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 consider macaroni cheese as a bit of a faff and I can never remember how much sauce/macaroni to make. Plus it's much nicer if you grill/bake it after assembly, so not really that quick.

In my mind, 'very quick supper dishes' are things like cheese, egg or beans on toast, an omelette or something like garlic prawns and bread.

Making one lasagne from scratch is time consuming, but it’s so quick and easy if you already have frozen portions of ragu in the freezer. I make a huge ragu once a month and it’s a complete life saver. Lasagne prep time is approx 10-15 mins (which includes making the white sauce).

I love sourdough bread and I always buy that. Although it costs practically nothing to make, it’s a very time consuming process so I gladly pay someone else for their expertise on that one.

I guess it depends if you’re talking like for like? Most ready made things aren’t as high quality unless you buy very expensive ready made.

I cook a lot, I really enjoy cooking and I’m a bit of a feeder.

I make my own sauces, tomato based ones are very cheap, tinned toms (plum ones and mash them, chipped toms can be a bit watery), salt, pepper, garlic, onion and herbs. If you have freezer space you can make it in bulk but sticking it in freezer bags.

Loving this. I do batch cook chilli, shepherds pie mince, tom mince etc. I am going to get a pastry case today and add my own filling. Never thought of doing this. I tried to make it from scratch before ie my own pastry. Disaster. Sometimes I will use frozen mash in week to add to batch cooked cottage pie mince. 1.00 for a pack, just cheap as a bag of spuds but normally do my own.

@SchrodingersImmigrant

My basic tomato sauce🙈It's really nothing special. 1litre of passata 1.8kg of chopped tomatoes (can use 2kg. I get 2.5kg tin and use other 700 for something else) 10ml Worcestershire sauce 15ml dried mixed herbs nalearly 2 tablespoons. I use meazuring spoons 1.5tsp cinnamon 3 garlic cloves 15ml kucharyk 3tbsp balsamic vinegar

• all of this goes into slowcooker, set it on high for 6 hours

1tbsp of oil and fry 400g of red onion. I fry half to really caramelise and half just a bit to soften.
Add to the slowcooker. Mix. Close, say bye for now.

It makes lovely and thick basic sauce and the long cooking get rid of the tin taste thing. Then i portion it and freeze and finish off, depending on a dish. So if you add more italian herbs and bits like olives if you like them, blueeeh, it makes nice pasta sauce. If you add chili, smoked paprika etc, you get spanish like flavours for meat and veg. Add cumin and chili, maybe bit more garlic and it's a shakshouka base. And so on. Really versatile. One of the most practical foods I have in a freezer.

Anx if you mix it with bit off fried mince, chopped chili, smoked paprika, bit more garlic and maybe chopped pepper, you can then put it on a toast, tope with cheese (melt) and it makes great beer accompaniment😂

Thanks for this but what is kucharyk? Not heard of it and googling just seems to get people’s names. Also how do people speedily defrost all this batch cooked stuff? By the time I’ve got precooked stuff out of the freezer and defrosted it never seems to save much time. Plus it needs ridiculously sized pans to batch cook as our family seems to eat loads. I agree on the bread - we have a bread maker but getting bread on every day before work/ school is too stressful so it tends just to be used at weekends/ holidays.

Thank you everyone!

[quote underneaththeash]@ForCluckSake - yes, but with what in the mince? We only buy organic and that's more expensive than a regular bought lasagne - even with the other ingredients. Mince doesn't need to be 100% beef either.[/quote]
Ready made lasagne won't have organic mince in it!

This is a list of ideas
Tinned soups
Quiches
Pies
Cakes
Scrambled eggs on toast with butter etc
Pasta
Curries
Brownies
Cookies
Rice based dishes
Stewed fruit

You can buy stuff from the shops. Your local farmer's market will have many ingredients for people to look at. Always buy fresh from a farmer market if possible and in season too. Find out what days they operate on and see what produce is available to get. My other key piece of advice is to make batches of food to keep in advance for up to two weeks.
Get your kids involved. Have them help you cook food.

@Walkingbkwrm apologies! It's kucharek (we call it differently in my native but this is the same thing available in polish sections everywhere)
www.sainsburys.co.uk/gol-ui/product/kucharek-seasoning-200g?productId=15198&storeId=10151&catalogId=10241&langId=44&krypto=8JvjEnX8UygE5Ys3R6Ivca%2BcN1pg4WypbfGA3xGAR615AkShHOuCtSnCwlKsJg1%2BTozjozUS%2BBDeJVBCVWVSqMkrOI5GrakQ69bKV6kg36OfMwCND1dFriLs0AC%2BI0%2BsxUXNtUHauacgCFtEpRT4KwMfIQjH2DNNQmPx%2FkHDIFkWr4geV8JCsJtFDS8zjH%2FTFJiIr5dMcocODMPDE8n%2FMEwl8qfMkgc8u4LPhWtICv7tUiWBNRF27Mi7L5CHOP73GCcmI7a%2BPB9T3R0S8iIfXkZy%2FQQm57aCpKoSiX1SAt9jb9lRuwOIcLDcd2mJbdBy%2BvpK%2BBxx9jOLnpUpdAb8vafIlpMveGE9nHs4wToMKkvkP6NG7Z8k8lcOLpGArcOl&ddkey=https%3Agb%2Fgroceries%2Fkucharek-seasoning-200g

Re defrost. I ahave everything in single portions since it's just two of us so no issue, but if you have bigger batches, I guess planning ahead might be the only option for stuff which needs cooking? If it just needs heating up, either microwave or pot worked for us before when I lived with my family still.

I have 6.5l slowcooker. 1 giant I think 10l or 12l pot and massive wok. Otherwise all normal sized stuff.

Don't the breadmakers have proofing and delayed start? My parents used to put stuff in in the evening and have bread in a morning

I make my own pasta sauce, in my instant pot or stove 2-3 onions, 3 carrots all chopped 2-3 celery, 2-3 garlic cloves, fry off gently, add 2 tins of tomatoes, add water to one can, dash of red wine, s&p, mixed herbs, a carton of passata.
20 mins or (stove top 40 mins) wizz up in a blender or a stick blender. Pour into a muffin try 6-8 freeze, pop in pan to add to pizza topping, lasagne, chilli, bolognaise. with meatballs. Would never buy ready meal lasagne grim.

Sounds nice @Smudge77!

@Manzanilla55

Things like lasagne and macaroni cheese take so long to make. I dont have the patience all that standing up! Is it my age (57) or do others agree lol.

I see this said often but I don't find them anymore time consuming than peeling potatoes for example.

Soup is almost always cheaper to make. It’s a great way of using up stray veg in the fridge or if you have a too much of something.

I buy canned pulses except lentils. Even if dried pulses are cheaper I am never organised enough to soak and pre cook.

Agree about soup, especially when even the 'posh' fresh soups are disappointing compared to home made and are mainly made up of very cheap ingredients (carrots, onions, celery, potatoes, pulses).

There's probably only a few pence of ingredients in a £2 carton of soup, even less when a lot of people make soup to use up scraps of leftover meat and on the turn veg that would otherwise be thrown away - you could argue that the cost of ingredients in home made soup is often virtually nothing.

Italian recipe for tomato sauce:

Tomatoes (passata or polpa, even here in Italy fresh tomatoes need to be a certain type and at certain times of year to make decent sauce)

More oil than you'd think- needs to cover the bottom of your pan and then some. More salt than you think- the salt removes the sourness of the tomatoes.

Add basil at the end.
Salt
Oil

A soffritto of onion/celery/carrot if you're making a Ragu/Bolognese sauce with meat, otherwise not.

From a jar of passata I can get 6 portions of lasagne, probably 8-10 of any other pasta dish.

Thanks for the link Shrodingers. I’ll give your sauce a go:).
Pretty sure our bread maker doesn’t have a delay overnight function but it is both old and was originally pretty cheap. Maybe I need a replacement!

@Walkingbkwrm

Thanks for the link Shrodingers. I’ll give your sauce a go:). Pretty sure our bread maker doesn’t have a delay overnight function but it is both old and was originally pretty cheap. Maybe I need a replacement!

My parent's wete making it 10+ years ago. Check. I missed functions like this on my stuff all the time😂

Not cheaper but do love the convenience of pre chopped stir fry veg and packet of ready made noodles

I always find home made pizza costs a fortune as the children want to put on toppings ( it started as a good way to get them to try new things but hot oak smoked salmon, the really big prawns, nice olives (not soaked in vinegar) and half a deli counter of meat are the requested ingredients not forgetting the expensive grated mozzarella rather than a torn up ball) they are happy with any 99p frozen mozzarella/ pepperoni though.

I make pizza..........cheap as chips. Good pizza does not require huge prawns and oak smoked salmon

I make pizza..........cheap as chips. Good pizza does not require huge prawns and oak smoked salmon

Agreed. I usually make it when I've got leftovers to use up for toppings.
Family favourites are leftover bolognese, meatballs or pulled spicy chicken.

I'd rather just buy ready made smoothies, than buy all the fruit to go in one.

@SchrodingersImmigrant

My basic tomato sauce🙈It's really nothing special. 1litre of passata 1.8kg of chopped tomatoes (can use 2kg. I get 2.5kg tin and use other 700 for something else) 10ml Worcestershire sauce 15ml dried mixed herbs nalearly 2 tablespoons. I use meazuring spoons 1.5tsp cinnamon 3 garlic cloves 15ml kucharyk 3tbsp balsamic vinegar

• all of this goes into slowcooker, set it on high for 6 hours

1tbsp of oil and fry 400g of red onion. I fry half to really caramelise and half just a bit to soften.
Add to the slowcooker. Mix. Close, say bye for now.

It makes lovely and thick basic sauce and the long cooking get rid of the tin taste thing. Then i portion it and freeze and finish off, depending on a dish. So if you add more italian herbs and bits like olives if you like them, blueeeh, it makes nice pasta sauce. If you add chili, smoked paprika etc, you get spanish like flavours for meat and veg. Add cumin and chili, maybe bit more garlic and it's a shakshouka base. And so on. Really versatile. One of the most practical foods I have in a freezer.

Anx if you mix it with bit off fried mince, chopped chili, smoked paprika, bit more garlic and maybe chopped pepper, you can then put it on a toast, tope with cheese (melt) and it makes great beer accompaniment😂

Is this what you mean by kucharyk? www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/260860672 I'd never heard of it, but I might get some; it sounds very tast.

Yeah. I made a booboo with y instead of e @sueelleker

Tasty!