Watch out. Containers at the dollar stores may be smaller containers. Ingredients may be literally watered down, even if the can size is the same. Cheaper per can/box is not necessarily cheaper per mouthful or per nutrition.
If there’s a genuine farmers’ market near you: ask the vendors whether they ever bring seconds for a discounted price.
If you have freezer space: buy the family size for better price per pound, cook it all up and freeze it in meal-size portions. Ditto for things on sale --others have mentioned this for canned foods.
Doesn’t have to be one or the other. Start with the Hunt’s, throw in herbs of your choice – some of which you can grow from seed in pots in your kitchen window. Or buy your herbs in those nice little jars, but on sale.
Rice is very easy to cook, and you don’t need a rice cooker. One pot, one measuring cup.
–Take a pot with a reasonably tight-fitting lid.
–Measure the amount of dry rice you want into the pot.
–Add twice or just over that amount of water.
–Put the pot on the stove and turn the heat on high. Don’t go away.
–When the pot begins to boil, turn the heat down to almost nothing.
Now you can go away, if you don’t go too far.
–Wait till the rice has absorbed all or nearly all the water: about twenty minutes for white rice, about forty minutes for brown rice.
–That’s it. Turn it off, it’s done.
The best thing about chicken is it’s much cheaper whole, and they are really easy to cut up yourself. You don’t need to know how to debone the whole thing (though that is a useful skill to have), quartering is usually good enough for most meals.
Flank, skirt, and hanger steaks are relatively cheap cuts of beef. Chuck steaks can be a decent alternative to the sexier cuts if you want a real steak; a good marinade and cooked no more than medium rare, they’re still pretty good.
Yeah, while I love Costco, I grew to dislike the flavor of their rotisserie chickens. But my local grocery store has delicious roasted chickens. And they cycle through them fast. I have no worries about contamination.
The Times No Recipe cookbook has a nice spaghetti sauce made with bacon, onions, and diced tomatoes, which you can get cheap at Costco. Better and a lot cheaper than Ragu. I throw in some spices also.
I’m with most of what Lancia says. Try store brand, and if it is not acceptable upgrade. Store brand frozen vegetables seem to come from the end of the production cycle, and are way inferior to some name brands. Store brand ice cream is great.
A couple of suggestions. Get a cooking for one or two cookbook, probably available at your nearest used book store. That gives lots of ideas. We also plan our meals for the week around the specials. Not only is it cheaper, but you can make sure you have all the ingredients you need, so you don’t have to dash to the store on your way back from work or get frustrated and buy fast food. We also inventory our freezer every week so nothing gets lost and so we can plan to use things we have lots of.
We buy stuff on sale in bulk. Definitely real potatoes and big bags of rice. (I can’t remember the last time we had boxed potatoes. It’s been decades.)
And I’m a fan of the Safeway online app. You get discounts beyond what is in the coupons on the fliers, and there is a rewards program where you can get stuff - like rotisserie chicken - free or big savings. Costs nothing and we usually save 20 - 40% of the bill. It does take some time.
When I was working I usually took lunches from left over beef or chicken. Now we eat leftovers.
You don’t have to sentence yourself to a rice and beans diet to save tons of money.
My basamati rice recipe is even easier. Two cups of water in a sauce pan. Bring it to a boil. Add one cup of rice. Bring that to a boil (should be almost instantaneous) cover, turn down the heat to simmer, and cook for 15 minute. Turn off the heat, and fluff. Works every time.
A lot of quick breads are stupid easy to make. No mixer or kneading necessary, except for things like cookies or pie crusts or soda bread, it’s generally made from batter, not dough. Biscuits, muffins, cornbread, pancakes, brownies, cake, banana bread, it’s just mixing together simple basic ingredients, pouring them into a baking vessel and sticking them in the oven.
If you want to cook your own beans, but don’t need a whole lot of them at once, you can freeze the rest of them. Much cheaper than using cans of beans. But there’s nothing wrong with using cans when you’re in a hurry.
Meatloaf is an option for stretching food dollars if you use more than just meat. I always use oatmeal as the binder (rather than bread/cracker crumbs), and add lots more chopped vegetables than the recipe calls for to stretch it and add food value. Make a double batch; It freezes well.
The NYTimes recently reprinted an unusual sandwich recipe called Elena Ruz sandwiches - a Cuban specialty. It’s a sandwich made with sliced turkey (use good quality deli lunch meat), cream cheese (I use neufchatel) and strawberry preserves. It sounds awful, but it’s delicious. I use low-sugar strawberry jam because I don’t like stuff too sweet anymore.
Tuna salad sandwiches are cheap. Be all fancy and make it a tuna melt.
Did anyone mention chili yet? Sorry if I missed it. Bean chili (with or without meat) is super cheap and delicious.
The OP says he can cook. He wants quick and convenient. To break out of the fast food rut.
He’s not gonna stock a freezer or pantry overnight.
He not gonna cook a roasted chicken on a average Tuesday after work.
There’s ways to cook at home without a chefs degree from CordonBleu and two sous chefs at your elbow. All the fancy small appliances.(oh, and a maid for the cleanup) A varied and always open farmers market. Access to the best Grocery chains and loads of cash.
Just think simple. 3 ingredients. A simple salad.
He can do this on the cheap and easy with just a little trouble. He’s proved he can shop. Expand on that. That’s where to start.
All of those are $8.99 a pound or more in my local mega mart. Granted, they used to be cheaper, along with skirt, but round is nearly the only “cheap” beef I see other than ground, and even then, it’s generally $5.99 or more even on sale. If I was stretching food dollars, I’d stick to pork or chicken as I mentioned earlier.
I suspect you’re right, that way around is easier. Plain water won’t boil over; rice in the water will [ETA: on a high heat}, which is why you can’t go away till you turn it down, or there’ll be a mess all over the stove. But if you wait to add the rice till the water’s already boiling, you don’t have to watch it as long. I’ll try it that way.
Rice is great. I find pinto beans get old, but split pea is not much more expensive and makes good soup. I’ll grab the cheap cans of veggies, and even the cans of soup can be quite cheap. (I’ll augment them with either rice or instant potato flakes). I make 4 meals out of a pound of noodles, two cans of chicken, and a couple cans of mixed veggies or peas and carrots. I really like grilled squash, with half an onion mixed in.
But the big thing I do is make tuna patties (or the occasional salmon patty). The ingredients are 1/2 cup bread crumbs, one can of tuna, and one egg*, plus seasoning (garlic, onion, salt, chili powder, etc. Or just a seasoned salt you love) I make like 4 patties out of that.
I often use an egg replacement called Bob’s Red Mill Egg Replacer. It cost around $5, but it goes much further than actual eggs. I’ve had the same package for like half a year now, and I use it both in this and pancakes. You only need to follow the recipe for the egg whites.
Oh, and one more thing I forgot: the best way to make rice is in a pressure cooker. It takes half the time (and also half the water). Second best is, IMHO, the microwave. I do 5oz dry rice, 1 1/2 cups liquid, 5 minutes on high, then 20 minutes on half power. This came from a packet of yellow rice with microwave directions, and then further experimentation.
I also make my noodles I mentioned above in the microwave. The convenience helps with the motivation to eat better.
I’m kind of anal, and seldom go away if anything is on the stove. The directions say to rinse the rice. I never do, unless a specific recipe calls for rinsing, and it comes out fine.
You can also drag out your Insta Pot to make rice, but it seems a big bother to me, unless you need it to stay warm after it is cooked.
Actually, I’ve found that using “keep warm” for Instant Pot rice is a bit of a mistake, since I really do not enjoy scrubbing that much stuck-on gunk off the pot.
See if you can buy mac & cheese powder. Not boxed mac & cheese - just the orange powder itself. If you shop at a store with a bulk foods section they probably sell it by the pound. Brown half a pound of ground beef and drain, then add 1 cup of milk, 3/4 cups hot water, 2 tbls. cheese powder and 3/4 cups of dry elbow macaroni, bring to a boil, cover, and simmer for 12 minutes stirring every few minutes. You’ve now got two servings (or one if you’re very hungry) of cheeseburger mac that’s cheaper than Hamburger Helper.
You can doll up Manwich pretty easily by sauteeing some onions, garlic, celery, and bell pepper or jalapeno with the beef before you stir in the sauce. (For that matter, you should always keep a head of garlic on hand - it’s cheap, it can easily last a month in your pantry, and there are very few foods that can’t be improved by adding garlic.)
A good tortilla press can be a bit of an initial investment, but once you’ve got one all you need is a bag of flour or masa and you can make your own tortillas that are better than anything you’ll get at the store.
And lets face it - cans of beans are pretty damn cheap to begin with, the fact that raw beans are even cheaper is just flat out amazingly cheap.
I have both. The cans are vermin-proof (although I haven’t had that issue for years now) and convenient if I haven’t planned ahead. The from-raw beans can have amazing flavor in their own right.
Agreed. Also, if you can do basic cooking, you can go shopping without a list and buy whatever happens to be cheapest or on offer or reduced, and then turn that into meals. Generally much cheaper than deciding in advance what you want to eat, then going out to find the ingredients.