For those of you who say it's cheaper to cook from scratch what are you making?

[womaninatightspot]

Having another look at the bills and trying to trim something off groceries. I do a lot of cooking from scratch already. I have chickens so the little food waste we have comes back to me in the form of eggs :)

Stuff that I do think is cheaper to make; pizza so long as you use cheapie mozzarella balls and not pre grated stuff. Pasta sauces. Soup.On balance it's cheaper to make your own meatballs/ burgers as you could buy them cheaper but the meat is so poor you lose a third to melting fat.

Anything pudding based it's often cheaper to buy from supermarkets. I made an apple and blueberry strudel yesterday and even although the fruit was free the cost of the ingredients was probably more/ the same as a frozen one from the supermarket. Cakes/ biscuits are very cheap premade.

I make my own jam with free/ cheap fruit but the cost of the sugar is more than the cheapest jam at the supermarket. I can make bread but at double the cost of a loaf of cheap white from the supermarket. It's not really a fair comparison because if you're trying to get your shopping bill down it's probably not awash with artisanal loaves.

I do wonder if I'm missing something though, so would love to hear what it is you make from scratch that's cheaper than premade.

Main meals are usually cheaper eg I can cook pasta for 4 for under £3, ready meals would be lots more. Casseroles, soups, curries all cheaper to home make but snacks like biscuits are often cheaper shop bought

Definitely pulses. I buy dried pulses which are even cheaper than tinned and cook them in my instant pot. Three bean chilli, Dahl, butter bean stew, lentil Bolognese, chickpea curry etc all frequently seen on our table. I am vegan and DP is happy to eat mostly vegan, by far and away the most expensive things we buy are his cheese and meat so he usually picks one meat/cheese product a week.

Bread is cheap to make, I worked it out at 60p a loaf but I have a bread machine and buy flour from Lidl.

For me making from scratch is always cheaper because the so called ready made meals that are cheaper are full of shite and full of ingredients that you would never find in a kitchen. Why would you choose to fill growing bodies with that rubbish?

Oh and you need to get the right mince - you need 5% British beef reared, slaughtered and prepared.

It isn’t necessarily cheaper, but I do find that homemade stuff is more filling and therefore goes further - a supermarket family steak pie is about £4 and will do one meal. You can get diced beef for about £2.60 a pack at Tesco so you could probably make the pie for about the same price but I’d be able to make that stretch to two meals because it’s more hearty and tastes better so you don’t need a massive wedge.

We use lots of plant-based proteins and fish (white meat). If you buy whole chickens from local butchers, it goes a long way as you can use meat and the rest can be used for stews and casserole.

Lovely Interesting thread

(Although it is illegal to give your chickens leftovers)

@winechateauxjoy

It's economies of scale, and seasonal cooking. At the moment I can buy cauliflowers for under 50p so if you have the freezer space make cauli cheese - as much as you have space for. The same goes for tomatoes. I make masses of tomato sauce for home made pizzas when tomatoes are cheap. Home made shepherd's pie, lasagne, stew, soups - all taste much nicer than the ready meals.

19p cauliflowers in Tesco today! And 39p for 2.5 kg potatoes!

I had no idea it was illegal to give chickens leftovers. Is it only the cooked stuff? I have a tub on the side and peel/ crusts (children) go to the chickens/ ducks. I also take part in a food redistribution scheme (collect the food that's at it's best before from supermarkets and give it away/ eat it ourselves) and the chickens get any bagged salads which are on the turn.

@womaninatightspot

I had no idea it was illegal to give chickens leftovers. Is it only the cooked stuff? I have a tub on the side and peel/ crusts (children) go to the chickens/ ducks. I also take part in a food redistribution scheme (collect the food that's at it's best before from supermarkets and give it away/ eat it ourselves) and the chickens get any bagged salads which are on the turn.

Yes you aren't allowed to give them anything that's been prepared in your kitchen. If you have prepared it in a special "chicken kitchen" it's ok though! So the bagged salads you give are fine. A lot of people still do give their chickens left overs of course, but I wouldn't give them meat.

I think the law changed after the BSE crisis, although I am not sure about that.

I started making snacks during lockdown instead of buying crisps, biscuits, nuts, random packaged nibbles etc and never realised how cheap and better tasting those are! It was actually to save space on shopping so we could prioritise fresh food but I'm going to stick with homemade from now on.

For sweet stuff I make cupcakes or loaf cakes which are quicker to portion & freeze than normal cakes. Ingredients are just variations of sugar, eggs, flour, vanilla, fruit or cocoa powder. There are sponge cake recipes using oil instead of butter which actually taste a lot softer and moister. Best salty/crunchy snack is popcorn which is incredibly cheap and delicious with butter and a sprinkling of salt and sugar. Replaces the longing for crisps and it's significantly healthier as well.

@Thesearmsofmine

Not everything will be cheaper to make from scratch but the quality will be better. With the bread, a decent homemade loaf will be far nicer and will fill you up much more than the cheapest loaf from the supermarket. I have a cake in the oven at the moment, and to buy the same cane would probably be cheaper than the ingredients I used(although I already had them in) but I know exactly what is in it( ingredients) compared to the huge list below of what is in a supermarket version.

ngredients
Chocolate Flavour Buttercream (21%) [Sugar, Unsalted Butter (Milk), Glucose Syrup, Water, Fat-Reduced Cocoa Powder, Dried Glucose Syrup, Cornflour, Preservative (Potassium Sorbate), Emulsifiers (Mono- and Diglycerides of Fatty Acids, Polyglycerol Esters of Fatty Acids)], Sugar, Milk Chocolate (11%) [Sugar, Cocoa Butter, Cocoa Mass, Skimmed Milk Powder, Whey Powder (Milk), Anhydrous Milk Fat, Palm Oil, Emulsifiers (Soya Lecithins), Sal Oil, Mango Kernel Oil, Shea Oil], Belgian Milk Chocolate (9%) [Sugar, Whole Milk Powder, Cocoa Butter, Cocoa Mass, Whey Powder (Milk), Emulsifiers (Soya Lecithins), Flavouring], Fortified Wheat Flour [Wheat Flour, Calcium Carbonate, Iron, Niacin (B3), Thiamin (B1)], Pasteurised Free Range Whole Egg, Glucose Syrup, Unsalted Butter (Milk), Whipping Cream (Milk), Fat-Reduced Cocoa Powder, Belgian Milk Chocolate Curls [Sugar, Cocoa Butter, Whole Milk Powder, Cocoa Mass, Whey Powder (Milk), Lactose (Milk), Emulsifiers (Soya Lecithins), Vanilla Extract], Water, Palm Oil, Dried Glucose Syrup, Humectant (Glycerol), Palm Kernel Oil, Pasteurised Free Range Egg White, Soya Flour, Invert Sugar Syrup, Rapeseed Oil, Skimmed Milk Powder, Palm Stearin, Raising Agents (Diphosphates, Sodium Carbonates), Grape Juice from Concentrate, Rice Starch, Emulsifiers (Mono- and Diglycerides of Fatty Acids, Polyglycerol Esters of Fatty Acids), Preservatives (Potassium Sorbate, Acetic Acid), Cornflour, Acidity Regulator (Sodium Acetate), Flavouring, Colour (Iron Oxides)

I know what you mean I bought a cheapie tub of ice cream and was agog at he ingredients. I've taken to reserving the duck eggs and whenever I see cream on reduced at the supermarket I buy loads and make a vat of custard. Whole eggs, cream, sugar and vanilla a bit of corn starch if it's single/ whipping cream. Freeze it and use in lieu of ice cream with hot puds or reheat to serve with cold puds.

@PastelFlowerJelly

I started making snacks during lockdown instead of buying crisps, biscuits, nuts, random packaged nibbles etc and never realised how cheap and better tasting those are! It was actually to save space on shopping so we could prioritise fresh food but I'm going to stick with homemade from now on.

For sweet stuff I make cupcakes or loaf cakes which are quicker to portion & freeze than normal cakes. Ingredients are just variations of sugar, eggs, flour, vanilla, fruit or cocoa powder. There are sponge cake recipes using oil instead of butter which actually taste a lot softer and moister. Best salty/crunchy snack is popcorn which is incredibly cheap and delicious with butter and a sprinkling of salt and sugar. Replaces the longing for crisps and it's significantly healthier as well.

Love the idea of making my own snacks as I can see savings to be made. I make loaf cakes too as I batch cook it helps with storage/ oven space. The children thwart my cupcake offerings by wanting to decorate them and then only licking off the frosting. Might as well be using those fake polystyrene cakes they use for extra tiers on wedding cakes. Random question do you popcorn on the stove? I tried and cooked it in butter but it came out super heavy. Normally I buy microwave popcorn

@MrsPear

Oh and you need to get the right mince - you need 5% British beef reared, slaughtered and prepared.

I completely agree with you there. I find it much cheaper to buy in 750g packs uncooked meat gets made into meatballs / burgers and frozen.

I wouldn't give the chickens meat (the cat/ dog would stage a revolt). It's interesting to know I always thought people kept chickens as a way of reducing food wastage.

I think when people say this they really mean “on average it’s cheaper to cook from scratch than buy lots of preprepared or takeaway meals” not “every single thing is cheaper from scratch” because particularly with bulk, cheap and labour intensive items like bread, biscuits or cakes you have real economies of scale. So it would be cheaper to make your own lentil and bean chilli than buy a chilli con carne ready meal; but very unlikely to be cheaper to make your own biscuits for example. I think cooking with meat and for main courses it’s almost always cheaper to do it yourself but that depends on the quality of what you’re comparing.

I cook it on the stove but with oil, not butter, can’t really tell the difference but if you’ve ever opened a packet of microwave popcorn before cooking it it’s enough to put you off, the amount of lard in there is shocking...

Some things are cheaper, but home made from scratch high quality fresh foods can be very expensive, whereas yellow label/ budget supermarket brands are going to be incredibly cheap but much poorer quality. IME very cheap packaged foods and yellow label items are the cheapest way to eat (think yellow label sausages with budget brand beans) especially when combined with cheap home made staples (mash potato home made with the cheapest potatoes, some boiled carrots). If you go veggie or mostly veggie you can cut the price again. A lot of supermarkets have a few very cheap veggies each month, if you base your diet around them (and make good use of bulk cooking and freezing for variety) then it doesn't have to cost a lot at all. It's also a good idea to buy ingredients you will use all of, the amount people waste of things like garlic and onions because they use some of them for a recipe and then they go off? That all adds up. Meaning it can actually be much cheaper to use frozen or lazy garlic, things like that

I don't cook from scratch because it's cheaper but because it's better quality. I mostly eat meat, veg and potatoes or fish like smoked haddock or salmon. I only eat free range meat and no ready meal tastes as good as home made.

For Christmas I have made my own mincemeat for mince pies, my own pigs in blankets with sausages containing 97% pork. I'll make stuffing from the same sausages, I make my own Yorkshire pudding and profiteroles for pudding.

There's a lot of food I don't eat like pasta, rice or pulses/beans+++ - maybe ready meals of that sort of food are more palatable? I boycott palm oil and that cuts out a huge number of ready made items, so better for me to make stuff at home.

Re:popcorn, I have a popcorn machine that I bought for about £10 a few years ago I think from Argos. It makes air-popped popcorn, so you don’t even need to add oil, it’s literally just the kernels. You can add oil/toppings afterwards if desired but I usually just have it plain. Super cheap and healthy snack

It's also a good idea to buy ingredients you will use all of, the amount people waste of things like garlic and onions because they use some of them for a recipe and then they go off? That all adds up. Meaning it can actually be much cheaper to use frozen or lazy garlic, things like that

Onions last for weeks and can often be bought individually. We use a big bag in 1-2 weeks and I don't cook every day. Cooking would have to be quite occaisional for onions to go to waste.

I buy frozen crushed garlic because it's easier and it's also far cheaper than buying fresh - its about a pound for 400 g in ice cube shapes. We do have fresh garlic for the odd occasion when I make something like prawns in garlic sauce, which is better with sliced, rather than crushed garlic.

Having a freezer makes managing food waste much easier, especially for singles/couples who struggle with family sized packs of things. Our freezer is full of leftovers like half tins of beans, a forgotten pepper cut up to go in a chilli later, big packs of meat broken down into smaller portions, that sort of thing. It's a mistake to see a freezer as something for families only.

Jacket potatoes with cheese (or omelette) would be cheaper than the ready made version. I was surprised to find out that this actually existed as a ready meal!

I had a glut of onions this year and dehydrated them. It's one of things that I wonder if it was worth the time as it took ages doing all that fine chopping and the house reeked for two days! Handy to throw them into soups and stocks as they dissolve quickly and have quite a sweet oniony flavour.

No waste though!

@PonDeReplay

Jacket potatoes with cheese (or omelette) would be cheaper than the ready made version. I was surprised to find out that this actually existed as a ready meal!

I often do a tray of baked potatoes whenever the oven is on for something else, quick tasty and cheap.

I once had the misfortune to buy a premade spanish omlette from the supermarket. It had been made with mash instead of fried potato slices so was devoid of texture. Taught me to be a bit more discerning about yellow sticker stuff.