To think cooking from scratch is not always cheaper?

[RainbowSlidders]

I would like to start by saying due to allergies I do cook and bake from scratch. I see people on here saying it’s so much cheaper cooking everything from scratch but honestly I think a lot of time it isn’t although it is definitely nicer.

Last night I made spaghetti bolognaise the ingredients cost me over £18 for 6 portions (family of 5 plus 1 portion for dc to take back to uni). How is that cheaper? A jar of sauce is about 75p in Aldi so I can see why people use it and not to mention the extra cost of fuel and the time it takes, 30 minutes on the hob followed by 3.5 hours in the oven.

But a 65p jar of sauce is only 1 ingredient. You still need your mince, pasta and bread to get to an equivalent meal.
And there is a big range between buying a bolognese complete ready meal and making everything from scratch including the tomato paste and using luxury ingredients. A more budget friendly version would be meat, tinned tomatoes, onion, carrot and dried herbs. Or just meat and jar sauce. Still be better and cheaper (and bigger portions) than a ready meal that is shoved in the microwave.

I do agree that making from scratch is often not cheaper if you compare it to the most budgety processed foods, but you aren't comparing like for like. It will be cheaper than buying a well cooked meal in a restaurant.
Baking is very pricey though, a packet of custard creams is hellnof a lot less than making biscuits at home with real butter. Also it's so hard not to eat the entire batch of home baking 😅

Yes, but when people say homemade is cheaper, they don't mean unnecessarily luxuriously homemade. I agree that cooking slowly in the oven makes all the difference, but I don't put sundried tomatoes, red wine or pancetta in mine. I do use gluten-free pasta though,which is more expensive. And did you actually buy ready-shaved parmesan?! What's the problem with tomato puree?

Newsflash: expensive ingredients makes cooking expensive.

Something like bolognese can be cheap or expensive.

Similarly you can but a value frozen ready meal or a fancy branded one.. one is cheaper than the other.

Love it !

I agree and withball those who've commented vis a vis 500gnfor 6 adults.n Yes, it needs to be increased to 750g and I'd bung in an extra half tin of tomatoes.

@AllProperTeaIsTheft yes bought ready shaved cheese and there is nothing wrong with tomato purée I just don’t like the taste personally.

I view spaghetti bolognaise as a fairly cheap way to feed the family. Not a luxury meal. I’m sure I could make it fancier and more expensive by using higher quality ingredients, but I doubt my kids would notice or appreciate the difference to be honest.

I agree that cooking from scratch isn’t always cheaper than ready made, but the quality is usually so much better.

Paying for shavings of parmesan is crazy unless you physically can't do it.
Make sure you keep the rind and pop that into your ragu whilst slow cooking, I've got mine just fi fishing now with a parmesan rinds and pecorino one, makes a lot of difference at the end.

You can cut costs considerably by using less meat. 🤷🏼‍♀️

This is quite funny.

OP obviously your version of spag bol is expensive because you're filling it with luxury ingredients. I'm not sure why you needed to come on MN to be told that as you must already know - unless it's some kind of humble brag.

Also, why is it in the oven for three and a half hours? Are you actually braising an expensive cut of beef to be turned into your own ragu?

And my point was the answer anytime someone mentions the cost of food increasing every week is cook from scratch it’s so much cheaper. I don’t think that is always true.

To be fair it does taste better if you do it in the oven-the flavours develop more

I think you’re comparing apples with oranges OP. You’re saying that Aldi sauce is cheaper than sauce made with blended sun dried tomatoes. Well of course it is! But would it be cheaper than sauce made from fresh tomatoes bought from the market? Or would Waitrose finest sauce be cheaper?

And as for 3.5 hours in the oven - totally unnecessary. 20 minutes on the hob is fine.

You’re basically making high end super fancy spag bol with expensive ingredients and cooking it slowly for half a day. Of course that’s going to cost more than cheap ready made ingredients.

Lean mince - £3.89
Spaghetti - £0.28
Tinned tomatoes - £0.47
Passata - £0.47
Salt/pepper/mixed herbs/dried garlic £0.40
Beef stock cube - £0.06
Garlic bread - £1.19

Spag bol for 4 for under £7 from Aldi.

By comparison, a jar of their own brand bolognese sauce is £0.69, so a saving of 70-something-pence for the whole meal. Doesn’t sound like much but someone on the bare bones of their arse could use than small saving across seven dinners per week elsewhere in their budget.

Re gluten free... presuming its a necessity rather than choice, it does drive up costs (stock, pasta, garlic bread for example, even some cheese isn't suitable).
But I know coeliac who replace the pasta with rice or potatoes since gluten free pasta is too expensive

100% agree. Soooo much more expensive much of the time, and soooo much wasted time!!! I CBA to cook from scratch 85% of the time. Life's too short to spend it peeling, chopping, baking, and stirring; and cleaning loads of utensils and pots and pans, that results from cooking from scratch.

If people enjoy it, then good for them, crack on, you do you etc etc etc...

I would rather be spending time in the garden, or going for walks in the sun - in the countryside/by the canal/by the river. Or meeting one of my DC, or friends for lunch. Or going out with/spending quality time with my DH. CBA to spend loads of time in the kitchen.

This is the reason why DH and I go for a carvery, or book an actual Christmas dinner at a pub 3-4 days before Christmas, and just have savoury nibbles, snacks, mince pies, trifle, and Christmas cake on Christmas day. I am not spending 4 hours of the day in the kitchen on Christmas day, peeling, chopping, stirring, and baking, and then clearing up afterwards! Even if DH does the clearing up/washing up, it's still 4 hours of the day in the kitchen (wasted!)

Done this for the first quarter of a century I was with DH (before our DC left home.) Stopped it about 5-6 years ago. DH doesn't mind. Well, if he did, he is quite welcome to spend a good chunk of Christmas day in the kitchen!

He doesn't want to do this any more than I do though! So he is happy with the situation.

👏🤣😆🤣

I think cooking from scratch is cheaper than a ready meal of equivilent quality. I can't make a £1 lasagne and there is a reason for that.

Dinner for two adults: spag bol with garlic bread and a tomato & onion side salad.

Lamb mince £7
Two tins of tomatoes £2.50
Onion, garlic, carrot, mushrooms, tomato puree, fresh chilli and dried herbs £3(ish)

Pasta £2
Stock pot for pasta water £0.50

Garlic bread £3.50

Fancy tomatoes £3
Onion, EV olive oil, one lemon for juice £1(ish)

Parmesan £2.50
We usually get through more or less half a block as DH will cut off chunks to snack on while I finish up the cooking.

£25. My saving grace is that I make enough sauce and salad to last us for a couple of dinners.

I remember being really hard up when my eldest 3 were little and Jamie Oliver talking about roasting cheap cuts of meat slowly in the oven, I couldn’t afford the electric to have the oven on that long let alone the cost of the the ‘cheap cut’!

Agree OP - it adds up!

I bought 1kg of mince today and it was £13 (!)

I've just costed up our bolognese (this includes things we buy specifically for this meal and not the store cupboard stuff like stock, oregano, bay leaves, tomato puree)

750g mince - £6.75
Large passata - £2.20
Small bottle of red wine - £2.20
Garlic - 24p
Carrots - 20p
Celery - 50p
Onion - 50p
Fresh basil - 52p
Garlic baguette - £1
Linguine - £1

That's £15.11 without the store cupboard stuff or a side salad (but would cover 10 portions) Although I'd add in another £2 as I'd need another baguette and some extra pasta for 10 portions.

So not cheap at all. 2 meals for our family of 5.

If you are going to be chucking sundried tomato paste and wine in then at least get to a good butchers and buy proper mince and some good quality smoked bacon bits. It will probably cost less than your 3%fat stuff and expensive tiny portions of bacon scrapings passing for pancetta in most supermarkets and taste much better.

I have no idea why everyone is having garlic bread AND pasta. That's £2 you don't need to spend right there.

Lloyd Grossman jar of bolognese sauce for 2 is £3 in Tesco and contains no meat. So £9 for 6 just for a sauce that based on your listed prices would cost you about £6 to make. If you wanted a good quality ready meal, Charlie Bighams spag bol is about £6 for 1.