What's cheaper to cook from scratch and what's cheaper to buy ready made?

[coodawoodashooda]

I guess i mean more economival overall in terms of the time needed as well? Im batch cooking for next term and really questioning the value of baking all of these goodies. Im sure i could fill the cupboards cheaper on a trip around a supermarket.

I too would like the slow cooker tomato sauce recipe please!

It's cheaper if you make in bulk.
It's healthier as less processed.

Also you can make it to your portion size and tastes.

The reality is you'll end up doing a bit of both and that's fine.

@Judystilldreamsofhorses

I think a lot of “home-made” things need a decent store cupboard, and if you don’t have that, it is cheaper to buy a pre-made version. I made a vat of chilli the other day (some for dinner, some for the freezer) and all it cost in terms of immediate spend was fresh vegetables. The mince was in the freezer, chilli flakes, paprika, cumin, tomato purée, tinned tomatoes and kidney beans are always in the cupboard, we always have garlic and onions, and there was an open bottle of red wine. We had it with rice - another cupboard staple.

If I had had to buy every one of those things, it would have been far cheaper to go to M&S. It makes me laugh sometimes where the OP on a thread is desperate to save money and people suggest batch cooking - in theory a great idea, but not if someone has properly empty cupboards/fridge.

When I've overspent in the run up to payday, one of the things I'll do is a cheesy pasta bake. Four adult portions, each a full meal. These are the approximate Tesco prices for the ingredients (or part packet thereof):

Pasta £0.20
Veg £0.50

Cheese £0.50
Milk £0.16
Flour £0.02
Butter £0.30
I may also add herbs though a very strong cheddar provides enough flavour.

Total: £1.68
Compared to the £7.00 for four portions of ready meals from Tesco.

The ingredients there are nothing that wouldn't be found in any kitchen.

Takes me an hour to do, but I get that back several times over because I only have to reheat each portion in the microwave. A life saver on late shifts.

Looking at other recipes, I also reckon that my fish pie is cheaper than the Tesco one. Say that the fish costs £4.00 for four portions, the rest is the cheese sauce (see above), veg, and mashed potato.

@DdraigGoch I stand corrected!

It's criminal that ultra processed shitty lasagne that is full of crap and not good for you is cheaper to buy than stuff to make one.

But of course anything made at scale in a factory will be cheap.

The food system needs turning on its head.

Lentil soup. Cheap, full of veg.

Wouldn't bake bread or make home-made pasta.

Home-mead is better for you - mostly.

I’ve just bought DP a pack of 5 cake bars for 35p, not sure how nice they’ll be but I imagine you couldn’t make them from scratch for much less!

@Cookerhood

Do you mean jars of pasta sauce? They have so much sugar in them. A decent tomato sauce is so easy to make in bulk & freeze. Generally I don't buy ready meals/jars etc but I don't make pastry. I also buy quiche as it is a faff to make (although homemade is delicious). Most other things I make (bread I make & buy). Tinned soups for easy lunches. I can't bear shop bought cakes. Too sweet & claggy although cheap!

Not all jar sauces have loads of sugar in them. We get the better ones like Barilla or Loyd Grossman when on offer for a pound, it wouldn't cost a huge amount less to make using tinned tomatoes and it's a time saver and you'd put a bit of sugar in anyway.

You have to be careful to compare like with like. Of course you can buy cheaper pizza, biscuits, lasagne etc than what it costs to make, but the home made version will often be far superior than the cheap ready made ones with better quality ingredients and more meat, cheese etc. Home made is probably more comparable to Charlie Bingham ready meals, not the £3 family lasagne for example.

We rented a house in Sicily and the owner left us lots of jars of home made tomato sauce from when they had a glut of tomatoes. It tasted amazing. I would love a recipe as the shop ones are cheap but taste very strong. If I make a pie I make the inside and buy ready made pastry for speed. Home made Yorkshire pudding is much better than shop bought.

This started out as laziness because I hated doing extra chopping for batch cooking but it’s actually made my meals healthier and cheaper.

I use a food processor on a pulse setting for dicing all the veg. I always use onion and carrot but often any other suitable veg that’s in season so cheaper so for example lasagne maybe some peppers, courgettes, mushrooms etc

I brown the meat and take it out (always use beef and pork for lasagne). Then I throw the diced veg in the pot and let it sweat and reduce right down. It chops very small in the food processor so I do a lot and it reduces in bulk by half or so. This takes a while but only needs the occasional stir so I do it while I’m doing other kitchen jobs. Throw the mince back in, tinned tomatoes, tomatoe purée, herbs, bit of cheap wine, leave to simmer.

I tend to batch cook once or twice a week then do quick meals other times. Eventually you will get a good freezer stash and it’s a money and time saver. Always cook at least 3 lasagnes in one go but I just freeze the meat sauce so it’s an assembly job only but takes up less space on the freezer.

The key I’ve found to cutting cost is minimising the meat you use, replace it for veg or a handful of lentils and a decent stock of store cupboard staples.

You get far better stuff homemade, you can not compare a homemade e.g. chocolate muffin with a cheap shop muffin purely on price, the amount of absolute shit in processed foods is amazing.

A pre-made meat lasgna is only cheaper because it is shitter.

We eat lentil lasgna instead, cheaper than meat lasgna, as well as healthier.

DH cooks from scratch, much healthier, to know exactly what has gone into the food. May be more expensive, as many convenience foods/ready meals look very cheap, but as our kids are adults now the portions are often quite small in ready meals, a lot of box and packaging but not much food. I know my adult children wouldn’t enjoy these type of meals as it’s not something they are used to eating.

Almost everything is cheaper to buy - you can argue over whether it's good quality for the money. Plebs like me can't taste the difference, anyway.

When people say "cheaper to make and freeze" - include cost of buying freezer, delivery of freezer to your home, disposal of freezer when done with it, electricity to run freezer, value of your time in preparation and maintaining inventory and home-use-by-dates, containers to hold the sauce, electricity to wash the containers before and after, and space in your home you pay for to store the freezer....

@SchrodingersImmigrant

I love my tomato sauce. I make 16 porions in one go. 6 hours in a slowcooker makes a delicious one with VERY little hassle

Another one who is curious about this!

I stock up on baked beans. I enjoy making them in slow cooker but not worth the hassle.

I often batch prepare veg/herbs/spices for the slow cooker and freeze.

Also I cannot make lasagne and I hate the pre-made ones. But my DM's is the best so we wait for her to visit

Also shop bought pastry. We eat a quiche several times a week. Life is too short to make pastry (although my DM thinks this is the height of laziness )

How do you store all this batch cooking?

In tupperware in the freezer?

Then can you cook from frozen or have to take it out to defrost 24 hours before?

I'd love to cook some macaroni cheese, quorn lasagna and chilli, but no idea how to store it.
Also, if I make pizza dough, how, and for how long, can I store that? Thanks

Well you can buy 20 chicken nuggets from Iceland for probably £1, but they will be ultra processed rubbish compared to home made. I cut corners like frozen chopped onion and garlic, and try to make thinks from scratch in large batches. Homemade soups are so much tastier, and far more packed with veg than shop bought. Big batch of mince for chillis/ bolognese/ cottage pie etc.
Another one wanting the slow cooker tomato sauce recipe!

Bake and freeze: Chili by the quart
Spaghetti sauce by the pint
banana bread or sweet muffins
pound cake
Precook and freeze: Beef mince (aka ground beef)
chicken and rice soup

I have small Tupperware boxes that I tend to put individual portions in as I have a fussy/ busy family. Will take out in the morning and it is defrosted by the evening. Macaroni doesn't seem t freeze as well, but the cheese sauce does, so my dds can make the pasta when they get in and add

Another poster who’d like @SchrodingersImmigrant to post her tomato sauce recipe 🙂

@Zorinindustries

How do you store all this batch cooking?

In tupperware in the freezer?

Then can you cook from frozen or have to take it out to defrost 24 hours before?

I'd love to cook some macaroni cheese, quorn lasagna and chilli, but no idea how to store it.
Also, if I make pizza dough, how, and for how long, can I store that? Thanks

I have some Pyrex-type containers. They can be expensive, so shop around for offers. They last for ages. Make sure you get the type that go in the oven. I take it out in the morning, then warm it slowly in the oven when I get in. You could microwave most things.

I freeze pizza dough in IKEA zip-lock bags.

I don't know about freezing Mac n cheese. I've frozen fish pie and lasagne, but I imagine Macaroni cheese might end up gluggy.

I buy chicken kievs and fishcakes - things that will be very labour intensive for a single serving, basically. I don’t mind doing multiple processes and buying lots of ingredients for a fish pie or lasagna or a stew or a curry as I know that’ll do for multiple meals, but life is too short to spend that much time on single servings!

I also don’t make pastry from scratch - if Mary Berry buys it in that’s good enough for me!

I quite often freeze pot pie filling in sandwich bags - chicken, mince beef and onion etc that I can cook in a big batch, then top with read made puff pastry when I defrost it - if you buy the sheet of pastry, you need about half for a pie and then can use the other half to make pesto and tomato tarts or something.

The vast majority of things including lasagna eg I made lasagna this week, for 6 portions you need 500g mince (£1.49 lidl) an onion (10p) stick of celery (10p) large carrot (10p) 150g mushrooms (40p) 1/2 pack lasagna sheets (50p) 1 can chopped tomatoes (50p) I carton passata (40p) garlic (I use frozen 10p for 2 blocks) some oregano, black pepper, salt etc to taste (10p) oil. 1 pint milk (25p) cheese to taste (I use a ball mozzarella 50p, tub of ricotta in white sauce 89p and Parmasan 50p) plus flour and oil or butter for the roux

This is not a particularly cheap recipe you can use just cheddar and milk for the topping. It's still cheaper than 6 x ready meals and tastes far better plus more filling.

@lannistunut

Premise lasagna is barely edible and doesn't have much meat in it, and no cheese