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.

Fat definitely improves the flavour. If calorie consumption is a concern, just eat less! A smaller amount of nicer tasting, richer (from longer cooking) sauce is way better than loads of speed-cooked sauce with no flavour.

Highly recommend anyone who can, goes to a buy by weight / refill type shop if there is one. You can get spices and herbs in much smaller quantities than the expensive glass jars in shops, and for actual pennies.

I go occasionally with old empty jars and buy things I use in either tiny or massive quantities (fennel vs cumin for example). My last fullede jam jar of cumin cost me 67p vs £1+ for a third of the quantity in a supermarket. If I'd only wanted a couple of meals worth it would have been about 6p. Some skint people may be able to stretch a few of their pennies out for something like that and it can make a big difference.

Cooking from scratch isn't always cheaper but if you're going for quality ingredients then you can't compare your cooking from scratch with a more basic ready meal. It's more of a higher end ready meal. I just looked up Charlie Bigham's spaghetti bolognese and it's £6 for a meal for one. If you bought those it would cost you £36, double your price and still not be as good as the meal you made from scratch.

The other thing to consider is the more that one does cook from scratch the more ingredients are already in your cupboard, dried herbs, spices, tomato puree, capers. anchovies for added flavour to some dishes, all manner of things. It's not cheap because nothing food related is particularly cheap any more but it's not necessarily more expensive and it's definitely healthier and generally tastier too. I've been reliant on ready meals for a while and am just getting to a place where I'm starting to cook from scratch again and it is saving me money in my weekly shop and I'm eating better. I accept that I'm lucky because I'm a decent cook and relatively good at budgeting but it can be done. I wouldn't suggest that the savings are enormous but any saving is worth it.

I’m amazed it costs that much. It costs me €9.60 (just calculated ingredients) to feed 6, and that’s with nice mince, fresh spaghetti and Mutti tomatoes. I add herbs, seasoning and tomato purée.

I should have added, after putting anchovies in my cupboard that a really cheap meal is some spaghetti/linguine/similar with anchovies which is full on umami. Add some garlic, black pepper and parmesan and you have a cheap and delicious meal that is SO much cheaper than a ready meal. I love anchovies but know that a lot of people don't and might be looking at this recipe in horror. I apologise! 😁

@FagsMagsandBags me and dd love anchovy pasta basically just like that. Fry up loads of garlic in oil, add some chilli flakes and the anchovies, loads of lemon etc then mix with linguine and top with some crispy breadcrumbs/thyme. Bloody delicious and done in about 15 minutes.

It’s all the nice to have bits that bulk out the cost. I spend £6 on the beef, tomatoes one tin plum one cherry about £1. Herbs come from the garden, olive oil, garlic another £1 I think a slow cook in the oven adds masses of flavour. I quite like to have bolognaise with tortellini so that’s £4.50 and mozzarella balls just tear it up. £2.50. Then some sugar snaps and tender stem broccoli. £4. It’s really nice food though. Flavoursome and filling. I could buy cheaper beef, spaghetti and knock out a meal for five for less than a tenner. It wouldn’t be nearly as nice though.

I don't understand what was in the oven for nearly 4 hours when you were cooking Bolognaise?

You are somewhat comparing apples and pears

To make the equivalent of a £1 jar of sauce you'd need a bit of onion, garlic passata or chopped tomatoes and some herbs.

I could knock that out a jar sized portion for a quid, especially if making a bigger batch.

But you can't buy a jar for a pound with pancetta and red wine in it.

I always bulk mine out with red lentils - nobody notices and wouldn’t care even if they did. I don’t use stock pots - cubes are a lot cheaper. And I don’t add pancetta - maybe nice but hardly necessary. A good squirt of tomato purée from a tube is good, too, and if we want cheese on top, I grate some mature cheddar.

I agree and it is just basic economics that the ingredients to make 6 portions of spag bol are more expensive than the ingredients to make 60,000 portions of spag bol, distributed as ready meal or jar.

Also - I have never considered ragu to be a cheap dish to make properly, because to do it properly, it should have beef and pork mince AND pancetta, and fresh and tinned tomatoes, and tonnes of good quality Italian hard cheese, and red wine, and and and... it DOES need to be slow cooked. So yes, corners can be cut, but I don't bother, and therefore a ragu is an indulgence. There's a reason why Italians eat lasagne on feast days - done properly, it's an expensive labour of love.

I bulk mine with mushrooms and lentils to make as many freezer portions as possible!

Are you one of those people who puts excess liquid in the slow cooker and expects it to reduce like on the stove?

Why are you putting a bolognese in the oven? I have only ever made it on the hob in a big pan.

Of course it’s not true if you spend that much on spag bol.

Home made spag bol sauce of the type you would get in a jar would probably be comparable on cost and have less sugar and additives in it. It would also take a fraction of the time yours cost. And you would probably think it tasted rank compared to yours.

So yes, usually home made is cheaper and tastes better. The fact that you are choosing to spend nearly £20 on something that you could make for a hell of a lot less, doesnt mean that over all premade is better value.

So YABU.

Well this thread has blown my mind! I have honestly never in my life come across a spaghetti bolognaise with carrots & celery in it (sounds gross) or heard of it being cooked in an oven.

My from scratch bolognaise is usually:

500g of 5% minced beef - £3.89 pack
3 Chesnut Mushrooms - £0.89 punnet
1/3 of a red onion - £0.69 pack of 3
Carton of passata or can of chopped tomatoes - £0.55
1/2 small bottle of Red Wine - £2.75 a bottle
An oxo cube - £2.78 box of 24
Squeeze of garlic puree - £0.85 tube
Squeeze or 2 of tomato puree - £0.59 tube
Mixed Herbs - £0.59 jar
Pepper - ?
1/3 pack of Spaghetti - £0.75 per pack
Garlic Bread / Baguettes - £1.49 for two
Parmasan - £1.59

Thats £17.41 for 3-4 servings based on the assumption I didn’t have a single item in stock and had to buy new packs (since most items don’t come in individual servings) of everything. In reality using stuff I already have in its probably more like £11 (or less as personally I wouldn’t normally do garlic bread and only parmasan if we already had some needing using up).

A jar of Dolmeo is £2.50
You’d still need:
Mince £3.89
Your Spaghetti £0.75
Your Garlic Bread £1.49
Your Palmasan £1.59

Thats £10.22 but wouldn't leave any ingredients over to use in other meals so actually in the grand scheme of things there probably isn’t that much difference in overall cost.

Cooking is an hour simmering on the hob.

In defence of the OP, proper bolognese is supposed to be oven cooked for hours, the "on the hob for 20 minutes" job that most British people do would have your average Italian turn their nose up in disgust!

Its like the difference between slow braised beef that is fall apart tender put into a pie with crumbly home made pastry and a rich redwine gravy v a Greggs steak bake!

I don't think it necessarily should go in the oven, but there's plenty of authoritative sources that say to cook it (on the hob presumably) for 3 hours or so.

I agree, I can get cheap pizzas for £1, but to make a nice pizza from scratch with decent toppings costs £6/8. And like you say cheap jarred sauces are much cheaper than scratch. Dr Chris and his upf stuff says upf is cheaper than real food too

I'm half Italian, father from Bologna.

1. 50/50 beef/pork mince and not the lean stuff
2. Couple of slices of cut up smoked streaky bacon
3. NO GARLIC
4. Min of 2 hours cooking to develop the flavour
5. Serve with tagliatelle, NEVER spaghetti

A soffrito (onion, carrot, celery, garlic) base for the sauce is pretty standard for ragu/bolognaise. Horses for courses.

By dint of the lamb and chilli that is not bolognese!

"I agree and it is just basic economics that the ingredients to make 6 portions of spag bol are more expensive than the ingredients to make 60,000 portions of spag bol, distributed as ready meal or jar."

Yes, economies of scale and efficiency.

There's no garlic in a soffrito.

However, anyone can make it how they want to, add garlic, do it for 20 mins on the hob, have it with spaghetti, macaroni, penne, whatever - it's you eating it so if you're making it, make it how you like it.

But that's a meat sauce with pasta, not a Bolognese ragu

What a bizarre thread.
Of course a meal made from scratch using luxury ingredients is going to cost more than a ready meal.