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.

@userophfk783 I totally agree with your underlying sentiment, but the obesity crisis in the UK and elsewhere in the world is mostly down to the food industry, ultra processed foods and excessive amounts of palm oil and corn syrup. Quick, fast, cheap and tasty (although I don't like it). Yes, I certainly spend more on food than the average, and I spend a lot more time and energy cooking it now that I am 68 and not rushing to be out doing something more exciting. But at 19 and 20, we managed to eat a nutritous balanced diet that also tasted decent on student grants in 1976-7.

@onetwoshoe You are simply wrong! It's not more expensive, but it is more time consuming. You can buy dried chickpeas very cheaply, but you have to think ahead to soak them overnight and cook them (thus tripling their weight). So a £1 bag of dry chickpeas will turn into 2kg of cooked garbanzos, which is enough hummus for 40 people. The flatbreads are easy: Flour, dried yeast, and not much more than time to mix, knead, prove, roll and cook in your frying pan.

There are free foods that are tasty and nutritious on this rainy island. I guess unless you live in a very urban environment. You only need Google or insta for the know how.

I've never made a homemade hummus that is better than shop bought in all honesty!! I know I'm off topic but still... some things aren't worth the bother!

Grow your own herbs then freeze them in ice cube trays.
IKEA probably do a cheap set of spice jars that you can fill with refill packs rather than buy an expensive jar. Or bulk buy and store in a Tupperware container.
I buy frozen basil and coriander because it gives a better flavour than dried.
You can buy ready mixed flavours which saves having multiple jars of obscure spices.
You can also substitute flavours, and create whole new dishes.

Homemade hummus knocks spots off bought, really. Put a bit more salt in it, and a bit more oil, and garlic and fresh lemon juice and dust the top with a little paprika.

You can substitute tahini for cheap peanut butter

I think some of this relates to 'taste' too- it's not so hard if you all like curry, bolognese , chilli etc - but some people don't and you can end up making multiple meals. For instance my H loves ramen and I could give him a chicken ramen 3 nights a week and he would love it, same with stir fry's- my ex H basically wanted meat or fish every dinner with veg and wouldn't even try anything veggie. I found that bloody boring so used to end up cooking 2 meals every night. (Although I did use to make more and freeze) - things like pizzas- my son was used to the idea a large good quality pizza fed 2 or 3 on slices - and came with a nice salad - his friend expected a large pizza to himself and nothing with it (and he wasn't from a well off family) I do think expectations and taste do come into it too and many people would actually turn their noses up at a bowl of dahl and rice ( without even trying it)

I have this book which is full of ideas to use up leftover ingredients.

www.amazon.co.uk/Leftovers-Handbook-Z-Ingredient-Inspirational/dp/1908974087/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?crid=1PPX4PBTCHM5X&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.93SpQxBwHhqTenlgqzUWT83if8LNncCLHIxG6iJHjD-_BgHKRb0_0t_jvGMsH_mnaPGCramSCG36uTIIZgsJasaforfw9B9sW0b78Zj677HCw19Pa3HXmJvxFdRaGZ_1F8xTZ_28dm8muI2R1gjLR0Qg7FG1RGzGBsuSLTfuzIhmg5KMolmAM28HTP02DUY1.wJJH93MS1YYgU3Ac6xq82fq4veOA1sNBoSrIV1Ffpn4&dib_tag=se&keywords=the+leftovers+handbook&qid=1722194896&sprefix=the+leftovers+handbook%2Caps%2C90&sr=8-1

You can also substitute flavours, and create whole new dishes.

Yes, I made chilli with garam masala and chilli flakes for ages before buying cumin and cinnamon separately.

I spend £100 a week for one adult and three teens (so basically 4 adults) including toiletries and cleaning products. I cook from scratch every day and we eat a fair bit of meat. I also use spices, herbs etc. although most of our meals only take around half an hour because I work.

Today we had chicken in homemade bbq sauce, potato wedges, sautéed courgette and broccoli, just as an example.

I don’t make my own hummus but we don’t eat many processed foods at all.

I’m always baffled by these threads.

If you what to try lots of different recipes all at once with ingredients you don't have and won't use again the yes that is expensive but the dishes you've described are good cheap eats.

The expense of making hummus is the jar of tahini once you have invested in this then you can make lots cheaply as well as tahini dressing which is great for salads and to drizzle on roasted veggies

Nann bread is flour and yeast which I'd be surprised if you don't already have, and then an egg and natural yoghurt

It sounds like you don't have a good store cupboard and coop build one up a few ingredients at a time

You're talking nonsense, OP. Homemade hummus is insanely cheap compared with shop bought, if you factor the cost of tahini over the number of portions it will make. Homemade curry is cheaper than ready meal curry, if you are comparing like for like with quality.

Take youir time acquiring spices, look up which substitutions you can make for obscure or one-off ingredients, and pad things out with vegtables and pulses. Cooking from scratch is much cheaper than relying on ready made dinners in many instances.

Baking is one of the big outliers, as at home we are generally using butter but factories can use cheaper fats. However, things are much nicer with butter so it's worth the difference in my view. Homemade shortbread is a qorld away form the 50p biscuits a PP was mentioning.

Basic skills, like making a stew, are the door to an infinite range of meals. Take and dice an onion, dice a carrot and a stick of celery, fry them slowly in some oil with a half teaspoon of salt and some pepper. This is the starting point for almost every casserole recipe. A bay leaf, some protein. Half an hour simmering with a little water and a stock cube. The cheapest cuts of meat (shin of beef, oxtail) left all day in a slow cooker while you are at work will give you a great result. The more you experiment, the better you will get.

I do agree with this. I gave some specific advice earlier on getting the cost down.

But a lot of this relies on having the kitchen equipment, money for electricity - boiling chickpeas might be cheaper, but if you’ve a tenner left on the leccy for a week, it’s going to eat that up.

it’s cheaper long term, but much more expensive in the short term.

@ALovelyCupOfNameChange , all true, but I cook on bottled butane (no mains gas supply). A 45kg bottle lasts us nine months or so and costs about £53 delivered.

I’ve just spent a week in the North East. Some parts were more affluent than others but it felt like living in the land of Greggs!
I was dismayed at the number of takeaway vans, fast food outlets, ‘Spoons, pizza and kebab places.

Have ordinary people (not the privileged readers of MN) given up the will to cook? Have they not picked up skills? Or are they too tired after working all day to start cooking?
I did get a good meal from a stall in Grainger Market and saw some cheap, plentiful fruit and veg. But life outside told a different story.
So sad.

I mean if you’re comparing buying a small hummus vs buying tahini etc obviously it’s “more expensive” to make but it’s comparing apples to oranges as the portions aren’t remotely the same.

It’s like anything, you can plan a super cheap home made week of meals that’s very inexpensive and uninspiring. You could also plan a really complicated week of meals with loads of different seasonings and only use a pinch of each, but you can easily balance this out over the week or month and cook home made food from scratch with a reasonable budget.

My mum was a school meals cook catering for 1500 kids in the 1970s, and they did not buy in prepared foods, because they didn't exist then. Everything that was served was made from scratch from the produce that was in season that day. She still swears that school meals were cheaper and healthier then than they are now.

£100 a week for 2 is very expensive…we spend £50-60 for 2 and eat a low UPF diet with plenty of fruit and veg.

Swap out unusual or ‘only use once’ ingredients for something you do have in your store cupboard. A quick google will help with the best switch outs option.

We often make hummus with peanut butter in place of tahini as we just don’t ever get through a jar of the latter - sure any other nut butter would do. Or alternatively just leave it out altogether and see how you go?

Our supermarket have a food from across the world bit. There you can buy large bags of rice and bigger packets of spices (not jars), generally a lot cheaper than the small herbs and spices we are used to buying.

Also in my town is a dedicated supermarket to all sorts of herbs spices and veg for foreign cuisine. I go there and buy really big bags of spices (probably four times larger than the supermarket ones at really reasonable prices)

I have a spice tin with little spoons (masala box/tin) in the kitchen and when I open a bag I decant into large jam or mayo jars to keep them airtight until I need to top up my masala tin.

If a recipe has lots of less common ingredients, I google several versions of the recipe and choose the most commonly used ingredients. If it doesn't taste as good as I want it to, I add my own choice of flavourings - dried herbs or spices I already have, tomato puree, Worcester sauce etc. Tasty is better than tasting exactly as intended imo! If it's heavy on meat I usually add a range of veg to bulk it out. (I don't cook from scratch everyday due to lack of time, but I would if I could.)

PS the only time I home made hummus, it was fairly tasteless, and I followed the recipe to the letter. Same with pesto sauce. Very disappointing.

I sort of agree that cooking from scratch is expensive. It doesn’t have to be, but it often is. Tonight we had a curry that was made from scratch (Mowgli, house chicken curry) it had multiple spices, fresh chilli, garlic, ginger and coriander. Plus coconut milk, creamed coconut, yogurt and ground almonds as some of the ingredients. It was delicious but far more expensive than opening a jar.