What is cooking from scratch?

[ChockysChimichanga]

I see this phrase a lot on MN, but what do you actually consider ‘cooking from scratch’?

Are tinned tomatoes cheating and you crush your own tomatoes? Fresh herbs instead of dried? Dried beans/pulses instead of tinned?

Personally, I think life is too short to crush a tomato and tinned beans save a lot of time.

I suppose it depends on what each individual thinks is worth making from scratch.

For me I'd never bother to cook beans or pulses from dried. Seems like a huge effort for very little reward.

I also would never bother to make from scratch

Puff pastry
Pasta
Pesto
Mayonnaise

Things I think are worth the time and effort are

Cakes
Biscuits
Actual meals over ready meals
Tomato sauce for pasta

I would consider for example cooking a curry from scratch to mean fresh (not frozen/jarred) garlic, ginger, onions, chillies, whole tomatoes, whole spices (mace,cloves,tumeric,curry leaves etc) and not boil in bag/microwave rice. Including homemade naan bread from yeast and flour.
Pasta dish - sauce cooked from scratch (tomatoes, garlic , onions etc all fresh) and pasta made from eggs and flour.
Pizza from scratch dough from scratch, pasta sauce from scratch but obviously not going to make our own salami/pepperoni

And never ever make a cake using a cake mix or pancakes using a batter mix or cookies using a......you get it!! Please, just don't ....

I take it to mean broadly using single ingredient products. So tinned tomatoes yes, pasta sauce in a jar, no.

But I agree it's a bit of a pointless distinction because I think most people would accept you can cook from scratch, but that doesn't necessarily involve making your own pasta. Or churning your own butter. And people will always disagree on what products can be bought ready made but still count as cooking from scratch.

I'm making a lasagne tonight, and if someone asked me (not sure why they would), I'd say it was from scratch, because I'm not getting the tomato sauce or the cheese sauce from a jar. But I will use tinned tomatoes and I'm not making the pasta sheets myself. Maybe someone else would say this isn't "properly" from scratch.

It just means combining ingredients to make a dish rather than buying the dish ready made. So pasta sauce is onion, garlic, herbs and tomatoes rather than a jar. Same with curry sauce.

Tinned tomatoes and pulses are fine for this, canning is just a way of preserving ingredients.

I count dried pasta from scratch!

I cook a lot, but even fresh pasta seems beyond me, i watched jamie oliver do it once on tv, big surface, volcano shaped flour, eggs, looked easy.

Bought some pasta 00 grade flour, still have it unopened.

I almost went as far as to buying a pasta making roller machine because that was why i wasn't doing it, i didn't have the machine, but then thought who am i kidding

I might do it one day, one long nothing else to do but piss about with flour and eggs weekend. But until that weekend presents itself.

😂😂😂

@Lifestooshort71

whats with the 'please. Just don't'

what difference does it make to you?

Remember that scene from Top Gear where there was a dead cow on a car roof and Hammond said "You have to peel it."? That's how I'd explain what cooking from scratch is. It's quite nuanced. But it generally means to get a load of ingredients to make a meal instead of buying a ready-made meal off the supermarket shelf.

🤣🤣🤣

I thought this thread was about what cooking from scratch means and that's what I was adding to....it means not using packet mixes but you're quite right, I'm not bothered if you're into Betty Crocker and reckon the cakes are home made.

It means cooking not heating up.

For example, I make chilli from scratch. This does not been I mince my own beef! Nor crush my own tomatoes - no I used tinned chopped tomatoes, and I use tinned kidney beans. But I chop the onions, add the various spices, fry the meat, grate the garlic add the beans and whatever else.
If you buy a chicken Kiev where all you do is stick it in the oven - that's not cooking from scratch. If you took a chicken breast, wrapped it around a butter/garlic patty, coated it all in egg then breadcrumbs, that's from scratch.
Less processed foods, but some foods it's silly to make yourself (like the tinned tomatoes/beans, minced meat).

Peeling and chopping fresh vegetables, making your own stock or sauce, using fresh herbs, making breadcrumbs for coating fish, not using packets, jars or ready meals. Tins of tomatoes are ok but I do sometimes boil tomatoes, peel their skin off and squash.

For me, it's using fresh and preserved produce but not highly or ultra processed foods.

So starting a bolognaise with an onion, garlic, tinned tomatoes, dried herbs if I don't have fresh, etc.

Not throwing a jar of ready made sauce onto the meat.

I will use pre-made mixes of spices and herbs to get the right ingredients and proportions, as well as having a well stocked basic herbs, spices and condiments collection.

I will cook from scratch frequently but often batch cook those items to freeze portions for other nights I am short on time. I also call "throw garlic, lemon zest and juice and olive oil into a bag with chicken" before freezing cooking from scratch, as i will roast that chicken another night o am short on time without resorting to a jar full of preservatives or extra sauces for flavour.

I occasionally cook chickpeas or kidney beans or lentils from dried, but am more likely to open a tin of ready cooked - but I get low salt and no additional preservative types when buying the tins. I use olive oil, ghee and real butter most often as my fats - never margarine for anything.

For me, it's about using the freshest and cleanest (organic, free range, pesticide free etc) ingredients I can, and getting a broad range of different food.

I eat very little bread nowadays, and most of that is sourdough or brown soda bread.

Sometimes cooking from scratch is a huge amount of peeling, chopping, mixing, stirring in different bits, etc - but sometimes it's as simple as throw some seasoned meat and veg into the oven either with some potatoes (probably also in oven) or pasta/rice, abandoning until cooked.

Basically this ^

In addition to the above, stock is quite important.

I am trying to get to the point where I make my own stock. But it’s time-consuming and I often use a stock cube or a jar.

It is more of a spectrum than a binary scratch/notscratch. For example take a pasta cooked at home. I do a totally from scratch: Flour, egg, salt, oil, tomato onion, garlic, basil, oregano, thyme and a mozarella ball as cheese and a sprinking of grana padano on top as well. Veg gets roasted and pureed and cooked down to make the sauce with the herbs. Pasta dough gets mixed left to rest knocked down formed and then the pasta is cooked and topped with sauce.

OR I get some dried pasta and make sauce with tinned tomatoes instead of fresh ones.

Both of those are "from scratch" compared to getting a jar of dolmio. The more scratch one is nicer, but the tinned version is 80% as good in 20% of the time.

Things to avoid when cooking from scratch:

Open one thing and it is done.
Complete ready meal in microwave.

Things to not worry about:

Frozen veg.
Tinned ingredients.

@ginslinger I do actually make my own pasta and noodles 😂 My husband got me a pasta roller for Christmas 😬

I assume you also have an outside bread oven, cheese making facilities and a small slaughter house not to mention the orchard and potato field... and you do all this with 3 unde 5 and a full time job!

Glad it's not just me.

I'd consider it yo be making your own bolognese/chilli/shepherd's pie/lasagne etc without using any jars of sauce. Dried pasta is fine imo as are tinned Tom's and pulses.

Plus all the decorating, maintenance, but then I get up at 1am , and go to bed at midnight. Proper little housewife, I am!

For me it's using ingredients and putting them together to make what I want to make, not constructing something from pre made parts. So for a "from scratch" lasagna I'd use tinned tomatoes and dried pasta ( because I'm not a psychopath) but I'd make the sauces. So I'm making a ragu and a bechamel and turning them into a lasagna. Not a lasagna kit. And I don't use spice or herb mixes because I like to make my own because I think they are nicer. A lot of this is because I like to cook. All bets would be off if I didn't!

Yes I've made my own pasta too - but I was just playing things for laughs earlier and not being remotely serious which is why I expressed faux outrage about being accused of using a pasta machine 😁I was replying to the person who ground their own wheat with their teeth 😂

@ginslinger Ah gotcha! 😬