Top tips for saving money on food and cooking.
In this time of spiralling costs, I’ve been doing research into cooking costs to put together a blog of the top ways to get the most from your budget before electric and gas prices go up again next month.
Having spent the last 7 years as a single mum I know how hard it can be to make ends meet. I’ve just spent the day batch cooking and filling the freezer to save a little on future cooking costs. Please comment to share your own tips below, I would love to know things that are practical and work 😊
Times are hard for us all, not just for those on benefits or low income, we are all feeling the pinch now and know it’s going to get harder as we go into the winter. Ofgem’s ceiling on fuel and electricity bills – currently set to the equivalent of £1,971 a year for the average household – is already set to jump by more than 80% to £3,549 next month. Based on current trends, it is also in danger of doubling from that figure to £7,263 when the cap is reviewed in April.
As the cost of running your oven will more than double, from 56p p/hour up to £1.14 p/h in October, I’ve put together some top tips on saving money on food and cooking. Some you may already do, or know about, and some maybe new. Let me know if you’re going to implement any of these, or please do add your own in the comments, we all need to work together!
1. Planning ahead.
We all know that planning ahead will help our budget, but it can be hard to actually do it! Try just getting some paper (or the notes section of your phone) in a quiet moment and have a go. Write a list of meals you or your family like, update it with new things to try and you’ll have a list to select from each time you are planning. Before you go shopping, write a list of the meals you want to make and a shopping list to go with it. You’ll soon find you can work in the leftovers, some for lunches, or the veg in Monday’s Mexican can be used in Wednesday’s stir-fry or Thursday’s lasagne. Buying a bag of cheaper wonky peppers, carrots, onions, rather than loose as you need them will make savings. Make a batch of soup for your weeks lunches and slice up a loaf of bread in the freezer, you will soon see savings in your budget.
2. Shop smart.
Trying shopping in different places, different shops but also sometimes within your usual supermarket. A tin of nutritious and protein filled black beans in the tinned beans section in Morrisons can be £1.15 (if they only stock the organic ones like mine), in the world foods section they are only 69p and in Aldi they are 59p. The Aldi ones report to have more protein and fibre per 100g too strangely. Try out other brands for your regular foods, Aldi’s baked beans aren’t bad, especially for 37p a tin rather than £1.25 for Heinz in other supermarkets. I pop these in as one of the types of beans in my chilli as its often cheaper to buy baked beans than other types of beans.
The World food section can be great for bulk buying food you use often too, if you have space. Check prices for large packs of rice, dried pulses and nuts, you could save even more if you are a regular consumer of these.
3. Make your meat count.
I might not eat chicken, but I’m cooking for two other people who do. There’s a big price difference in buying chicken thighs or drumsticks rather than breast meat and there’s more flavour too! Just be aware the flavour comes from a fat increase so be sure to drain and trim fat where possible. A roast chicken is also great value, so a roast on a Sunday could do a stir fry Monday and/or some salads or sandwiches for lunch.
Its also good to think about your beef cuts, do you need a top end piece of steak to cut into strips for a stir fry? Probably not. Look at batch buying meat if you have plenty of freezer room, an online meat hamper could see you through most of the month for £45.
4. Cooking in batch.
My favourite. How wonderful is it on a busy day when you have a curry or chilli in the freezer ready to go 🥳🙌. I love this. You’ve saved money on cooking costs by making twice as much the first time round and you haven’t let any veg waste by it not being used and going off in the fridge, double saves 🥳🥳 I’ve a couple of recipes coming up for this!
I love batch cooking for wholegrain rice too as it takes so much longer to cook, but the flavour and additional nutrition do make it worth it ❤️
Bulk cooking also works well when making a sauce, like a curry, or a tomato sauce for meatballs, make twice as much and freeze it for a lasagne or other pasta dishes at a later date, all full of slow cooked flavour and ready to go.
5. Cooking smart.
Sounds simple but using a lid on a saucepan will help your food get up to cooking temperature faster and stay there. This saves cooking time, so saves money on electric or gas, and a little on water too.
It’s a similar story with the oven door, keeping it closed keeps the heat in, meaning it doesn’t have to work so hard to keep the temperature up.
If you make a lot of soups or stews, pressure cookers can be a greater saving on hob use, after the initial investment, and slower cookers are less to run (reportedly less than quarter of the price of an electric oven), so even though they are on for longer they cost far less overall than putting the oven on. Air fryers cost slightly less than slow cookers so even more savings. Microwaves are also cheaper to run that the ovens, so cooking a jacket in the microwave and giving it a quick blast to crisp it up in the oven will likely save you time and money.
Ovens remain hot for quite a while after they are turned off, so if you are using the oven, you could look at turning the oven off 5-10 minutes before you are finished cooking, although this may not work so well for a stonebaked style pizza!
As I’ve said, ovens cost a lot to run so if you are using it, try to be cooking something else in there while it’s on too, maybe a lasagne for tonight and a casserole for tomorrow? Or I’ll make myself a vegi egg omelette wrap for my packed lunch tomorrow while I’m cooking an oven dinner.
6. Date differences.
Do you know your ‘use by’ from your ‘best before’? Do you use your common sense once you get to the date? ‘Use by’ dates are usually on foods with a higher risk of food poisoning. There is higher risk of you becoming ill from these after their date is reached. This is usually fresh meat, fish and dairy products. Many can still be frozen before their date and used later. Just be sure to follow freezing guidelines and use within 24 hours of thawing. If food is 'best before' it can still be eaten after, these are usually lower risk foods such as fruit and veg, or foods which don’t spoil quickly like sugar and flour. We have luckily been given a selection of senses to see, smell, touch or taste if our food is still good enough to eat.
7. Use your freezer.
For batch cooking or food going out of date as mentioned above; but also for long storage. This means you can also take advantage of fresh offers on things that can freeze 🙌 sliced fresh bread works great from the freezer, just toast or make packed lunch sandwiches from frozen. If you like making fresh pizza, you can store any unused dough, mozzarella or tomato base in there till next time too.
If like me, you like fruit and yoghurt or smoothies, frozen fruit is great. It’s all pre-prepared in season, when it’s ripe and full of vitamins, which will be preserved by freezing. Also, if you recently went bananas for bananas and now they’re going brown, pop them in the freezer, you can then use them in banana pancakes, in banana bread or in some good ol’ nice cream 😋 whatever bananary treats you fancy.
You can have a little family fun dinner by emptying your freezer to stock take and using up all those little bits of everything for a bits and pieces dinner, you could have pot luck Thursday or finger food Friday with leftover bits of this and bits of that.
8. Use less meat.
We know it’s good for the worlds health right now but it’s also good for your health and your wallet. Vegan diets can cuts food costs by up a third and vegetarian diets close to that, even flextarians can save an average of 14% on food costs. Try making a big batch of my slow cooker quinoa chilli, meatless balls, or a paneer curry, they all taste amazing and the second or third batch out they freezer taste even better!!
9. Stock taking.
Like the freezer, take a regular stock check in your kitchen cupboards, find meals to use up those bits you have. This works well towards the end of the month when pennies get tighter. Search the internet for new recipes you could try to use them up. Lentil Dal or a cream cheese mushroom pasta. Check dates so you can use things before they go out of date too. Love food, hate waste!
10. Be fridge and freezer smart
Let food cool down before putting batch cooking or leftovers in the fridge or freezer. Heat can push up the temperature in the fridge causing your appliance to work harder, as well as spoiling other foods.
Filling a fridge or freezer keep the temperature down. Store bottles of water in there if nothing else. This will help keep the temperature down when the door is opened, so your appliance doesn’t need to work so hard.
If you have any more tips to add to save money round the kitchen when cooking please do comment below, I would love to hear from you.
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