To say think a roast dinner can be a cheap meal?

[HuffyPuffyStuffy]

I grew up eating roast dinners, always on a Sunday and often midweek too. I don't always cook a roast on a Sunday now but we always have a least one roast dinner a week. I mentioned to a newish friend earlier that I was cooking a roast today and she was teasing me about being "posh" and that she only has a roast on special occasions a roast costs so much!
I tried to say that a roast can be a cheap meal and she thought I was lying when I said that today's meal for four (2 adults and 2 teens) would cost under £6.00 and that we would have leftover meat for tomorrow. Obviously, a big joint of sirloin beef or a new season leg of lamb would be expensive but I couldn't get her to accept that a roast dinner could be cheap! I was so miffed I costed it out .........

1.5 kg joint of pork shoulder (Aldi) £4.21
Potatoes - roasted (Wonky Morrisons) 25p
Parsnips - roasted (Aldi) 20p
Carrots - boiled (Aldi) 15p
swede - boiled (Aldi) 20p
frozen peas (Morrisons) 30p
Stuffing made from leftover bread, half an onion and herbs from garden. 15p
Gravy - made from meat juice, plain flour, veg water.......10p

£5.56 for the roast

I didn't use my oven today. Meat was roasted in the slow cooker, potatoes and parsnips cooked in an air fryer and the veg cooked in my pressure cooker.

If you did a roast today how much did it cost?

Chicken was £3.59, potatoes 69p, parsnips 59p carrots 48p, green beans 89p, frozen red cabbage 75p (all veg enough for another meal) frozen Yorkshire puddings (I know lazy) 89p for 12, take out what I need, 3 today. £6 includes meat for sandwiches

you can plenty of meals out of a roast chicken

time consuming but not really expensive, as long as you use the left overs

It can be cheap if you buy intensively and unethically reared pork or battery chicken, both pumped full of hormones and anti biotics

Am not a vegan, but would not buy such cheap pork

But yes, aside from my pompous ness and judginess … a roast CAN be cheap

We did roast beef this week.
Massive piece from Aldi £12 it fed us all plenty (5 adults) with more left for another meal or two for the three of us who live here.
Potatoes roasted big bag £1.30 from Asda will last all week for mash and baked pots.
Carrots Asda big bag 45p only used 2 there's enough for the rest of the week too.
Cauliflower Asda £1 so big I used half and will finish it this week.
Parsnips Asda big bag 45p only used three.
Peas Asda under £1 used a half bag
Frozen Yorkshires my Mum Brough them no idea how much but usually about £1 or so
One stock cube and the drippings for the gravy
Cherry pie from Asda £1.50 that's gone up from a pound.
Custard I made. birds, sugar and milk.
We're all full and the fridge is too.

It’s also a meal I find easy to make and I hate cooking.
Question is though - do you have it at lunch or supper time?

We do a chicken or a small pork shoulder joint almost every sunday & yes it's pretty cheap, especially because we usually get 3 meals out of it. The veg is cheap and it's all easy to prepare.

Ha - my Christmas dinner isn’t much more than a weekly roast 😆

Today I did a roast for 16 people.

The beef joint was £18.
Cooked it with celery, leeks, carrots and onions for the stock/gravy. Maybe £1
We had roast potatoes 69p
Roast parnsips 89p
Boiled carrots 49p (with some butter and parsley)
Cauliflower cheese (2 cauliflowers, 99p each, butter, flour, cheese was probably another £1 as used up old cheddar and Parmesan for the top, herbs and paprika too)
Broccoli 3 heads 1.47
Peas from frozen 1.69
Yorkshire puddings - 10 egg mix so £2 for the eggs, say another £1 for the milk, oil and flour.
Gravy
There were sauces but mostly homemade, add on another 50p maybe.

Chocolate Cherry gateaux for afterward.
Cake was an 8 egg mix, add butter, flour, sugar, 400g plain chocolate, cocoa, fresh cream for whipping, two bags of frozen black cherries, mix, whole thing was around £9 I’d say.

Reckon the meal cost about £40-42

Not a cheap meal but wasn’t intending it to be - we have a large amount of leftovers, tomorrow will be hot beef sandwiches for tea, I’ve already included leftover veg in salads for tomorrow’s packed lunches, as well as some gateaux each.

For the main dinner i make it around £2.50-2.60 per head. If you include the fact it’s also feeding five for two meals tomorrow we get it down to £1.61 per plate.

Well obviously the key to a cheap roast is cheap meat. I like high quality beef so it's expensive.

It can be cheap if you buy intensively and unethically reared pork or battery chicken, both pumped full of hormones and anti biotics

Or it can be cheap because the uk currently has a backlog of excess piglets that farmers are practically giving away....

If you buy things in season and choose less popular joints etc you can buy fresh British meat including free range chicken, at reasonable prices.

Or it can be cheap because a 3 for £10 meat deal means that you can feed your family when you might not otherwise be able to afford meat.

I meant content not price. Splash out a bit more obviously

Your assumption that we all have herb gardens is....amusing.

Some of us flat dwellers don't even have gardens.

It can be a cost effective meal but how cheap largely depends on the ethics of the meat, however some of the comments are hilarious…2 carrots for 5 adults? I am not a big eater but some of these portions must be so sad.

Yes I find it the least costly meal I make. No need for extra bits and bobs for sauces, or for the side dishes they expect with certain 'cheap' dinners such as garlic bread and salad to go with with pasta, which ramp up the cost. Even cheaper now we don't eat meat too!

[quote CarrotSticks2]You are definitely the same poster OP, maybe you should stop talking to friends about the cost of your roasts!

Here is the original thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4365588-to-think-that-a-roast-dinner-isnt-necessarily-an-expensive-meal-to-cook[/quote]
I thought I was seeing things

Making up pretendy arguments with friends, about the cost of a dinner is bonkers!

Your friend is a bit out of touch, saying roast dinners are posh, and expensive, of which are not. She probably might fork out £ 20 plus, on a takeaway meal, one that you dont have any idea what has gone into it !

I live in a flat and have a couple of pots of fresh herbs, you don't have to have a herb garden!

Of course a roast can be cheap. Any meal can be cheap if you use cheap low quality ingredients.

What you've described is the cheapest, lowest quality of version of a roast possible. It's still a lot more expensive than the cheapest, lowest quality version of a tomato pasta bake, or frozen pizza and value chips or cheapest sausages and mash and cheap veg which are a comparable standard in other meals.

My roasts are not cheap. They include high quality good cuts of meat, King Edward potatoes roasted in goose fat, a range of high quality organic veg, red wine gravy or similar, a range of condiments. And generally its served with a bottle of wine and a homemade pudding. I'd prefer to have a delicious good quality roast every few weeks than a poor quality one every week.

Of all the meals I cook, my roasts are one of the most expensive ones. The only meals that are more expensive are probably fillet steak or more expensive fish.

@jb7445

Surely it just depends on whether a roast is a standard/weekly thing for your family or not?

I don't cook a roast often but when I do I make it basically like a Christmas dinner - allllll the trimmings. To me it feels like a special meal so yeah, it is usually quite expensive. I can see how making it like you say in the OP would be a lot cheaper (but I would be saddened to be served a roast like that in all honesty )

Meat, gravy, stuffing, roast potatoes and several other vegetables would make you sad? Goodness me.

Our Christmas dinner isn't much more involved than that. We do have bread sauce and cranberry sauce as well as gravy, and we have chipolata sausages and sausagemeat stuffing, which we wouldn't bother with at any other time of the year. On the odd occasion I do a traditional roast it would probably be:

Roast meat of some sort, probably lamb or chicken, or a nut roast
Gravy
Roast potatoes always
Roast parsnips almost always
And probably carrots, mashed swede, at least one green vegetable (ideally Brussels sprouts but when they're out of season cabbage or broccoli instead), maybe peas, maybe cauliflower

It's lovely, very filling, and there will be lots of leftovers to save cooking the next day and probably at least one other day. Win win.

I do chicken, stuffing, carrots, parsnips, roast potatoes, Yorkshire and gravy. Half the time pigs in blankets as well.

Amazing how a topic like this will bring out the food snobs. People in the UK generally don't eat enough vegetables, and there are plenty of families really struggling at the moment with rocketing fuel and food bills, so cheap veg is the only veg they can afford. Those who believe that only organic vegetables are safe and nutritious are creating needless anxiety in the people who can't afford to buy organic veg and can't grow their own. Cheap vegetables are absolutely fine. Frozen veg can also be excellent and a great convenience.

How can a chicken be sold for £3-£4? The farmer must be earning pence on that and god alone knows what life the chicken’s life is like.

We have 1-2 roasts a week

Meat varies from £5 chicken to £25 aged beef. But local- know which farm and welfare standards

carrots- basic
frozen peas
broccolli- basic
roast potatoes - buy by the sack
parsnips - whichever in stock
Yorkshires-loads
true foods gravy ( I can make but they do it better and are local)
sausages - love a good sausage

optional
additional veg depends on season