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?

It depends.

Last roast we did was a free range organic chicken that was quite large, so cost €16 alone. And done with mediteranean style veggies - pepper, tomato, courgette, onion, mushrooms. Roasted baby potatoes (€1.99 a bag, I use about 3/4 of the bag). So that was on the more expensive side. But all 3 of us ate that (DD doesn't "do" red meat), and we had dinner for another 3 days and sandwiches for 2 sets of lunches with the leftover meat. I also used leftover veg as the base for a pasta sauce for dinner for me another night with some extra tomato sauce.

But yesterday, I had a roast beef dinner where I had picked up a joint in M&S that was yellow stickered to €3.36 (I froze it for a few days, until we were going to eat it). Ordinary roast potatoes from the big sack (€7.50 for 10kg - I probably used about 75c worth) - and the tablespoon of duck fat came off a roast duck a few months back that I had kept in the fridge. Roasted root veg (3 carrots from the 1kg bag costing €0.49, so about 12c; red onion net was €0.49 and I used one so 4c?; 3 cloves garlic...guessing about 30c; and a baby pumpkin I picked up after Halloween for 20c; juice of a clementine (8 per net cost €2.50 so roughly 30c); rosemary from the garden; glug of olive oil, salt and pepper, glug of balsamic vinegar - guessing roughly €1 for those?) I am probably over charging myself at roughly €2.
So less than €6 for a full roast dinner for 2 with leftover meat for todays' dinner, potatoes for home fries with a fried egg tomorrow for lunch and root veg to make soup for today's lunch using some stock.

I am a big fan (when the teen hasn't taken over half the freezer) of doing a large joint, making a good roast dinner and having a couple of meals of leftovers that week, but also freezing leftovers to use another time. So pork sliced very thinly is great to add to chinese stir fry meals, chunks of chicken are great for loads of things including risottos, and even just reheating roasted meat in gravy with fresh boiled veg and potatoes is a tasty dinner. Gravy does freeze well too.

Then again, I'm also a fan of yellow stickered items when I have freezer space, and things like Halloween pumpkins after Halloween when they are pennies but last months in a cool cupboard, and generally try and buy seasonally or on offers for my veg.

I have the means to eat well, but come from a frugal background (we didn't always have much to eat growing up), and although I've loosened the purse strings the past few years and let conveniences in while life was very hectic, energy prices and general inflation mean I need to get back to more frugal ways again. Like remembering to make breadcrumbs with the crusts of bread before they go mouldy, to freeze for stuffing etc when I need it. And going back to stretching things out and cooking from scratch, not just getting pre-prepared packs of veg or already seasoned meat.

That's a weekday roast OP

For a weekend roast you need two types of potato and yorkshire puddings.

We always have beef or lamb for our Sunday roast and then have a chicken or pork roast in the week.

@RosesAndHellebores absolutely - it's no easy task, but more and more independent farmers are trying to back to the older style way of doing things. Not losing out on modern technology etc but understanding how and why farming worked the way it did before we moved to huge single product farming methods. If we chose to buy from producers who are working in this way (follow NativeNorthernProduce on Instagram, or Field&Flower as suppliers in the southwest to name just a couple) you can see that it is viable IF people reduce their meat consumption and are prepared to buy from rare breed, high welfare suppliers. There has to be the custom for them to succeed but their aims are incredibly worthy.

It definitely depends on the meat you buy - if you’re picking a cheap joint or chicken and going for veg like carrots and cabbage or maybe frozen peas then you can definitely do a roast pretty cheaply. I mean, it’s not going to be cheap like value pasta in a tomato sauce is cheap - but it’s not ‘posh’ or super expensive per head if you’re choosing the right components.

It really depends on meat. We’re trying to buy all our meat now from our local butcher rather than the supermarket, so a chicken is now never less than £7 and I recently paid £24 for a large brisket. Brisket!! But we had family coming over and needed a bigger joint. The £7 chicken will be picked clean by our family of 5. Due to the meat, it does make it the most expensive meal we have each week (unless it’s treat night salmon! The DCs insist on eating two portions each).

You are right! I’ve been doing it for years. Cook a large enough piece of meat (or chicken), make loads of gravy and you can slice some of the meat, cover in gravy and freeze it for the following Sunday, making a super easy Sunday dinner. Carrots, cabbage make it extra cheap. Homemade Yorkshire pudding is cheap but frozen are nice, too. Half a jacket potato per person is filling and economical. Plus you don’t have the extra expense of herbs, spices, garlic, pesto, salsa etc which a lot of popular recipes call for. 👍

Yes it can. You can buy veg very cheaply, and if you use chicken it can be a reasonably cheap meal. And we often have left overs the next day. And it can be pretty healthy to.

Never made stuffing here either…. I’m not a bad cook, but it has never occurred to me. Ditto cranberry sauce and bread sauce.

It can be cheap, or it can be expensive. Just like anything else. I do a roast most weeks, because I enjoy it and I get leftovers for days. There’s only me eats it, really, so I usually do roast veg and cauliflower cheese with it for my daughter, and we both eat the leftovers till Wednesday!

I make stuffing from bread. And bread and butter pudding. I like cooking and although I do work, I’m around enough. My kid wanders in and out and tastes things and chatters to me in a way she wouldn’t if I wasn’t the in the kitchen.

When I was making better money, a roast would be a local chicken or a half leg of lamb. I often used to do a steak with it (no point in spending ££££ on a rib of beef for one!) Atm we’re utterly broke, and I made a roast with no meat at all this week. It was still really good, and while not the same I think I’d personally rather do that than buy cheap cuts to roast. (Nothing against cheap cuts, I often stew them etc, but for me a roast is the tender stuff. I don’t like slow/pot roasted meat as a roast dinner. Anyway, we are so skint this month that I’m eating what’s in the freezer, and just buy fresh veg and packed lunch stuff. It’s one way of economising. YMMV, of course)

@HuffyPuffyStuffy Your calculation is only for ingredients and cooking cost. You haven't included your time (roast= most of Sunday in the kitchen). Feck that.

I made a roast for 5 adults the other week and that was just under £10 for 5 adults. (Roast beef, I got a joint 1/3 off from Morrisons ~£5, auntie Bessie’s roast potatoes and Yorkshire puddings, also on offer £1 a bag, cauliflower cheese, frozen peas, and gravy made with the meat juices). I thought that was pretty good value, and I could have shaved a bit more off the cost if I hadn’t opted for a few short cuts.

It isn't most of Sunday in the kitchen at all.
Turn on oven. Peel spuds and par boil. Whilst par boiling bung in meat in roasting tin.
Bung in dish for spuds with oil
Drain spuds and pour onto sizzling oil
Turn oven down to 160ish after 20 mins on 200.
I keep the spud water and use it for the veg. Two lots of veg and Add to serving dish and Bung in microwave ready to be blasted.
Set table while veg boils.
After about an hour and 10 minutes with your feet up. Take out meat and let it rest. Turn up oven to crisp spuds
Add sprinkle of flour to roasting tin, stir well, add organic stock pot to match meat, add glass of wine, add veg water. Season. Simmer.
Bung plates in oven
Carve and arrange meat on platter. Blast veg in microwave, shove spuds in serving dish, gravy into boat.

No more than one hour's cooking.

The left over meat and vegetables always makes the best biryaani.

I have to agree about that. On the rare occasions we have lamb, we have it slow roasted, so it goes into the oven 4-5 hours before we eat on a very low temperature, needing no attention whatsoever during that time. The vegetables get prepared hours later. Chicken obviously needs a lot less time cooking, so I'd start on the veg shortly after putting bird in oven.

A cheaper cut of meat slow roasted (doesn't have to be unethical, I get a local, free range pork leg joint for around £9 directly from the farm) with in season vegetables can be pretty good value.

I cooked pork yesterday with stuffing, roast potatoes, carrots, leeks, purple sprouting broccoli and gravy. Apple sauce on the side. Cost around £11 for 5 adults, and there was enough pork left to make stir fry for 4 of us for dinner tonight.

@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?

No mention of yorkshire puddings ?

We don’t make roasts in a week but because I find them time-consuming, not because they’re expensive - I always thought of them as a cheap meal! (And I know, they aren’t time consuming if you know what you’re doing…but I really don’t 😂).

I bet our meal was more expensive, even if I did batch cook tonight - I’ll try and work it out:

Ragu (serves 8)
900g chicken breasts - £4.50 (Musclefood)
Mattessons smoked turkey bacon - £2.50 (Morrisons)
Fennel bulb - £1.25 (Morrisons)
Onion - 16p (Morrisons)
125ml Sauv Blanc - £1.65 (Morrisons)
Knorr chicken stockpot - 36p
Tomato puree 3tbsp - 12p (Morrisons)
Microwave wholegrain rice and quinoa - £2.76
Frozen peas - 40p (Morrisons)
Total - £13.70 (£6.85 for 4)

I could definitely slim that down by poaching the chicken and using the juices instead of the stockpot and making some mashed potato/real rice instead of microwave packets…or even rice my own cauliflower instead of being a lazy so and so but that’s all within our budget so I’ll embrace the time savers!.

So - yours is cheaper per serving and even more importantly, you get a LOT more food out of your full roast than I’ll get…I mean, mine is only 248 calories per serving (I’m a boring MFP nut).

Your full roast will be around double the cals minimum for a cheaper price per serving. Your meal is definitely, in every way, cheaper and more family friendly.

PS: OP, can I have your stuffing recipe please? I’ve never done stuffing from scratch before!

Our most recent roast was a gressingham duck from ASDA. We roasted so that breast was rare and had them sliced with mini roast potatoes, petit pois, cabbage and a port (we've always got a bottle hanging around) and homemade hedgerow jelly sauce. (we made some in 2013 when we were selling one business and waiting to buy another and we were bored. Whole family still working their way through it). The next day we made a ragu using the duck legs and carcass and store cupboard ingredients, then we still had enough meat left to make a ramen type noodle dish. The duck cost £9 and was delicious. We are not that good with leftovers but this all felt like a treat. We would never buy cheap battery chickens, and always buy our meat from a traditional butcher, so we do eat roasts less than weekly, but that is our choice. I can feed 6 easily for less than a tenner if I use a cheap supermarket large chicken.

@LaughingCat

We don’t make roasts in a week but because I find them time-consuming, not because they’re expensive - I always thought of them as a cheap meal! (And I know, they aren’t time consuming if you know what you’re doing…but I really don’t 😂).

I bet our meal was more expensive, even if I did batch cook tonight - I’ll try and work it out:

Ragu (serves 8)
900g chicken breasts - £4.50 (Musclefood)
Mattessons smoked turkey bacon - £2.50 (Morrisons)
Fennel bulb - £1.25 (Morrisons)
Onion - 16p (Morrisons)
125ml Sauv Blanc - £1.65 (Morrisons)
Knorr chicken stockpot - 36p
Tomato puree 3tbsp - 12p (Morrisons)
Microwave wholegrain rice and quinoa - £2.76
Frozen peas - 40p (Morrisons)
Total - £13.70 (£6.85 for 4)

I could definitely slim that down by poaching the chicken and using the juices instead of the stockpot and making some mashed potato/real rice instead of microwave packets…or even rice my own cauliflower instead of being a lazy so and so but that’s all within our budget so I’ll embrace the time savers!.

So - yours is cheaper per serving and even more importantly, you get a LOT more food out of your full roast than I’ll get…I mean, mine is only 248 calories per serving (I’m a boring MFP nut).

Your full roast will be around double the cals minimum for a cheaper price per serving. Your meal is definitely, in every way, cheaper and more family friendly.

PS: OP, can I have your stuffing recipe please? I’ve never done stuffing from scratch before!

But that's a far superior quality meal than OPs cheap cut with value veg and no added seasonings or extras.

The equivalent standard to OPs roast of your recipe would be

Value/savers frozen chicken breasts (or maybe thighs if cheaper, or even mince)
Skip the fennel
Skip the bacon
Value/savers onion
Skip the wine
Value/savers stockcube
Tomato puree
Value/savers white rice
Value peas

Which would work out much cheaper that the value/savers level roast dinner that OP cooked.

All the other things you've added would be like OP adding wine to her gravy, or using goose fat to roast potatoes, or adding pigs in blankets or yorkshire puds, or buying condiments and seasonings, or using a high quality roasting joint (not fatty shoulder for a roast for a start) etc etc all of which would up the cost of her roast to well above the cost of your Ragu.

Mine is more expensive but I buy a massive chicken and we eat the lot in one roast. Also have three veg, potatoes and Yorkshires. It’s our big meal of the week. None of this MN chicken for a week lark

I did a roast today - it was actually cheaper than usual because I got a chicken breast joint for £1 !! (Has done is 2 evening meals for 2 of us and a bit for the cat)

Chicken 50p used half of the £1 bargain
Potatoes 40p (5 from a bag of about 12 that were £1
Cauliflower 40p
Carrots 30p
Brocolli 25p
Yorkies 40p
Stuffing 20p

Are we including gravy in costings?

£2.45 for 2 of us

We always have stuffing balls, pigs in blankets and a Yorkshire, so that adds to the price.

@Mitzimccormack I take my hat to you for stretching a duck that far. I struggle to stretch it around a roast for three.

Do you actually eat it ad well as smell utterly?

I agree OP a roast can be quite a cheap but still fairly special meal. Lots of the bits last for ages (dried stuffing mix, gravy browning/stock/whatever you use so once you’ve bought the meat you probably have everything else you need in the cupboard anyway. We always have lots of veg in so can put any combo with roast.

And we always have lots and lots of leftovers to use the following week and also freeze.
Even Christmas dinner isn’t that pricey except o for the stupidly huge hunk of meat my husband insists we buy. 😂 I don’t really eat meat so can’t take the blame
For that one.