To think cooking from scratch is not always cheaper?

You could make it cheaper by replacing 33% or 50% of the beef with red lentils.
I think home cooking has got expensive because good quality fresh veg have increased in price so much.

I use 250g of lean beef mince; three times your tins of tomatoes; I bulk with lentils; use mushrooms and finely diced carrots and celery; I do use tomato purée; a lot more herbs and garlic than you. I make about 12 portions from this.

I never add garlic bread - even before I had gestational diabetes - I never ate this. Too many carbs to be healthy

I cook like you do and also cater for a gluten allergy.

You aren’t comparing the cost apples with apples since what you’ve cooked doesn’t exist as a GF ready-meal. It barely exists even as a ‘finest’ range. You’d need 3 x Charlie Bighams
which is £24-30 excluding garlic bread.

Not sure what your point is. You’ve used high quality ingredients, of course it’s more expensive that a cheap alternative.

DH says ours costs 2.20 a portion. For men who eat a lot. My portions are a lot smaller.
Mince
Carrots
Onions& garlic
Green pepper
Courgette
Tinned tomatoes
Passata
Italian seasoning

Wholemeal pasta.

I do, but don’t buy it ready prepped. I just buy carrots, celery and onions

Really, you know it could be done this way -

lean mince 350gms /400gms - £3.85
spaghetti - £1
Tinned tomatoes x 2 cans - £1
sundried tomato paste - £1.50
tomato puree - 50p
£7.75 total.

Yes cooking from scratch can potentially be more expensive but the quality is considerably better. I would replace the tin of tomatoes with 3 large bottles of passata. This will stretch the ragu much further and it will still be delicious.

On a mild tangent, I noticed Gousto had emailed me as I hadn't ordered for a year or so, with a 50% discount on a one off box. So 4 meals for two, of cuisines i wouldn't be bold enough to try by myself, for 27 quid. And the first one, a Mongolian beef dish has also had enough for DP's lunch tomorrow. All 4 have meat in them, and we keep the cards and recreate from the supermarket when we like them, i have a well stocked spice cupboard, but would struggle to get 3 meals for 7 quid from the recipe if I bought it in the shops. It's a cheaper food option this week.

Agree OP, depending on what you cook from fresh and the quality of the bought meals - some have better quality ingredients and less additives than others as well, usually reflected in the cost.

If you don’t have the ingredients in constant rotation then of course it will work out more to buy eg a fresh herb which will be dead by the time you would use it again. Even cupboard ingredients have a shelf life eg I rarely make a cake so would have to buy nearly everything to make one.

Cooking from fresh is cheaper only if you already have most of the ingredients to hand. If you add them up as you have you can see the true cost, although you might pay similar for something from pasta evangelists for example, rather than an own brand supermarket ready meal.

But you're looking at it from the luxury of being able to buy pancetta and sun-dried tomatoes! Cooking from scratch CAN be cheaper. No one is suggesting it always is regardless of the ingredients

But yours won't taste anything like a shop brought one, unless you're buying a really fancy version. So no, you can't make fancy food for less than simpler recipe meals.

Still confused by the hours of baking

Batch cooking is definitely cheaper. Make large amounts and freeze.

Fresh fruit and veg is particularly expensive, finding what's in season tends to cut the cost and increase the flavour, but I don't think you can generally do it cheaper than frozen/tinned unless you grow it yourself (and even then, probably depends on who much you spend on gardening!).

Well this is the issue, you are making a pretty luxurious version, which is fine if you can afford i but not a sensible comparison.
I would do this for a nice weekend dinner but certainly not for a midweek tea.
If you wanted the equivalent using preprepared sauce etc (i.e. made with the nice cherry tomatoes, wine, pancetta, serve with garlic bread etc) you would still be buying and adding a lot of that to the store bought sauce and be buying premium sauce.

We cook from scratch and it's expensive. I could easily spend that much on a spag bol. But I get high quality ingredients because for me I cook from scratch so I eat more healthily, not to save money.

If I wanted to save money I'd only cook some things from scratch, would generally only use herbs I grew myself, and what I cooked would depend on what was cheap in the shop, not what I fancied eating.

The difference is clearly that op is buying very high quality (butchers ) lean mince beef. Maybe organic? That will bump up the price.

There’s a sandwich recipe I really want to try but the ingredients are coming out at about £15. Granted, I won’t use the whole jar of mustard and mayo, so can use them for other things…but still.

I cook from scratch as a default setting and find we get at least twice the quality for half the price of readymade. It's a lot of work and a personal choice, so whatever you prefer to do is right for you.

But it is cheaper. Waitrose charges £2 for 2 naan. Our own cost 60p for 6 naan plus cooking time on the skillet. Chicken curry is £2.29 for 5 chicken legs (drumsticks+thighs) plus spices, home made passata, garlic, ginger and a good onion. That's about £3.50 for 3 good portions, including 2 naan each. Waitrose chicken curry with rice is £7.60 for 2 portions.

Maybe I've been reading the wrong recipe but I've never heard of spag bol being cooked in the oven, never mind for 3.5 hours!!! I just cook mine on the hob for half an hour and with the usual additions of toms, tom puree, wine, garlic and onions and a stock cube it's delicious. And nowhere near £18! I use chopped tomatoes from Lidl at 39p a tine which are excellent.

That’s not comparable with a jar from Aldi FFS!

Don't use a sauce. Use a tin of tomatoes and Oregano.

Invest in a slow cooker. Much cheaper the having the oven on for 3.5 hours and you don't have to worry about burning it!

I thought I was generous with my 750g of mince for five!

I normally cook Sainsbury's mince 1kg x 2. Yes 2kg serves us as a family of 4, one meal, and only 1 bag to freeze, or 2 bags at a push.
I use all sorts of bits to add, inc Dash of Worcester sauce, mustard, mixed herbs. All this mn, 250g of mince cooks 6 doesn't work with/for me.

Whilst I definitely wouldn't spend £18 to make spag bol, I do agree that many meals are more expensive made from scratch.
When I was a child, Mum would bake cakes as they were cheaper than buying ready made. The last cheesecake I made from scratch cost nearly £12 in ingredients. You can buy a cheesecake at the supermarket for £3 to £5, although it would be nowhere near as nice.