Cooking from scratch

[Zoomie1]

I have started to cook from scratch, batch cooking. I have been thinking by the time you consider the high cost of gas/electricity. Does it work out cheaper than convenience food?

How do you cook this?

I've costed up lots of different dishes and meals and overall I don't think cooking from scratch is cheaper... unless you're cooking for a huge crowd

I once wanted to make a Christmas pudding...for the cost of the ingredients...loads of dried fruit, nuts etc, it was actually cheaper to buy a luxury supermarket ready made one.

I batch cook and cook 90% from scratch and my gas/electric use has never been over £5 per day
I tend to cook 6-8 portions and freeze them so it probably balances out on the days I'm only using the microwave

Just made tomato soup and Meatballs in a tomato sauce. In the kitchen for over 3 hours. My gas bill will be delivered by blue lights when it's time for the next bill. @Comedycook I think I agree with you and M&S are calling me.

@blackpanth links please

I disagree about costs I still think that it depends on ingredients. We buy bread flour at Waitrose so yes, our bread is costly. But I buy chicken drumsticks and carrots and onion at Tesco so they are not so costly.
I always plan around offers and freeze the leftovers- it’s very helpful but you still have to be realistic. I got 2kg pack of drumsticks once - it was a nightmare but 1kg is easily manageable and not a lot of slavering on my side. I often freeze one portion if only one of us will be eating and it’s very handy.

How on earth were you in the kitchen for three hours making that?!

Sorry just air fryer and microwave
www.independent.co.uk/money/martin-lewis-air-fryer-microwave-warning-b2325457.html

@LusaBatoosa

2 Separate dishes there, chopping. slicing, freezing and washing up afterwards. I don't have a dishwasher or a microwave and 3 hours is not long for the amount I made. Nothing convenient all fresh including the herbs. I don't like dried herbs.

Overall, yes, cooking from.scratch is cheaper. I don't know what you were doing in the kitchen for 3 hours but if I was making say a chicken curry and rice, it's a 30 minute job. For 3 of us I would use 1 cup uncooked rice, one tin coconut milk, 2 chicken breasts, some spices or possibly a pre-made paste (half a jar) and I would add some veg of some sort. 500x more nutritious than the ready meal and definitely cheaper for 3 people.

Depends on what you cook and how you cook it.
There are low energy ways to cook. Also the heating given off during cooking warms up your house. With ready meals the heat is left in the factory but included in the cost of the ready meal.

This alarmist nonsense is why many people don't even bother to cook, or end up with health anxiety. You are doing nothing to encourage anybody to try cooking because you make it sound like you need to spend every waking hour in the kitchen, no short cuts of any kind allowed or you will literally be killing your family!

Ultra high processed ready-food you microwave to heat up is so bad for you!! And contains virtually no nutrients. Utter nonsense. I'm prepared to believe that there are substances in many highly processed foods that aren't good for us, but it is not true to say there are no nutrients. Protein, fat, carbohydrate, many fat soluble vitamins, iron, calcium will all be there. Maybe not in the best proportions, but of course people who eat ready meals and other highly processed food are getting nutrients from it, or they would all be dead.

Ready-meals are full of rapeseed oil, toxic to the body and so very bad for you. All seed oils are. Toxic to the body? Is there any reliable objective evidence to support this? Why aren't people dropping dead in the streets as they eat their chicken shop chicken and chips?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/134585501433?var=0&mkevt=1&mkcid=1&mkrid=710-53481-19255-0&campid=5338268676&toolid=10044&_trkparms=ispr=1&amdata=enc:1rgFu0fZsS1et3n-U_Cjb1Q4&customid=Cj0KCQiAtOmsBhCnARIsAGPa5ybejGkeJBId-ZtqM66nPOlz2A65r_md2RQElGYeTpx98EMR_jcq1LMaArYjEALw_wcB

I absolutely love this cookbook. The recipes are wholesome, easy, delicious and CHEAP.

It depends what you are trying to achieve by cooking from scratch.
If saving money is your main aim, you can definitely buy budget ready meals for less money than it will cost you to cook from scratch.
If you are more interested in nutrition/taste or quality you can probably cook from scratch cheaper than buying quality ready meals/sauces.
But there is a lit of rubbish spoken and written about how you can always save money by cooking from scratch, usually wrapped up with him much nicer home-cooked is, which is not under question but is also not the point.
I also think people tend to completely underestimate the cost of home cooking. Just because you havevsomething in the cupboard does not mean it is free, as a pp stated upthread.
Tesco are selling a pasta sauce for 47p at the moment. I think you will struggle to make it cheaper at home. The cheapest tin of tomatoes is 35p, which leaves 12p for onion, oil, herbs etc. Now I am sure posters will come on now to say they Tesco sauce is nutritionally rubbish, full of sugar, poor quality etc, all of which is true. BUT, it proves that the mantra 'it's always cheaper to cook from scratch' is nonsense

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g I too thought this post was over the top and felt like I was being lectured. Ridiculous claims are being made here.

@SparklingPinkCat you are my inspiration! I try my best to do things from scratch but with three teens, a husband, home and full time job it's not always possible. Can you share some of your bread recipes? This is one thing I haven't gotten around to experimenting with yet.
Well done for all you do - your long term health will thank you for it!

I would recommend cooking 8-10 portions if you want to feed 2 of you.
then the gas/ electricity isn’t on for much longer and you just need to reheat things once out of freezer. It’s also much more time effective & efficient.

It wouldn’t cost me £5.50 (&you then have to buy rice?) to make spaghetti bolognaise or curry, even with the cost of electricity and water.

1kg of mince is £6.65 in asda
Tin of tomatoes 50p
24p for stock cube (gluten free so expensive ones)
I blitz a carrot and a pepper in so
10p carrot
50p pepper
Herbs from store cupboard
I batch cook and so get 8 portions from this for £7.99.
13p per portion wholewheat pasta (not for the gluten free obvs)
Way cheaper than a ready meal. At under £1.50 each for ingredients and I don’t spend £4 cooking it.

1kg chicken breast £8
Curry paste £2.10 (fussy child, far cheaper when I use all the spices)
tinned tomato’s 50p
1 carrot 10p
1 pepper 50p
Brown basmati rice 31p per portion
6 portions for £11.51 so £1.92 per portion.
My electricity isn’t nearly £4 to cook it.

It seems odd to me op that you say you don’t use jar pastes or dried herbs but you are happy with the quality/flavour of ready meals. I can guarantee they will have at least dried herbs in them, and very probably pastes in the curry tbh.

I've had friends over today so had the heating on a LOT which I never do. Including washing up by hand, and making a lasagne my gas and electric is £5.54
But I won't cook for a week now except microwaving
My freezer has lasagne, chicken orzo, and cottage pie in
Next weekend I'll make and freeze 6 portions of meatballs and mash. So basically I have the oven on once a week

It's unlikely to be cheaper because it's incredibly difficult to source ingredients of as low a quality as tends to be used in ready meals.

If you want economy and quality try being a bit more inventive with your ingredients. When I make chili, Bolognese etc I use lots of pulses, beans etc instead of minced beef. It's just as nice, more nutritious and costs a lot less. Note that I use dried beans which I rehydrate before cooking. Dried is a lot cheaper than tinned.

I got that it was two separate dishes. I just don’t get how what you just described equates to three hours in the kitchen.

A tin of tomatoes and an onion and maybe some carrot ,celery, garlic, ( or not) will cost over 47p - but you'll get three times as much as the single jar!
Freeze two lots and you have two "for free"

The jar of pasta sauce is 440g. I am not sure how one onion and a 400g tin of tomatoes would yield 1.32kg of pasta sauce?
As I said, a lot of rubbish is spoken about cooking from scratch

Op you need a microwave to reheat the food, or it will cost lots of money in gas.
I also think the main problem with cooking from scratch, is the waste of ingredients, unless you’re really creative and will use the left over ingredients for your next batch in time before they rot, or they get forgotten about at the back of a cupboard. Imo that’s why it tends to cost a bit more, especially if you’re cooking meals with lots of different ingredients.