We’re often told that cooking at home is the best way to save money. Buy the ingredients, make your own meals, and skip the restaurant bill.
That advice doesn’t always hold up, especially if you’re cooking for one or two people. Buying full packages of ingredients for a single recipe can get pricey, and anything left unused may end up forgotten in the fridge or thrown away.
A recent Reddit discussion got people talking about foods that can sometimes be cheaper to buy prepared. The idea wasn’t to order every part of a meal from a restaurant, but to buy the time-consuming or expensive items and pair them with affordable ingredients at home.
Restaurant Soup
Making a restaurant-style soup with shrimp, lemongrass, mushrooms, fresh herbs, and other specialty ingredients can cost quite a bit if you only need a little of each. Buy the prepared soup and add homemade rice, noodles, tofu, eggs, or vegetables to stretch one order into several meals.
Freeze extra broth in individual portions so you can enjoy it later without wasting it. Store rice and noodles separately until serving time to keep them from soaking up the broth in the fridge.
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Pizza
Buying dough, sauce, cheese, and several toppings for a single pizza can cost more than ordering a restaurant special. Unless you regularly make pizza at home, you might also be left with half-used ingredient packages that go untouched for weeks.
Look for large pizzas or meal deals that provide enough food for more than one sitting, then freeze the extra slices individually. Depending on local prices and promotions, a prepared pizza may even cost less than a comparable frozen pizza from the grocery store.
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Rotisserie Chicken
A store-bought rotisserie chicken gives you cooked meat for several meals without the time and effort of preparing raw chicken. Use it for sandwiches, chicken salad, soup, tacos, casseroles, pasta, or wraps throughout the week.
Check the refrigerated section for discounted rotisserie chickens that need to be sold soon. If you find a good price, remove the meat and freeze it in meal-sized portions for later.
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Fried Chicken
Buying prepared fried chicken can be cheaper than purchasing chicken, breading ingredients, seasonings, and enough cooking oil to make a batch at home. It also saves you from dealing with hot oil, greasy pans, and the cleanup that follows.
Save money by making the sides yourself instead of paying extra for prepared ones. Rice, potatoes, vegetables, biscuits, or a simple salad can turn a bucket of chicken into several meals for less.
Salad
Making a salad from scratch can get expensive if you need full packages of lettuce, cheese, protein, cucumbers, tomatoes, avocado, dressing, and other toppings. A pay-by-weight salad bar lets you take smaller amounts without buying ingredients that might spoil before you use them.
You can also buy just the pricier toppings from the salad bar and keep lettuce and dressing at home. A little chopped egg, cheese, broccoli, or another favorite topping may be all you need to make an ordinary salad more filling.
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Sandwiches
Buying bread, lunch meat, cheese, vegetables, and condiments for one sandwich can cost more upfront than picking up a ready-made one. This is especially true for someone living alone who may not use up all the ingredients before they spoil.
Making sandwiches at home usually wins if you’ll use the ingredients for several lunches. But if you only want one sandwich and would need to buy several items just to make it, the prepared version may be the less expensive choice.
Bakery Cookies
A grocery store bakery may sell a dozen fresh cookies for less than it costs to buy butter, chocolate chips, flour, eggs, sugar, and the other ingredients needed to bake them yourself. Baking at home can be cheaper if you already have the ingredients, but starting from scratch for one batch may cost more.
Check the bakery markdown section for discounted cookies, muffins, bread, and other baked goods. Stores sometimes lower prices on items they need to sell before the next day’s fresh batches arrive.
Chinese Takeout
At Chinese restaurants that charge by weight, filling a container with rice can use up space that could go toward a more expensive entrée. Buying the main dish and making rice at home may give you more food for your money.
The same idea works with standard takeout orders, too. Buy the dish that takes more time or effort to prepare, such as a curry, meat entrée, or tofu dish, then stretch it with inexpensive rice or noodles from your pantry.
Restaurant Bowls
A restaurant bowl can provide more than one serving if you add your own rice, beans, chicken, or vegetables at home. This works especially well when the restaurant charges for a bowl with only a modest amount of the main ingredients.
Skip paying extra for simple ingredients you can easily prepare yourself. Let the restaurant handle the sauces, specialty toppings, and flavors that take more work to recreate, then add your own affordable ingredients to make the food go further.
Family Meals
Restaurant family meals can be a good deal even if you’re cooking for just yourself. A package with a whole chicken or another main dish, several sides, and bread may provide enough food for five or six meals, depending on the portions.
Compare the package price with the cost of buying individual entrées before ordering. Divide leftovers into meal-sized containers when you get home, and freeze what you won’t eat in the next few days.
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Catering Trays
If you regularly order the same restaurant dish, check whether the restaurant offers larger catering trays. Curries, pasta dishes, and other meals may cost less per serving in a larger order than when you buy one entrée at a time.
Divide the food into individual portions and freeze what you won’t eat soon after bringing it home. This works best for dishes you already enjoy and know will reheat well, since throwing away uneaten food can wipe out any savings.
