To think cooking from scratch is not always cheaper?

Lean mince - £3.89
Spaghetti - £0.28
Tinned tomatoes - £0.47
Passata - £0.47
Salt/pepper/mixed herbs/dried garlic £0.40
Beef stock cube - £0.06
Garlic bread - £1.19

Spag bol for 4 for under £7 from Aldi.

By comparison, a jar of their own brand bolognese sauce is £0.69, so a saving of 70-something-pence for the whole meal. Doesn’t sound like much but someone on the bare bones of their arse could use than small saving across seven dinners per week elsewhere in their budget.

I think you’re comparing apples with oranges OP. You’re saying that Aldi sauce is cheaper than sauce made with blended sun dried tomatoes. Well of course it is! But would it be cheaper than sauce made from fresh tomatoes bought from the market? Or would Waitrose finest sauce be cheaper?

And as for 3.5 hours in the oven - totally unnecessary. 20 minutes on the hob is fine.

You’re basically making high end super fancy spag bol with expensive ingredients and cooking it slowly for half a day. Of course that’s going to cost more than cheap ready made ingredients.

To be fair it does taste better if you do it in the oven-the flavours develop more

This is quite funny.

OP obviously your version of spag bol is expensive because you're filling it with luxury ingredients. I'm not sure why you needed to come on MN to be told that as you must already know - unless it's some kind of humble brag.

Also, why is it in the oven for three and a half hours? Are you actually braising an expensive cut of beef to be turned into your own ragu?

You can cut costs considerably by using less meat. 🤷🏼‍♀️

Paying for shavings of parmesan is crazy unless you physically can't do it.
Make sure you keep the rind and pop that into your ragu whilst slow cooking, I've got mine just fi fishing now with a parmesan rinds and pecorino one, makes a lot of difference at the end.

I view spaghetti bolognaise as a fairly cheap way to feed the family. Not a luxury meal. I’m sure I could make it fancier and more expensive by using higher quality ingredients, but I doubt my kids would notice or appreciate the difference to be honest.

I agree that cooking from scratch isn’t always cheaper than ready made, but the quality is usually so much better.

I agree and withball those who've commented vis a vis 500gnfor 6 adults.n Yes, it needs to be increased to 750g and I'd bung in an extra half tin of tomatoes.

Love it !

Newsflash: expensive ingredients makes cooking expensive.

Something like bolognese can be cheap or expensive.

Similarly you can but a value frozen ready meal or a fancy branded one.. one is cheaper than the other.

Yes, but when people say homemade is cheaper, they don't mean unnecessarily luxuriously homemade. I agree that cooking slowly in the oven makes all the difference, but I don't put sundried tomatoes, red wine or pancetta in mine. I do use gluten-free pasta though,which is more expensive. And did you actually buy ready-shaved parmesan?! What's the problem with tomato puree?

But a 65p jar of sauce is only 1 ingredient. You still need your mince, pasta and bread to get to an equivalent meal.
And there is a big range between buying a bolognese complete ready meal and making everything from scratch including the tomato paste and using luxury ingredients. A more budget friendly version would be meat, tinned tomatoes, onion, carrot and dried herbs. Or just meat and jar sauce. Still be better and cheaper (and bigger portions) than a ready meal that is shoved in the microwave.

I do agree that making from scratch is often not cheaper if you compare it to the most budgety processed foods, but you aren't comparing like for like. It will be cheaper than buying a well cooked meal in a restaurant.
Baking is very pricey though, a packet of custard creams is hellnof a lot less than making biscuits at home with real butter. Also it's so hard not to eat the entire batch of home baking 😅

@Mynewnameis I do half 5% beef mince and half veggie mince -not because I'm tight - I actually prefer the texture

I would struggle to spend more than about £8 and that's using mutti tomatoes and a bit of cheap red wine

The. Way you make it is comparably not to cheapest ready meal spaghetti Bolognese but to the "finest " style which are about 4 pounds each so 6 portions 24 without garlic bread so cheaper when comparing like with like.

It depends on the meal. I can make homemade pizza with numerous toppings of choice, which is far better than a fresh pizza for fraction of the price. It’s a lot more effort and sometimes I can’t be arsed but definitely cheaper

Will just add, I've just seen the poster after me making reference to GF. As a diagnosed Coeliac for over 40 years, I can categorically state very good quality GF food still doesn't have to cost anything like this.

YANBU there is not a single meal I make from scratch that is less expensive than pre-made.

It’s definitely not a cheap way to eat for us but it’s far superior (imo) to any ready meal or jar/convenience option.

The answer is you did choose to use expensive ingrediens .
It's hasn't been a trip to Lidl or Aldi.
Add GF will be more expensive than non GF.

Then you clearly aren't doing it properly. Don't put so much liquid in for a start, it doesn't evaporate so much.

But this is clearly just intended to be a faux-stupid, goady, boastful thread, so I'm out.

I use 1.25kg meat (usually 750g beef and 500g pork mince) which costs about £10, rest of ingredients are very little (no need for pancetta or sun dried tomatoes op, they won’t add that much to the flavour for the cost). I use only carrots, celery, tinned toms, tomatoe puree and stock cubes/wine/seasoning. That plus some red lentils usually makes 4 or 5 portions each serving 4 of us for the freezer, then once defrosted can either make bolognese, pasta bake or lasagne. Your 500g meat between 6 is way too meaty imo. I cook it in the slow cooker, bolognese is disgusting if you cook it fast.

you know you can’t compare this to a jar, right? A jar of bolognese sauce doesn’t even contain meat, it’s a replacement only for the tomatoes and tomato puree?