To think it’s impossible to food shop cheaply if you want to cook recipes from scratch

[onetwoshoe]

There’s a few recipes I want to try from my cookbook but all of them command different, infrequently used ingredients which I’m not sure I can justify when spices and herbs are now over £1 dried, more if fresh.

Another example is that I’d like to try making my own naan bread but shop-bought is cheaper, goes further and lasts longer. I’d love to make hummus homemade but again, cheaper to buy it from a shop than the initial outlay of all the ingredients separately.

AIBU to think it’s impossible to cook nice, different meals from scratch for two adults every night on a food shop of less than £100 a week?

We do have the odd night of jacket potato and beans or similar to bring the cost down but I just think most times ingredients are very costly right now.

Agree with pp- you need to batch cook.
Make a list of maybe 10-15 meals you would like to eat regularly, and set out a meal plan with those meals across two weeks. Buy fresh ingredients ie so you can make from scratch, make a big batch of each meal each time you cook and then freeze (or eat next day!) the rest - after a couple of weeks you will have a stock built up. I try and do this but it always all gets eaten even If I think I make loads!!! I’ve really enjoyed cooking more and I also have an outstandingly organised fridge which I enjoy 😁😂 I used to hate cooking.. so the only way I could get into it was to buy only lovely ingredients and have a lovely fridge! It’s worked in our household 😄 I spend maybe £150/160 a week for three of us, which is pretty much all of our meals per day, we live in France so more expensive here I think but this is still cheaper than I used to spend when I cooked much less and we ate crappy food.

It is perfectly possible for a family to eat well and healthily on a budget but I acknowledge that getting set up with the herbs and spaces that ring the changes costs. I would recommend Diana Henry's books on chlcken (365 ways to cook it) and Food from Plenty as good and healthy starting points for economical home cooking likely to please most people.

There is a book called Saving Dinner, by Leanne Ely, and another called Saving Dinner Basics, same author. She also has a website, savingdinner dot com.

Very useful for meal planning and building up your pantry gradually.

£100 for 2 people should be easy, I cook for 4 adults on that.
You can buy dried herbs and spices, which last for a while if you keep them in a dark cupboard, and you can grow some of your own, or get them in pots from the supermarket.
I've found that thyme, rosemary and marjoram/ oregano grow very happily in my not so sunny garden. Pots of coriander, parsley and basil do well in the kitchen, even the coriander, which is more temperamental lasts for months if I remember to water it enough.

Buying those tiny jars of spices is a false economy for me. I buy economical large bags from Asian shops. They last for ages anyway.

Herbs and spices are cheap, you just need to build up a supply. £1.30 ish each for a reasonable sized jar at M&S. I don’t buy in bulk anymore as I’m only cooking for two and they can go a bit stale.

Tahini isn’t that expensive when you consider how much you get out of it. I love it, makes a nice dip to serve with flatbreads/chicken/salad when it is mixed with yoghurt and a bit of salt.

I spend about £100-120 a week on food for two (no booze, pet food or toiletries in that). I could get that down, but I like nice food. When you think that something fairly mediocre out for lunch, grilled chicken salad panini with a soft drink x2 type thing is £30 ish, I don’t mind my grocery bill.

You can make a basic flatbread with yogurt and self raising flour. They are really really good and keep for the next day in a Tupperware.
Lidl have a good herb and spice selection or the world food aisle has packets you can pop in old jars. You can freeze all but basil from the fresh selection. Basil grows well as a windowsill plant from seed (again, lidl is your friend)
aldi is good for fresh herbs.
fresh chillis can be frozen, but again lidl and aldi do the jars of chilli, ginger and garlic that are really good - it’s worth checking the world food aisle section for these if you’ve not got a good one local.

I don’t eat hummus but isn’t it just chickpeas and tahini? A tin of chickpeas are quite cheap in the world food aisle.

It does add up for herbs and spices, but once you’ve got them your only replacing one a month or so. My plan when my children leave home / uni, I’m going to send them off with a whole spice rack to get them started.

GradGirl, I totally get you. Most of it is easy, but paying someone else to make it for you, their overheads and utilities cost money, and then they need to make a profit. .

I use a 'refill' shop for my spices. You take in your own container and buy as much or as little as you want. You can even just use a paper bag and put a small amount in. Most of the cost of supermarket spices is the cost of the jar.

Herbs and spices - go to local Indian or Chinese shops, cheap as chips. If not available to you try Home Bargains - 59p a jar for herbs and spices also Asda very cheap in their International food sections.

Yes it's more expensive to cook from scratch on the whole. You can buy a pack of biscuits for 50p but good luck making them for that. I've recently started cooking from scratch more (everything, not just meals) and our food bills have rocketed.

A friend grows chillis in his poly tunnel, lots of different varieties, hot ones, mid-range and mild. In september, I buy a kilo of them, sort them and freeze them with labels. Hot for Thai meals, and so on. They can be fine chopped frozen and it's easy to take the seeds out when you don't want the extra heat.

I have two suggestions for exactly this.

1. Thrifty Lesley - she has a website, just search for her name. She specialises in cheap, tasty food. You can search by meal type, but her best work are her meal plans. Each week is based on a few fresh ingredients, with the shopping list, and links to the recipes. She aims for about £15 a week, although with food costs rising, some of the plans are £18 for the week. Most plans are for 2, and she aims to have little left over.

1. Download the Supercook app (free). You add all of the ingredients that you have in the house into your "larder", and then the app will search the internet for every possible recipe you can make. You can search by cuisine or main ingredient. The app will also highlight recipes you can make with just one more ingredient. It's absolutely brilliant for recusing food waste, as I can search for something to make with any leftover ingredients from other meals.

I used to buy spices from the small shops near me rather than the supermarket as it was cheaper until I saw this on 'bulking', and have gone back to the supermarkets

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0hhy1ft

We freeze a lot - including leftovers. For example, I make 12 naan at a time and freeze 8 of them for lager. Much cheaper than buying them from a takeaway or supermarket, yummier and UPF free. They're only flour, yogurt, oil, milk, yeast and salt which I already have in the house topped with butter and garlic (and occasionally coriander if I have some in but not essential).

The shop bought biscuits may be 'cheap' but with the amount of crap in them we're paying with our health tbh.

It is much harder at the moment but I find myself using a lot of recipes from BBC good food, there are lots of ideas for cheaper healthy meals on there. Using the slow cooker helps I find too. I also raid the reduced section in sainsburys on a Sunday, at our one there's always lots of meat and fish at least half price which can be frozen and used another time, I can't remember the last time I paid full price for meat or fish.

@userophfk783 yes, you can buy a packet of biscuits for 50p. And if you only have that option, then you have my sympathy but as biscuits are a treat and not a sustaining meal, then it's probably as cheap and much healthier to start from scratch if you have even a rudimentary kitchen. I started adult life as student in a flat share of four people. We cooked from scratch and put enough food for 4 (sometimes more) on the table every night at 7:00. Lots of beans and lentils. Everyone shopped and cooked, and the clean up was shared around.

I find it much cheaper to cook from scratch but you need time to build up a supply of spices and staples. I find batch cooking, sourcing food in the reduced aisle and freezing items really helps. I also have fresh herbs/chilli's and grow onions and potatoes. I make my own mayo, butter, pasta sauces, pesto, bread and pastry and I find it costs so much less.

I’d love to make hummus homemade but again, cheaper to buy it from a shop than the initial outlay of all the ingredients separately.

It isn't. If you make it simply you can make LOADS and freeze it

Time to bring back home ecnomics in school!
Yes, I am old, but I can batch cook and make cheap ingredients go a long way. Currently have several bags of ( free, picked by me) blackberries in freezer. Will buy bag of sugar (will do for 2 batches) and a lemon. This will give me about 6 jars of jam for about 20p each

I know what you mean about cooking from scratch being expensive. The first time I want to follow a recipe exactly so I have a base line before I substitute things. I priced up one recipe from my DC's cookbook at over £12 for a salad which was mainly lettuce and tomato!

Do you have a friend who also cooks who might be willing to swap less often used spices with you? Then you would each only need to buy half as many spices.

I'd also look for recipes which use an ingredient in a quantity which matches the sizes it is sold in. Having to buy two or three packs of something has really pushed up the price of things when I have done recipes. I've started checking typical pack sizes online now when I'm looking at a new recipe.

This.

If you are buying herbs and spices look down the world food aisle. So much cheaper than the little bottles.

There definitely needs to be a cookbook which shows what other recipes you can make from half used ingredients, does one exist?