed rather than needing to buy them all at once.

The individual cost of a particular spice might be over a pound, however you won't be using it all in one meal.

The big packets in "world food" section or country/region specific stores are often much better value. You can get a huge bag of most spices for less than the cost of a single small drum in the general supermarket section.

Depends how you cook. I go for sturdy well priced ingredients not the ones named in a recipe.

It is but you need to be prepared to buy large amounts to make it cost efficient

OP, I make my own hummous, it's staggeringly better than shop bought. But better still, you can freeze it! So make a large amount and divide up into 200g batches ( or whatever size). I just pop them in little freezer bags.
I use the Felicity Cloake "Perfect Hummous" Guardian
I can't link as on my phone