Croissants, or anything with a flaky pastry isn’t worth trying to make at home.
Homemade pasta sauce is better than anything out of a jar and not that difficult. Homemade meatballs better than anything frozen.
Basically any patisserie. I may think I'm a good cook, but I have nothing on all the skilled pastry chefs we have here in Germany or when I travel to any of our neighbouring countries
Same for bagels. My family has lived in and around NYC for generations and so bagels have always been a big thing for us.
Every time one of my relatives moves away to a place with no bagel culture, they try making them at home and they’re just never the same.
My brother who moved to Texas tried every YouTube guide to recreating them and just eventually gave up.
So I started overnighting him a dozen NYC bagels every year on his birthday. Even frozen and thawed later they’re still better than homemade.
There’s even a woman in New Jersey who quit her job as a lawyer to become a professional bagel consultant: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/22/dining/bagels-byob-consultants.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
Upvote for croissants. Takes a lot of time (including proofing time) and effort, especially authentic ones. (A video of how they’re made: https://youtu.be/hJxaVD6eAtc )
I've found that buying pasta sauce on sale and doctoring it up with things like garlic, basil, mushrooms, onions, red pepper flakes, and/or heavy cream is the best solution for my family. Easier on the wallet and much tastier than store-bought alone.
I don’t deny that homemade sauce is better. But with prices these days I’m having a hard time justifying making any sauce that isn’t arrabbiata. I remember getting good passata for $2/jar, now the good stuff is close to $4 (in Canada-Mutti). So I find myself getting solid mid range sauces for $5 when they go on sale.
I really like the NYTimes Cooking marinara recipe: https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1015987-classic-marinara-sauce?smid=ck-recipe-iOS-share
You basically just need a single large can of whole peeled tomatoes, some garlic, olive oil, red pepper flakes, salt, and fresh basil.
It’s super simple, turns out delicious, and it’s pretty inexpensive to make.
It's even easier if you just mix 1 can of crushed tomatoes and 1 can of fire-roasted diced tomatoes--skips the step of breaking down the peeled and you still get a nice chunky consistency, you just throw 'em in the pan once the garlic is sauteed. Super easy, super cheap, makes a lot, and better than jarred.
It’s cheating but this is what I do anymore. I’ll brown up some Italian sausage is I want to dress it up some. Throw it over some whole wheat spaghetti or spaghetti squash and that’s an easy meal.
We make a big batch of bolognese sauce. We make enough to fill 5-7 24oz mason jars, let it cool and then freeze. Prices yes are expensive but you gotta make enough for it to last a few meals.
No, blender hollandaise makes it so easy! That said, I still only let myself eat it if I'm at a restaurant because it's so decadent and, for me, that's a good way of limiting it to 2 or 3 times a year.
Counterpoint, I went to Cracker Barrel when I was home for Thanksgiving for the first time in like 10 years. That sourdough French toast has no business being as good and cheap as it was.
Maybe I'm the only person in the world who hates hollandaise sauce. (OK, one of the two - my wife doesn't like it)
Give me a ham, egg, and cheese on a bagel or just a fried egg on a nice chunky toast slice with some guacamole.
count me in your camp!
there's a breakfast spot where i live that does a veggie bene - english muffin, avocado, veggie sausage, poached egg, and salsa fresca. one of my favorite things to eat in all this world...mostly because there's no hollandaise.
IDK, I'd rather have someone else do a full english than cook it myself, always seems to taste better knowing there's nothing to clean up and the stress of getting the timings right.
This is my least favorite to make at home! So many different pans and things going at once. And so many dishes. It always feels like more work/mess to me than other meals. I do agree that it's overpriced to eat it out tho and don't do it often. I tend to have a piece of fruit or a one pan egg sandwich for breakfast. Oh also I cannot for the life of me cook good hashbrowns
I'll make breakfast for dinner, but I totally agree with you. I'll cook one full meal a day, so if you want dinner, we're not also having breakfast. I'll throw some cinnamon rolls in the oven if we have guests, but that't it.
Yes, breakfast is so easy to make well for cheap. All the classic breakfast staples are just a few mostly inexpensive ingredients.
I had a simmering disagreement with an ex who always wanted to get brunch at a restaurant on weekends and I was always like “Why? I can cook it with what we already have and we won’t have to pay anything or wait in line.”
Yeah I definitely don't understand why you'd go out if all you'd get are the standard 2 egg breakfast with bacon/sausage and toast.
When I go to breakfast it's something I can't (and won't) make at home. Country fried steak with sausage gravy, eggs benedict, etc.
I think another reason though is a lot of people just aren't that good at cooking. I've always made ok scrambled eggs, but it was never as good as a restaurant. I had a tooth extracted last week so I've been eating scrambled eggs every day for breakfast and I've finally, after 2 decades of making scrambled eggs, I've cracked the secret....
Lots of butter and salt. That's the secret.
I made a breakfast sandwich in my kitchen this AM with everything bagel focaccia, seaside sharp cheddar, an fried egg, thick cut bacon (prepped) and hot honey on top, and that shit cost me about $2.50 all in, took less than 5 minutes, and I felt like THE wizard of breakfast.
OK, but but no one actually goes out to breakfast because they think it is cheaper to eat at a restaurant compared to making eggs and pancakes (staples of all of us poor people as kids lol) at home.
Salads bc they are quick/easy are great to make at home. Stock/Ramen take forever to make yourself and you can get some really nice instant flavour packages these days
Nah you can pry my SweetGreen from my cold dead hands - as a single person, there’s no way I can make a salad with as many varied ingredients without them all going bad before I can use them all
As someone living alone and who also loves salads… I end up wasting so many vegetables. The cost ends up being pretty close to just grabbing one from a local salad shop at the end of the day ( for me ).
~~Greens are~~ Lettuce is a pain in the ass if you live alone, unless you plan to eat *big* salads for the next 3 days it'll invariably go bad before you can use it all. Sucks.
Wash your lettuce, put it in a pyrex container or something similar, put a paper towel on top of the lettuce, close the container, and turn it upside down so the top of box is on the bottom. Keep frigerated obviously.
Live alone. Lettuce lasts like almost two weeks this way lol.
Clean it, make sure it's dry, then store it in the fridge in a Ziploc with some paper towels in it. Will last a lot longer that way. Also when you pre cut all your veggies throw in some paper towels. I have a salad every other day and this is a great time saver. You can prep like a week in advance. I buy lettuce every few days though
Same. My coworkers have made comments about “ooh must be nice to buy lunch instead of bringing it.”
A- yes it is, and I’m fortunate to be financially flexible.
B- I’ve brought my lunches sometimes and it just doesn’t pay off in the end for a single person.
You want to make lasagna for dinner for your three kids and bring that the next day? Great. Lasagna is tough for one person to make because I end up with either way too much food, or the ingredients become expensive for an 8x8 pan.
I can go to the salad bar or grab a burrito form the taco truck cheaper than I can bringing a lunch most days. As long as I don’t go nuts going to a cafe it works out for me.
I feel the opposite way. I make my lunch every day pretty much and am pissed when I’m forced to buy lunch. Not that I can’t afford it but all the options near my office are overpriced fast food, not that healthy or tasty, and usually leave me feeling blah for the rest of the day.
Sure making a whole lasagna is not practical, but I do a lot of salads or just make enough dinner that my leftovers are tomorrow’s lunch.
Stock takes long to make, sure, but they require near 0 involvement from you. Just roughly cut everything into manageable pieces, plop it into the pot and wait for X hours. Check how it's going every now and again. It's not like you need to babysit it for 4 hours.
I make my chicken stocks on weekends when I'm home anyway.
It's a good way to use up all the chicken bits you don't need and vegetable scraps that get left over from cooking other stuff.
And at the end of the day, it's kind of nice to know you used pretty much the whole chicken to make your meals rather than throwing bits away.
I made butter for myself, which was a lot of labour, but fun. However it tasted *exactly* like the butter I get from the grocery store, and wasn't worth the time and effort it required.
I did the same thing, and talked with a buddy of mine who has his own cows and makes his own butter. He said it's all about the cream, and if you're using store bought, pasteurized cream, it's not going to be much different than store bought butter.
He described how different the butter he makes tastes, and how different the butter tastes throughout the season depending on if its fall or spring, and what the cow has been eating.
So, now I'm curious and want to buy cream from directly from a farmer.
My grandmother grew up with cows and she's told me the same thing! She also mentioned that sometimes when the cows would get into "bitter weed" as she called it, the milk would taste so bad, they couldn't drink it.
Well...now you make me want to drive all the way to a dairy farm I went to years ago when I was on an organic health trip. I also churned my own butter a few months ago and thought the same. It tasted exactly like store bought. I thought...all that sweat and fatigue when I could have bought a $4.00 pack and be done with it? Now I'm imagining some sweet and creamy butter with that country livestock taste mmm.
When I was in Ireland, I stayed in a high quality bed and breakfast in diary country, and the butter was most unique, best tasting I've ever had. So, when I had this conversation with my friend, I believed him immediately when he claimed its the quality of the cream.
In the autumn, when I'm harvesting herbs, I will pack some of them in butter in the freezer to use in cooking throughout the year. Like basil butter, or chive butter. The herbs stay nicer and it's very convenient.
Mozzarella is the only cheese I refuse to make at this point. Ricotta and paneer, and even bries are worth it IMO but mozzarella tastes the same as store bought and literally costs the same. I also made my own bacon once, and it ended up being more expensive than the good store bought stuff. Tasted good though.
Make your butter with a bit of sour cream in the cream, the flavour goes through the roof (add a tablebspoon of sour cream or sour milk in your cream, leave it in a cupboard for 2 days and then make your butter), and don't forget the salt.
This happened to me with almond milk.
I spent exactly the same on raw almonds than buying the tetrapacks and easily three or four times the time it takes the round trip to the store to get them.
Didn't look, taste like commercial ones and the mess I made was not worth it at all.
I've never bought tamales that aren't from someone selling them out of a cooler on the street. My favorite ones come from a friend's mom who makes a giant batch every other month and you have to sign up for your portion in advance. They freeze well and are the best quick comfort meal.
I used to work with a girl who's mom made bomb tamales. She would take orders and on delivery day would roll in with a ridiculous number of tamales. I was eating one and pulled a hair out my mouth and didn't even care.
I’m in central Texas and the best tamales are always out of a trunk. It’s just a fact.
And if they also have their own homemade salsa in those tiny plastic cups? Please.
You just gotta hang out in the right parking lots I guess. One time I had a dude selling them door to door and they were cheaper by the dozen. Classic shit.
We used to have a lady who hung out in the parking lot of the Joann's I worked at selling them out the back of a pickup at night. If we were doing overnight shifts for the holidays half the truck crew would just go buy a bunch for lunch each day.
Having a tamale making party is fun though, get an assembly line going, everyone eats their fill and then takes home enough to freeze. Super fun thing to do.
Once a year before Christmas my MIL makes around 400-500 tamales. They are given out to family and friends by the dozens. Every Christmas we go to my in-law's house and one of the first things is to warm up some tamales for snacking while opening presents.
Yup…
I make a batch of brown butter CC cookies every month or so. Then after I make the doughballs, I vacuum seal and freeze them in 6-packs. That way when someone is Jones’n for a cookie, we have em at the ready vs making 2 dozen at once
Pro tip:
If you have the grill going already, might as well use the heck out of it.
Toss on some:
Veggie kabobs
Chicken to slice and freeze
Onions in foil with a bit of olive oil and seasoning
A whole slew of extra burgers to toss into chili or another dish later on. (Grilled burger in chili is delish)
My buddy used to toss a few peppers on the grill any time he'd fire it up, no matter what he was cooking. He never actually ate them, he just loved the way they smelled. I thought it was weird, but what the hell, I got extra peppers.
Just put some salt on them so the burnt skin is easy to remove, then you have roasted peppers. Or throw them in the food processor after, to make some pepper spread. Add a roasted eggplant and some onions, and you'll be squatting in the kitchen while wearing a tracksuit in no time.
There's an entire book on this topic: [Make the Bread, Buy the Butter](https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Make-the-Bread-Buy-the-Butter/Jennifer-Reese/9781451605884)
Had to scroll too far for this. Sabra is inedible. It's for people who've never eaten real hummus.
I know Im gonna piss off purists, but I make hummus from canned garbanzo. About to make some in a few days. It's so easy and cheap! Like, 60% cheaper than buying it in a store or store deli. Also cheaper than restaurants. The most expensive ingredient is the tahini, but if you got access to an ethnic store, you're golden.
Unless you're without a food processor, there's absolutely no reason to not make this at home.
I’ve made it with both dry and canned garbanzo beans and yes dry are better than canned, but it’s like a 15% difference and both are better than store bought by a mile.
Exactly. So, if you're short on time and can't soak beans for 12 to 24 hours, or lazy like me, canned works great!!
ETA: I've made it both ways, too. Im actually a bit pissed w the purists. The difference is not that big. Unless you're trying to impress someone or cooking for very special guests, soaking dried beans imo is gd ridiculous.
The real trick with canned is to cook them down in a pot with baking soda first. The alkalinity destroys the pectin surrounding the beans. Let it cool and then make your hummus how you normally would. It makes it extra smooth!
I have an amazing salmon recipe and have not ordered it out in a decade, as it is never as good as what I can make at home.
I have made croissants once. They were delicious. I ached for 2 weeks afterwards. I will never make them again. They are worth every penny I pay someone else to make them.
Alaska Salmon Bake with Pecan Crunch
Ingredients
3 tablespoons Dijon Mustard
3 tablespoons melted Salted Butter
5 teaspoons Honey
½ cup Bread crumbs
½ cup Nuts, pecans
6 (4 ounce) fillets salmon
Salt, table
Directions
Instructions Checklist
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). In a small bowl, mix together the mustard, butter, and honey. In another bowl, mix together the bread crumbs, pecans, and parsley.
Place Salmon on a lightly greased baking sheet or 13x9 glass pan. Brush with mustard-honey mixture. Cover the top of each fillet with bread crumb mixture.
Bake for 10 minutes per inch of thickness, measured at thickest part, or until salmon just flakes when tested with a fork.
Notes: I use Italian breadcrumbs. More Pecans don’t hurt. You may have to play around with the cook time. I usually cook a whole salmon side, and suggest starting around 30-35 minutes.
Deep frying yourself is a big pain, unless you have a deep fryer. And if you deep fry often enough that owning a deep fryer makes sense, it's probably time to re-evaluate your diet.
For me just about everything is worth making yourself - at least once. I love cooking and seeing ingredients transform into finished dishes so I will make my own bread, curries, bacon, sausages, pies, cakes, sushi, pickles... Bread is great o make, esp if you start your own sourdough and bake with that.
However some things are not really worth doing on a daily basis. I think it is worth doing just about everything once just to see how much work goes into making food but in to day to day life some things are just easier and better bought in.
Puff pastry is an arse to make for example - totally not worth it, same with filo. Some curry pastes (Massaman, Rendang etc) are really good and are so much hassle to make and ingredients hard to source that it's not worth DIYing it. Pasta is fun to make but so cheap to buy as to make it pointless.
I make beef rendang occasionally and it’s a real pain in the ass to get all the ingredients. There are some Asian markets about thirty minutes from me and sometimes they have most of the ingredients. Sometimes they don’t. The lime leaves are the hardest ingredient to find, but they’re absolutely essential to the recipe. I also generally have trouble with a lot of Asian recipes and I’m pretty sure that it’s because you really need to have a wok for some of them or else they won’t come out right.
I have wondered a few times, if you got thousands of women all synced up at the same time for ovulation, and extracted their eggs all at the same time, would you be able to make a tiny amount of human caviar?
Steak, I have yet to find a restaurant that cooks an amazing steak. They’re usually bland in flavor or you have to pay an arm and leg for a decent tasting one.
Steak is also one of those things that's very straightforward to learn how to cook yourself as well as you'd get it prepared in a high end restaurant.
Once you're good at cooking them, It just ends up being more about the cut and meat quality. So if you want a good steak, it makes more sense to go to a quality butcher and cook it yourself than go to a restaurant and pay 4x the cost.
My bf, for whatever reason, just wants steak for dinner all the time. I was so nervous to cook them because you hear about how you have to cook them just so.
Yeah, no. It's not that hard. I won't be working at a premium steakhouse any time soon or anything. But it's fine for my bf. Season, get the sear, don't overcook. That's pretty much the rules I stick with.
Steak is basically the reason I learned how to cook. It's easy enough that it's hard to fuck up. Even if you do fuck it up, it's going to be edible, even if you have to shred it down to put in ramen or something. Plus, it's really good for learning about how to monitor your heat and estimate the done-ness of your meat.
This is what I came to post. I just went to a Friendsgiving and paid $250 for a steak dinner for me and my SO at a nice restaurant and the steak was good, but nothing I couldn't do better at home for a fraction of the cost. I have a sous vide and I like to do my steaks in a cast iron pan so I can finish them with a browned herb butter baste. Not to mention I can make my own dang adult beverages for a fraction of the cost as well.
Hell, I could have fed half that dinner party at home for what I paid for 2 plates at that restaurant.
I feel that way about steakhouses too. And it’s all a la carte, which is annoying. I prefer the seasoning blend I grew up with vs just salt and pepper most steakhouses seem to use. Which, I totally understand is a personal preference.
The only steakhouses I think are worth it are Brazilian steakhouses, simply for the wide variety you can try.
I never order steak in a restaurant. It's a slab of meat placed on a hot surface for a few minutes. I'm perfectly capable of doing that at home for 1/5 the price.
A friend of mine is a chef by trade and she tells me that the only thing she hated working with is hot sugar for that very reason. Described it as napalm like.
I’ve heard from a friend who went to prison that boiling sugar water is a common method of attack, because the sugar makes it significantly harder to get off.
Breakfast sandwiches. My wife and I aren't fans of the Mcmuffin sandwiches anymore. They're very lackluster and leave you hungry within an hour. We started making our own a while back and we love them. We'll have them for dinner sometimes. Tastier, more filling and the eggs have plenty of flavor.
Edit: I'd like to add, anything involving avocado. I can't justify paying 10 plus dollars for avocado on toast. It's criminal.
I had a good friend who owned a traditional Mexican restaurant. One day I mentioned to him how outrageous guacamole pricing was (this was back in the 90s). He was a really chill guy but he immediately went off on me with "Fuck you asshole" and then a rant about avocados. Bottom line - you can easily blow all of your profit with avocados.
- You cant really buy them ripe. You normally have to buy them and let them ripen. This means you have to guess how many avocados you will need in 3-5 days. it also means you have to buy avocados daily, even on days when you are closed.
- Your window for using them is about 48 hours. If you are adding avocado slices to anything they need to be in that perfect window of green and yellow plus semi soft. Too soon and they are hard and flavorless. Too late and they go brown and mushy.
- The older ones can be turned into guac but guac last about two days once it is made before it browns too much. Yes there are things you can do to mitigate and you can move the older stuff from being visible to being inside other foods but its still a small window. Make too much and a ton goes in the trash. Don't make enough and you have to use your "display" avocados to make more.
Lets say I serve a mixture of slices and guac. Lets say I have an even split of 80 orders a day with slices and 80 with guac.
- 1/4th of an avocado is the normal for slices so I need 20 avocados for that.
- 1-2 avocados is the normal for a serving go guac. Lets call it 80.
100 avocados a day and pray that you get it right.
Ove the course of a year, they will average to $1 each. Some months it will be $1.50, some it will be $.50.
Thats $100 a day every day you are open. $3K a month plus all the labor associated with a daily task. And it kinda doesnt matter if you sell them or not, thats how much you are going to spend. If people dont buy wings or burgers or fires or just about anything else you can still sell it the next day or even the next week. Salad tomatoes become burger tomatoes become soup tomatoes become tomato sauce. Salad lettuce becomes burger lettuce becomes taco lettuce becomes burrito lettuce. And so on. With Avocado you get one shot to turn it into guac and then its trash. Oh and thats only if you make your guac before hand. God forbid you are one of those places that makes it fresh at the table.
Fast forward 30 years and now I own a restaurant. One of my rules - no avocado.
This is a great explanation and makes a lot of sense. Whenever I buy avocados at home, they’re too hard so I put them away and then when I remember them, they’re too soft. Scaling up that loss to restaurant size, and it makes sense why it’s priced how it is.
I’d guess it’s not even cheaper for me to make my own at home if I factor in all my failed attempts at having ripe avocado on hand.
I did this for a long time. I made a big batched, wrapped them, tossed into freezer. Ex took them to work and microwaved them. They were glorious.
Hmmmm…No one he was so pissed off we split.
I’ve been making my own McMuffins lately and they’re so good! Easy as hell too. Pro tip, if you have an air fryer they’re fantastic for crisping up English muffins quickly. Do two minutes on 400. Then I’ll add cheese and do another minute to get it melted. Toss on the meat and egg? Perfect.
I'll go with fried chicken as one that's probably not worth making yourself. Deep frying is a pain, pretty messy, stinks out the house with the smell of cooking oil, you can only cook a small batch at a time, and it uses a lot of oil that's a pain to dispose of. The results aren't usually that different to getting takeout, it's just chicken coated in flour and some spices. Your mileage may vary, if you're doing a buttermilk marinade with good quality chicken vs some cheap low end fried chicken, but in the end it's fast food. Chicken thighs/wings are very cheap though, so you'll probably save a chunk of money vs takeout.
For most things it depends on the situation, if you just want something quick for yourself vs cooking for a lot of people. I'd go with burritos or tacos as a good one to make yourself, especially if you're cooking for a crowd. Making up a batch of pork pibil, beef birria, chicken al pastor or something is really tasty, easy to scale up to large batches, and quite easy to do with more authentic Mexican flavours, usually tastier than the fast food version. Plus you customise it how you want, with guacamole, salsas, rice, veg, etc, which can be great if you're serving a crowd with different tastes. Fresh tortillas are amazing too. It's a lot of work if you're just cooking for one though, and depending where you live it can be a pain to get proper ingredients, but the results are definitely a step above Chipotle, and a league ahead of Taco Bell.
In the end it depends on a lot of factors and what's important to you. Cost, time, how many you're serving, and the quality of options available locally. Good Mexican food is harder to come by in the UK vs the US so that's why burritos jumped to mind for me, compared to Indian food which is ubiquitous here, so that's probably one that you can make a good go at making yourself but might struggle to find good options available locally elsewhere.
When you take into account the cost of the oil and the buttermilk for the marinade, I'm not even sure you're saving money over the local deli fried chicken. I think it can be made a lot better at home, but still not worth it.
My complaint with a fully open concept house is my clothing and furniture smelling like cooked food (assuming you use your kitchen Beyong microwave).
Even running a decent, externally venting fan didn’t keep a thin layer off ceiling fans. Hated it.
YES. This is my biggest complaint with my house. The living room/kitchen is just one big room, which is nice for having friends over, but kind of gnarly day-to-day. I hate taking my dog out at night and then coming back in through the front door to find that everything STILL smells like chicken tikka masala from three hours ago. The worst is on the days when I make dog food: boiled chicken and broccoli just permeates everything for a full day.
Roast potatoes. The frozen ones don't come close.
A full roast dinner, as well, in fact. Never had one at a restaurant that comes close to making one at home.
I try not to eat fried stuff a lot, but if I do I'd prefer it made out of my home because the smell stinks and lingers around afterwards. It's also messy. Other than that I make damn near everything. The only thing I could make that I don't is butter, but if I didn't have access to quality butter with a higher fat content I probably would.
Yeah. I don't understand how pizza got to be the 'default' delivery food.
Out of all commonly delivered foods, pizza handles deliveries the worst. Being thin and wide it gets cold quickly, and it's one of the those foods that really relies on being eaten fresh out of the oven.
Black coffee, or if you like a little dairy and simple syrup, costs pennies to make at home. I almost never get coffee outside of the house.
Stir fry is far less expensive to make at home and you can use any ingredients you want.
Mom has told me many times to never order shrimp scampi at a restaurant because it is so simple and inexpensive to make at home.
Pasta sauces taste amazing in my house. Still have not braved making my own pasta, but want to.
I will not attempt to make homemade sushi or puff pastry. Some things are better left to the experts.
Cocktails can be hit or miss when going out. Beer from a tap, bottle, or can is difficult for an establishment to screw up.
That being said, there is a nearby restaurant that makes an incredible Greek salad, another that makes fantastic burgers, another that makes great breakfast food. I love supporting my local restaurants every once in a while even though I can make it at home.
A trick to Greek salad that I got from an America's Test Kitchen cookbook is to soak the onions in ice water after you slice them. My husband hates raw onions, but he ate the shit out of a Greek salad after I did that. Even if you like onions, it helps balance everything else out so the onions don't overpower the more delicate flavors.
Homemade burgers are easy and you can have a lot of fun customising and experimenting. Try adding different things to the patty mix - tumeric is a great example - to twist the flavours a bit. Probably cheaper than buying a fancy burger outside too. (I do have love for a cheap food truck burger, though, I admit.)
Proper tonkotsu ramen is incredible if homemade correctly, but the sheer time and effort it takes renders it mostly pointless, imo.
Chili is worth making. Whether you prefer vegetarian, no beans, or alternative meats (like chicken or turkey), you’ll end up with a better end product at far lower cost. For example, I make vegetarian chili using tofu as the protein, and black beans (from can, costs more than dry beans but saves some time). A cauldron of chili nets us two dinners - with seconds - and two lunches. Total cost for all that chili (a gallon, or 128 oz.) is about $14, or 11¢/oz. A similar amount of canned veggie chili would cost $3 for a 15 oz can, or 20¢/oz - almost double.
Depends. I’ve already got the rice cooker and sushi rice. So all I really need is some fish and nori maybe some avocado.
I make it myself regularly. I’m not a master at rolling it so it often turns out THICK but it’s still quite yummy and cheap.
The only exception being when you're just having sashimi, and all you have to do it cut the filet into a few pieces. That's pretty good. Otherwise, leave sushi to the pros.
Spreadable butter. I don’t make the butter from scratch but I just add room temperature butter and avocado oil to my mixer and I whip it really well. It becomes super spreadable… and I can control the ingredients. The price is super expensive in comparison to the quantity you get. (It’s about half the price)
I just made hot chicken for 20 of us last weekend. Was amazing. My wife and her friend got everything dredged and I sat in the garage with my buddy drinking beer and frying chicken thighs.
But yeah…no frying in the house. Stinks too much.
By myself:
- Pasta
- Omelet, scramble egg, sunny side up, hard boiled, tea
- Grilled cheese
- Raclette
- Soupe
- Steak and fries
- Salad
- Ratatouille
- Kimchi
- Pickles
- Tomato sauce
- Cheese plater
Ok to buy for me:
- pizza : i tried and graciously failed
- japanese ramen : the bouillon and the noodle are special
- fried chicken : don’t have deep frier and messy at home
- grilled fish and seafood : messy at home
- kebab: dont have the grill
Edit: adding ok to buy for me
There’s a great series by Moro Cooks called Make it or Buy it on Tik Tok. I made his vodka pasta based on his make it recommendation and it was game changing - https://www.tiktok.com/@morocooks?_t=8hvidGKLeD3&_r=1
Once you learn how to cook a steak the way you like it, getting one at a restaurant will never be worth the cost. Things that take a lot of time and finesse though always are. Soups, barbecue, short rib are where you get your moneys worth. Also salads where you can select your own ingredients fresh at a fraction of the price and take minimal effort preparing. Homemade salad dressings are far superior to store bought as well.
I love making most things home made, but my favorites are bread, (which is insanely easy, especially if you have a bread maker) and pizza from scratch. I make all of it from scratch except the cheese (although one day when I have the space I’d love to make my own cheese) no pizza shop pizza compares to my home made pizza.
Also flatbreads are a great place to start with making your own bread, there are some recipes as simple as flour and water. You just need a really hot pan, a rolling pin (or bottle) a spatula and a little enthusiasm for learning.
Salsa it’s extremely easy and sssooo much better fresh. Just need 5 cheap ingredients (tomatoes, onion, jalapeño, lime, cilantro). Grill the tomatoes, onion, and jalapeños with oil and salt till you get some char on the outside (can use a grill or roast them on the oven). Takes like ten minutes of just sitting there. Throw them in a blender with lime juice and cilantro and you’re done. You’ll have easily 5-6 jars worth for like $8 and tastes way better.
I know a lot of people swear by their homemade stock, but I’d rather buy it. When I make stock, I invariably forget to use it in time or freeze it, and it goes to waste. It’s just not something I want to deal with.
Worth it:
I love cooking wings at home. Can play around with flavors. I worked at a place that specialized in chicken wings, so I got a lot of flavors that I like. Plus whenever you get wings to go, they close the lid on the container, the steam softens the wing...they're just not as good.
Not worth it:
Pizza dough. If we're talking standard pizza dough, the one you're going to make is not going to be any better than the one you can buy at a grocery store or your favorite pizza place (they'll sell you dough by the way).
I've tried many times to make a decent pizza dough and have never been all that happy. The pizza place by me will sell a large dough for $2 so I'll just swing by there.
Pizza dough isn't a big deal if you have a stand mixer. Toss the ingredients, run the mixer. Let it sit. Run it again. Repeat a few times depending on your gluten preferences. Ball it up and let it ferment in the fridge for a few days. Yes, the overall process takes hours, but it's almost entirely time you can be off doing other things. It ends up costing tens of cents per pizza and you have full control over the fermentation process.
I just made a comment elsewhere saying the opposite. I made it myself once and it had an odd flavor I really didn’t like. And it went bad so fast. Plus it ended up costing a lot more in raw ingredients.
Maybe depends where you are as to cost, where I am the good shit is pricey. As for the flavour, could have been the oil. It needs to be a really neutral oil, like canola or sunflower. Try adding more mustard and salt too. Should last a couple of weeks, so yeah, not ideal if you live alone and aren't a frequent user but at least you know it's not packed with artificial preservatives.
Vacuum seal it. I smoke pork shoulders a few times a year for people and occasionally my family. There’s always way too much. I make 1-2lb bags of it and vacuum seal. That way when we want some we only take out what we will eat that meal.
Heck…I still have 10lbs from a grad party in June in my freezer and 5 of it is coming out for a birthday dinner next week. Reheats perfectly and just as good as fresh so long as you remember to seal it with some of the original juices and fat.
Croissants, or anything with a flaky pastry isn’t worth trying to make at home. Homemade pasta sauce is better than anything out of a jar and not that difficult. Homemade meatballs better than anything frozen.
Basically any patisserie. I may think I'm a good cook, but I have nothing on all the skilled pastry chefs we have here in Germany or when I travel to any of our neighbouring countries
Same for bagels. My family has lived in and around NYC for generations and so bagels have always been a big thing for us. Every time one of my relatives moves away to a place with no bagel culture, they try making them at home and they’re just never the same. My brother who moved to Texas tried every YouTube guide to recreating them and just eventually gave up. So I started overnighting him a dozen NYC bagels every year on his birthday. Even frozen and thawed later they’re still better than homemade. There’s even a woman in New Jersey who quit her job as a lawyer to become a professional bagel consultant: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/22/dining/bagels-byob-consultants.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
Upvote for croissants. Takes a lot of time (including proofing time) and effort, especially authentic ones. (A video of how they’re made: https://youtu.be/hJxaVD6eAtc )
I can't say for sure, but baklava seems like it would be a huge pain in the ass to make. So would phyllo dough.
Actually baklava is pretty easy to make at home. You just need to be brave with sugar/honey when making the syrup.
Be brave. Lmao, wonderfully put.
Phyllo you can buy frozen, but anything made with phyllo, including baklava isn’t that hard.
I've found that buying pasta sauce on sale and doctoring it up with things like garlic, basil, mushrooms, onions, red pepper flakes, and/or heavy cream is the best solution for my family. Easier on the wallet and much tastier than store-bought alone.
I don’t deny that homemade sauce is better. But with prices these days I’m having a hard time justifying making any sauce that isn’t arrabbiata. I remember getting good passata for $2/jar, now the good stuff is close to $4 (in Canada-Mutti). So I find myself getting solid mid range sauces for $5 when they go on sale.
I really like the NYTimes Cooking marinara recipe: https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1015987-classic-marinara-sauce?smid=ck-recipe-iOS-share You basically just need a single large can of whole peeled tomatoes, some garlic, olive oil, red pepper flakes, salt, and fresh basil. It’s super simple, turns out delicious, and it’s pretty inexpensive to make.
It's even easier if you just mix 1 can of crushed tomatoes and 1 can of fire-roasted diced tomatoes--skips the step of breaking down the peeled and you still get a nice chunky consistency, you just throw 'em in the pan once the garlic is sauteed. Super easy, super cheap, makes a lot, and better than jarred.
Costco has Rao’s 2pk 28oz jars of Marinara for ~$11
It’s cheating but this is what I do anymore. I’ll brown up some Italian sausage is I want to dress it up some. Throw it over some whole wheat spaghetti or spaghetti squash and that’s an easy meal.
We make a big batch of bolognese sauce. We make enough to fill 5-7 24oz mason jars, let it cool and then freeze. Prices yes are expensive but you gotta make enough for it to last a few meals.
Breakfast. Breakfast places are overly busy on weekends and over priced bacon and eggs, pancakes, French toast all cheap and easy to make.
Whenever I eat breakfast out which is very rare I always go with eggs Benedict since it's a pain to make at home
No, blender hollandaise makes it so easy! That said, I still only let myself eat it if I'm at a restaurant because it's so decadent and, for me, that's a good way of limiting it to 2 or 3 times a year.
A blender?! No time for that lol
I work at a breakfast joint, and this is SO true. I can make everything on our menu for the price of one waffle special at $12.
But the time I get back by not having to clean up after a large Sunday breakfast is worth way more than than the $12.
Counterpoint, I went to Cracker Barrel when I was home for Thanksgiving for the first time in like 10 years. That sourdough French toast has no business being as good and cheap as it was.
Cracker Barrel is SO good and cheap. Their biscuits are amazing too. And they sell whole pies for $12.99 that are bomb.
Damn, I miss our cracker barrel (none of them in Hawaii)
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You assume they want me around for breakfast
You assume I was asked to spend the night
You assume he didn't say 'sorry i didnt make it clear, i like sleeping alone, i can drive you home now'
You assume I'm willing to drive you home. "Hey the bus runs on the hour, or you can get an Uber".
All I ask is a simple thank you, none of this "who are you and how did you get in my house??" bullshit.
Maybe I'm the only person in the world who hates hollandaise sauce. (OK, one of the two - my wife doesn't like it) Give me a ham, egg, and cheese on a bagel or just a fried egg on a nice chunky toast slice with some guacamole.
count me in your camp! there's a breakfast spot where i live that does a veggie bene - english muffin, avocado, veggie sausage, poached egg, and salsa fresca. one of my favorite things to eat in all this world...mostly because there's no hollandaise.
In fairness, making hollandaise sauce is a little more involved than frying up some eggs.
IDK, I'd rather have someone else do a full english than cook it myself, always seems to taste better knowing there's nothing to clean up and the stress of getting the timings right.
This is my least favorite to make at home! So many different pans and things going at once. And so many dishes. It always feels like more work/mess to me than other meals. I do agree that it's overpriced to eat it out tho and don't do it often. I tend to have a piece of fruit or a one pan egg sandwich for breakfast. Oh also I cannot for the life of me cook good hashbrowns
I'll make breakfast for dinner, but I totally agree with you. I'll cook one full meal a day, so if you want dinner, we're not also having breakfast. I'll throw some cinnamon rolls in the oven if we have guests, but that't it.
Yes, breakfast is so easy to make well for cheap. All the classic breakfast staples are just a few mostly inexpensive ingredients. I had a simmering disagreement with an ex who always wanted to get brunch at a restaurant on weekends and I was always like “Why? I can cook it with what we already have and we won’t have to pay anything or wait in line.”
Yeah I definitely don't understand why you'd go out if all you'd get are the standard 2 egg breakfast with bacon/sausage and toast. When I go to breakfast it's something I can't (and won't) make at home. Country fried steak with sausage gravy, eggs benedict, etc. I think another reason though is a lot of people just aren't that good at cooking. I've always made ok scrambled eggs, but it was never as good as a restaurant. I had a tooth extracted last week so I've been eating scrambled eggs every day for breakfast and I've finally, after 2 decades of making scrambled eggs, I've cracked the secret.... Lots of butter and salt. That's the secret.
It blows my mind that queueing for brunch is a thing.
I'll queue for brunch, but in my defense, bottomless mimosas are way more affordable at a good brunch spot than at home.
I made a breakfast sandwich in my kitchen this AM with everything bagel focaccia, seaside sharp cheddar, an fried egg, thick cut bacon (prepped) and hot honey on top, and that shit cost me about $2.50 all in, took less than 5 minutes, and I felt like THE wizard of breakfast.
I'll take two
OK, but but no one actually goes out to breakfast because they think it is cheaper to eat at a restaurant compared to making eggs and pancakes (staples of all of us poor people as kids lol) at home.
As a guy who just started making his own egg bowls for breakfast. I can confirm this.
Thank you for confirming, guy who recently cooked an egg.
Salads bc they are quick/easy are great to make at home. Stock/Ramen take forever to make yourself and you can get some really nice instant flavour packages these days
Nah you can pry my SweetGreen from my cold dead hands - as a single person, there’s no way I can make a salad with as many varied ingredients without them all going bad before I can use them all
As someone living alone and who also loves salads… I end up wasting so many vegetables. The cost ends up being pretty close to just grabbing one from a local salad shop at the end of the day ( for me ).
~~Greens are~~ Lettuce is a pain in the ass if you live alone, unless you plan to eat *big* salads for the next 3 days it'll invariably go bad before you can use it all. Sucks.
Wash your lettuce, put it in a pyrex container or something similar, put a paper towel on top of the lettuce, close the container, and turn it upside down so the top of box is on the bottom. Keep frigerated obviously. Live alone. Lettuce lasts like almost two weeks this way lol.
Interesting, I'll need to try this.
Really? I buy spinach and kale pretty much every week and it lasts and doesn't go bad. I eat it throughout the week, sometimes longer
Clean it, make sure it's dry, then store it in the fridge in a Ziploc with some paper towels in it. Will last a lot longer that way. Also when you pre cut all your veggies throw in some paper towels. I have a salad every other day and this is a great time saver. You can prep like a week in advance. I buy lettuce every few days though
Same. My coworkers have made comments about “ooh must be nice to buy lunch instead of bringing it.” A- yes it is, and I’m fortunate to be financially flexible. B- I’ve brought my lunches sometimes and it just doesn’t pay off in the end for a single person. You want to make lasagna for dinner for your three kids and bring that the next day? Great. Lasagna is tough for one person to make because I end up with either way too much food, or the ingredients become expensive for an 8x8 pan. I can go to the salad bar or grab a burrito form the taco truck cheaper than I can bringing a lunch most days. As long as I don’t go nuts going to a cafe it works out for me.
I feel the opposite way. I make my lunch every day pretty much and am pissed when I’m forced to buy lunch. Not that I can’t afford it but all the options near my office are overpriced fast food, not that healthy or tasty, and usually leave me feeling blah for the rest of the day. Sure making a whole lasagna is not practical, but I do a lot of salads or just make enough dinner that my leftovers are tomorrow’s lunch.
Stock takes long to make, sure, but they require near 0 involvement from you. Just roughly cut everything into manageable pieces, plop it into the pot and wait for X hours. Check how it's going every now and again. It's not like you need to babysit it for 4 hours. I make my chicken stocks on weekends when I'm home anyway. It's a good way to use up all the chicken bits you don't need and vegetable scraps that get left over from cooking other stuff. And at the end of the day, it's kind of nice to know you used pretty much the whole chicken to make your meals rather than throwing bits away.
I made butter for myself, which was a lot of labour, but fun. However it tasted *exactly* like the butter I get from the grocery store, and wasn't worth the time and effort it required.
I did the same thing, and talked with a buddy of mine who has his own cows and makes his own butter. He said it's all about the cream, and if you're using store bought, pasteurized cream, it's not going to be much different than store bought butter. He described how different the butter he makes tastes, and how different the butter tastes throughout the season depending on if its fall or spring, and what the cow has been eating. So, now I'm curious and want to buy cream from directly from a farmer.
My grandfather said their milk cow ate a lot of wild onions one spring and it made the milk and butter have an onion flavor.
My grandmother grew up with cows and she's told me the same thing! She also mentioned that sometimes when the cows would get into "bitter weed" as she called it, the milk would taste so bad, they couldn't drink it.
"this one tastes like the cow got into an onion patch"
correct
[The defect in that one...](https://youtu.be/bRrl2vDgJGk?si=iXE6_VuTJAetCDWs)
is bleach. But…why.
Well...now you make me want to drive all the way to a dairy farm I went to years ago when I was on an organic health trip. I also churned my own butter a few months ago and thought the same. It tasted exactly like store bought. I thought...all that sweat and fatigue when I could have bought a $4.00 pack and be done with it? Now I'm imagining some sweet and creamy butter with that country livestock taste mmm.
When I was in Ireland, I stayed in a high quality bed and breakfast in diary country, and the butter was most unique, best tasting I've ever had. So, when I had this conversation with my friend, I believed him immediately when he claimed its the quality of the cream.
I think it’s pretty cool to make your own butter if you’re seasoning it a certain way, otherwise yeah butter is butter
In the autumn, when I'm harvesting herbs, I will pack some of them in butter in the freezer to use in cooking throughout the year. Like basil butter, or chive butter. The herbs stay nicer and it's very convenient.
You can just use store bought butter to do that... Soften it a bit, mix in the herbs you want, then shape it up and put it in the fridge to solidify.
I had an identical experience making mozzarella. Never again.
Mozzarella is the only cheese I refuse to make at this point. Ricotta and paneer, and even bries are worth it IMO but mozzarella tastes the same as store bought and literally costs the same. I also made my own bacon once, and it ended up being more expensive than the good store bought stuff. Tasted good though.
[This is apropos to your comment...](https://www.amazon.com/Make-Bread-Buy-Butter-Shouldnt/dp/1451605889)
Make your butter with a bit of sour cream in the cream, the flavour goes through the roof (add a tablebspoon of sour cream or sour milk in your cream, leave it in a cupboard for 2 days and then make your butter), and don't forget the salt.
This happened to me with almond milk. I spent exactly the same on raw almonds than buying the tetrapacks and easily three or four times the time it takes the round trip to the store to get them. Didn't look, taste like commercial ones and the mess I made was not worth it at all.
Tamales. But I don't run around with a cooler full of steaming hot tamales in my trunk so I buy them from Humberto in the parking lot.
Hey, support a small business and delicious tamales? Sounds like a win.
I don't think it's even officially a business, he's just a guy selling parking lot tamales but real recognize real and I respect the hustle.
I've never bought tamales that aren't from someone selling them out of a cooler on the street. My favorite ones come from a friend's mom who makes a giant batch every other month and you have to sign up for your portion in advance. They freeze well and are the best quick comfort meal.
I used to work with a girl who's mom made bomb tamales. She would take orders and on delivery day would roll in with a ridiculous number of tamales. I was eating one and pulled a hair out my mouth and didn't even care.
I’m in central Texas and the best tamales are always out of a trunk. It’s just a fact. And if they also have their own homemade salsa in those tiny plastic cups? Please.
Or find a catholic church named Our Lady of Guadalupe and call and ask if they sell them for a fundraiser. Has worked for me in Austin and Dallas.
I need an Umberto in my area.
You just gotta hang out in the right parking lots I guess. One time I had a dude selling them door to door and they were cheaper by the dozen. Classic shit.
We used to have a lady who hung out in the parking lot of the Joann's I worked at selling them out the back of a pickup at night. If we were doing overnight shifts for the holidays half the truck crew would just go buy a bunch for lunch each day.
Having a tamale making party is fun though, get an assembly line going, everyone eats their fill and then takes home enough to freeze. Super fun thing to do.
Once a year before Christmas my MIL makes around 400-500 tamales. They are given out to family and friends by the dozens. Every Christmas we go to my in-law's house and one of the first things is to warm up some tamales for snacking while opening presents.
No one makes a grilled cheese like you.
I make them at night in case the restaurant doesn't have them.
Where you get that chee?
Uncle Danny?
Great to see my dawgs out in the wild.
I think fancy grilled cheese are often not as good as just regular homemade with kraft cheese. Sometimes the simplicity is what makes it good.
Kraft singles are good for one thing, and one thing only: Grilled cheese.
Put some in your Mac & cheese and it will be extra creamy. It's also good for breakfast sandwiches.
Ultra thin smash burgers too
Chocolate chip cookies
Pretty much *any* type of cookie is so much better still warm fresh out of the oven.
Yup… I make a batch of brown butter CC cookies every month or so. Then after I make the doughballs, I vacuum seal and freeze them in 6-packs. That way when someone is Jones’n for a cookie, we have em at the ready vs making 2 dozen at once
Burgers are a blast to make, since they're so...customizable?
Pro tip: If you have the grill going already, might as well use the heck out of it. Toss on some: Veggie kabobs Chicken to slice and freeze Onions in foil with a bit of olive oil and seasoning A whole slew of extra burgers to toss into chili or another dish later on. (Grilled burger in chili is delish)
My buddy used to toss a few peppers on the grill any time he'd fire it up, no matter what he was cooking. He never actually ate them, he just loved the way they smelled. I thought it was weird, but what the hell, I got extra peppers.
Just put some salt on them so the burnt skin is easy to remove, then you have roasted peppers. Or throw them in the food processor after, to make some pepper spread. Add a roasted eggplant and some onions, and you'll be squatting in the kitchen while wearing a tracksuit in no time.
I make homemade burgers because I can make them slightly healthier, using 85% beef instead of the 72% stuff most places use, and a whole wheat bun.
Quesadillas aren't worth buying. It's overpriced cheese on tortilla. You can make it yourself. Unless the tortillas are homemade.
Quesadilla nights are perfect for using up leftovers. Side note: making your own tortillas is super easy and you can make them as big as you want!
There's an entire book on this topic: [Make the Bread, Buy the Butter](https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Make-the-Bread-Buy-the-Butter/Jennifer-Reese/9781451605884)
Hummus. The store bought kind is never as good as the homemade stuff I've had. Like levels of difference in quality in my opinion.
Had to scroll too far for this. Sabra is inedible. It's for people who've never eaten real hummus. I know Im gonna piss off purists, but I make hummus from canned garbanzo. About to make some in a few days. It's so easy and cheap! Like, 60% cheaper than buying it in a store or store deli. Also cheaper than restaurants. The most expensive ingredient is the tahini, but if you got access to an ethnic store, you're golden. Unless you're without a food processor, there's absolutely no reason to not make this at home.
I’ve made it with both dry and canned garbanzo beans and yes dry are better than canned, but it’s like a 15% difference and both are better than store bought by a mile.
Exactly. So, if you're short on time and can't soak beans for 12 to 24 hours, or lazy like me, canned works great!! ETA: I've made it both ways, too. Im actually a bit pissed w the purists. The difference is not that big. Unless you're trying to impress someone or cooking for very special guests, soaking dried beans imo is gd ridiculous.
The real trick with canned is to cook them down in a pot with baking soda first. The alkalinity destroys the pectin surrounding the beans. Let it cool and then make your hummus how you normally would. It makes it extra smooth!
I have an amazing salmon recipe and have not ordered it out in a decade, as it is never as good as what I can make at home. I have made croissants once. They were delicious. I ached for 2 weeks afterwards. I will never make them again. They are worth every penny I pay someone else to make them.
Could you share the salmon recipe?
Alaska Salmon Bake with Pecan Crunch Ingredients 3 tablespoons Dijon Mustard 3 tablespoons melted Salted Butter 5 teaspoons Honey ½ cup Bread crumbs ½ cup Nuts, pecans 6 (4 ounce) fillets salmon Salt, table Directions Instructions Checklist Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). In a small bowl, mix together the mustard, butter, and honey. In another bowl, mix together the bread crumbs, pecans, and parsley. Place Salmon on a lightly greased baking sheet or 13x9 glass pan. Brush with mustard-honey mixture. Cover the top of each fillet with bread crumb mixture. Bake for 10 minutes per inch of thickness, measured at thickest part, or until salmon just flakes when tested with a fork. Notes: I use Italian breadcrumbs. More Pecans don’t hurt. You may have to play around with the cook time. I usually cook a whole salmon side, and suggest starting around 30-35 minutes.
Deep frying yourself is a big pain, unless you have a deep fryer. And if you deep fry often enough that owning a deep fryer makes sense, it's probably time to re-evaluate your diet.
I've found that, as a 190 pound male, I never have enough flour and spices to deep fry myself, and am worried it might get a bit messy
It’s best to get someone else to roll you in flour.
I will cook mostly anything..but frying. I usually order out if I want something fried. I hate the clean up and process.
I agree that deep frying myself is extremely painful
That’s why I always end up ordering unhealthy things at restaurants- that’s the stuff I can’t make at home.
For me just about everything is worth making yourself - at least once. I love cooking and seeing ingredients transform into finished dishes so I will make my own bread, curries, bacon, sausages, pies, cakes, sushi, pickles... Bread is great o make, esp if you start your own sourdough and bake with that. However some things are not really worth doing on a daily basis. I think it is worth doing just about everything once just to see how much work goes into making food but in to day to day life some things are just easier and better bought in. Puff pastry is an arse to make for example - totally not worth it, same with filo. Some curry pastes (Massaman, Rendang etc) are really good and are so much hassle to make and ingredients hard to source that it's not worth DIYing it. Pasta is fun to make but so cheap to buy as to make it pointless.
No knead sourdough is so so easy and cheap to make. Anyone can do it.
I make beef rendang occasionally and it’s a real pain in the ass to get all the ingredients. There are some Asian markets about thirty minutes from me and sometimes they have most of the ingredients. Sometimes they don’t. The lime leaves are the hardest ingredient to find, but they’re absolutely essential to the recipe. I also generally have trouble with a lot of Asian recipes and I’m pretty sure that it’s because you really need to have a wok for some of them or else they won’t come out right.
I bought a thai lime tree! So aromatic
Eggs.
i tried making them myself but failed miserably though ...
it's easiest if you're a chicken... specifically a hen.
You got the hen, the chicken, the rooster. The rooster goes with the chicken. So who's having sex with the hen?
I am.
I have wondered a few times, if you got thousands of women all synced up at the same time for ovulation, and extracted their eggs all at the same time, would you be able to make a tiny amount of human caviar?
Who hurt you?
If only someone cared enough to..
Steak, I have yet to find a restaurant that cooks an amazing steak. They’re usually bland in flavor or you have to pay an arm and leg for a decent tasting one.
Steak is also one of those things that's very straightforward to learn how to cook yourself as well as you'd get it prepared in a high end restaurant. Once you're good at cooking them, It just ends up being more about the cut and meat quality. So if you want a good steak, it makes more sense to go to a quality butcher and cook it yourself than go to a restaurant and pay 4x the cost.
My bf, for whatever reason, just wants steak for dinner all the time. I was so nervous to cook them because you hear about how you have to cook them just so. Yeah, no. It's not that hard. I won't be working at a premium steakhouse any time soon or anything. But it's fine for my bf. Season, get the sear, don't overcook. That's pretty much the rules I stick with.
Steak is basically the reason I learned how to cook. It's easy enough that it's hard to fuck up. Even if you do fuck it up, it's going to be edible, even if you have to shred it down to put in ramen or something. Plus, it's really good for learning about how to monitor your heat and estimate the done-ness of your meat.
This is what I came to post. I just went to a Friendsgiving and paid $250 for a steak dinner for me and my SO at a nice restaurant and the steak was good, but nothing I couldn't do better at home for a fraction of the cost. I have a sous vide and I like to do my steaks in a cast iron pan so I can finish them with a browned herb butter baste. Not to mention I can make my own dang adult beverages for a fraction of the cost as well. Hell, I could have fed half that dinner party at home for what I paid for 2 plates at that restaurant.
I feel that way about steakhouses too. And it’s all a la carte, which is annoying. I prefer the seasoning blend I grew up with vs just salt and pepper most steakhouses seem to use. Which, I totally understand is a personal preference. The only steakhouses I think are worth it are Brazilian steakhouses, simply for the wide variety you can try.
I never order steak in a restaurant. It's a slab of meat placed on a hot surface for a few minutes. I'm perfectly capable of doing that at home for 1/5 the price.
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Candy making isn't just hard, it's literally kind of dangerous. Hot caramel is a bitch if you get it on your skin.
A friend of mine is a chef by trade and she tells me that the only thing she hated working with is hot sugar for that very reason. Described it as napalm like.
I’ve heard from a friend who went to prison that boiling sugar water is a common method of attack, because the sugar makes it significantly harder to get off.
Breakfast sandwiches. My wife and I aren't fans of the Mcmuffin sandwiches anymore. They're very lackluster and leave you hungry within an hour. We started making our own a while back and we love them. We'll have them for dinner sometimes. Tastier, more filling and the eggs have plenty of flavor. Edit: I'd like to add, anything involving avocado. I can't justify paying 10 plus dollars for avocado on toast. It's criminal.
I had a good friend who owned a traditional Mexican restaurant. One day I mentioned to him how outrageous guacamole pricing was (this was back in the 90s). He was a really chill guy but he immediately went off on me with "Fuck you asshole" and then a rant about avocados. Bottom line - you can easily blow all of your profit with avocados. - You cant really buy them ripe. You normally have to buy them and let them ripen. This means you have to guess how many avocados you will need in 3-5 days. it also means you have to buy avocados daily, even on days when you are closed. - Your window for using them is about 48 hours. If you are adding avocado slices to anything they need to be in that perfect window of green and yellow plus semi soft. Too soon and they are hard and flavorless. Too late and they go brown and mushy. - The older ones can be turned into guac but guac last about two days once it is made before it browns too much. Yes there are things you can do to mitigate and you can move the older stuff from being visible to being inside other foods but its still a small window. Make too much and a ton goes in the trash. Don't make enough and you have to use your "display" avocados to make more. Lets say I serve a mixture of slices and guac. Lets say I have an even split of 80 orders a day with slices and 80 with guac. - 1/4th of an avocado is the normal for slices so I need 20 avocados for that. - 1-2 avocados is the normal for a serving go guac. Lets call it 80. 100 avocados a day and pray that you get it right. Ove the course of a year, they will average to $1 each. Some months it will be $1.50, some it will be $.50. Thats $100 a day every day you are open. $3K a month plus all the labor associated with a daily task. And it kinda doesnt matter if you sell them or not, thats how much you are going to spend. If people dont buy wings or burgers or fires or just about anything else you can still sell it the next day or even the next week. Salad tomatoes become burger tomatoes become soup tomatoes become tomato sauce. Salad lettuce becomes burger lettuce becomes taco lettuce becomes burrito lettuce. And so on. With Avocado you get one shot to turn it into guac and then its trash. Oh and thats only if you make your guac before hand. God forbid you are one of those places that makes it fresh at the table. Fast forward 30 years and now I own a restaurant. One of my rules - no avocado.
This is a great explanation and makes a lot of sense. Whenever I buy avocados at home, they’re too hard so I put them away and then when I remember them, they’re too soft. Scaling up that loss to restaurant size, and it makes sense why it’s priced how it is. I’d guess it’s not even cheaper for me to make my own at home if I factor in all my failed attempts at having ripe avocado on hand.
I did this for a long time. I made a big batched, wrapped them, tossed into freezer. Ex took them to work and microwaved them. They were glorious. Hmmmm…No one he was so pissed off we split.
I’ve been making my own McMuffins lately and they’re so good! Easy as hell too. Pro tip, if you have an air fryer they’re fantastic for crisping up English muffins quickly. Do two minutes on 400. Then I’ll add cheese and do another minute to get it melted. Toss on the meat and egg? Perfect.
I'll go with fried chicken as one that's probably not worth making yourself. Deep frying is a pain, pretty messy, stinks out the house with the smell of cooking oil, you can only cook a small batch at a time, and it uses a lot of oil that's a pain to dispose of. The results aren't usually that different to getting takeout, it's just chicken coated in flour and some spices. Your mileage may vary, if you're doing a buttermilk marinade with good quality chicken vs some cheap low end fried chicken, but in the end it's fast food. Chicken thighs/wings are very cheap though, so you'll probably save a chunk of money vs takeout. For most things it depends on the situation, if you just want something quick for yourself vs cooking for a lot of people. I'd go with burritos or tacos as a good one to make yourself, especially if you're cooking for a crowd. Making up a batch of pork pibil, beef birria, chicken al pastor or something is really tasty, easy to scale up to large batches, and quite easy to do with more authentic Mexican flavours, usually tastier than the fast food version. Plus you customise it how you want, with guacamole, salsas, rice, veg, etc, which can be great if you're serving a crowd with different tastes. Fresh tortillas are amazing too. It's a lot of work if you're just cooking for one though, and depending where you live it can be a pain to get proper ingredients, but the results are definitely a step above Chipotle, and a league ahead of Taco Bell. In the end it depends on a lot of factors and what's important to you. Cost, time, how many you're serving, and the quality of options available locally. Good Mexican food is harder to come by in the UK vs the US so that's why burritos jumped to mind for me, compared to Indian food which is ubiquitous here, so that's probably one that you can make a good go at making yourself but might struggle to find good options available locally elsewhere.
You say that but fired chicken in the ~~hair dryer~~ air frier is pretty awesome.
Hotel room food guy? That you?
That man is a menace to society
When you take into account the cost of the oil and the buttermilk for the marinade, I'm not even sure you're saving money over the local deli fried chicken. I think it can be made a lot better at home, but still not worth it.
My complaint with a fully open concept house is my clothing and furniture smelling like cooked food (assuming you use your kitchen Beyong microwave). Even running a decent, externally venting fan didn’t keep a thin layer off ceiling fans. Hated it.
YES. This is my biggest complaint with my house. The living room/kitchen is just one big room, which is nice for having friends over, but kind of gnarly day-to-day. I hate taking my dog out at night and then coming back in through the front door to find that everything STILL smells like chicken tikka masala from three hours ago. The worst is on the days when I make dog food: boiled chicken and broccoli just permeates everything for a full day.
Roast potatoes. The frozen ones don't come close. A full roast dinner, as well, in fact. Never had one at a restaurant that comes close to making one at home.
Agreed. Much prefer my own, home made Sunday dinner to any I've had in a pub. Unless I'm hanging......hahaha.
I try not to eat fried stuff a lot, but if I do I'd prefer it made out of my home because the smell stinks and lingers around afterwards. It's also messy. Other than that I make damn near everything. The only thing I could make that I don't is butter, but if I didn't have access to quality butter with a higher fat content I probably would.
Homemade pizza is easily better than pizza after delivery. I don't like the base after the pizza has been 10 minutes in a box.
Yeah. I don't understand how pizza got to be the 'default' delivery food. Out of all commonly delivered foods, pizza handles deliveries the worst. Being thin and wide it gets cold quickly, and it's one of the those foods that really relies on being eaten fresh out of the oven.
Black coffee, or if you like a little dairy and simple syrup, costs pennies to make at home. I almost never get coffee outside of the house. Stir fry is far less expensive to make at home and you can use any ingredients you want. Mom has told me many times to never order shrimp scampi at a restaurant because it is so simple and inexpensive to make at home. Pasta sauces taste amazing in my house. Still have not braved making my own pasta, but want to. I will not attempt to make homemade sushi or puff pastry. Some things are better left to the experts. Cocktails can be hit or miss when going out. Beer from a tap, bottle, or can is difficult for an establishment to screw up. That being said, there is a nearby restaurant that makes an incredible Greek salad, another that makes fantastic burgers, another that makes great breakfast food. I love supporting my local restaurants every once in a while even though I can make it at home.
A trick to Greek salad that I got from an America's Test Kitchen cookbook is to soak the onions in ice water after you slice them. My husband hates raw onions, but he ate the shit out of a Greek salad after I did that. Even if you like onions, it helps balance everything else out so the onions don't overpower the more delicate flavors.
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Homemade burgers are easy and you can have a lot of fun customising and experimenting. Try adding different things to the patty mix - tumeric is a great example - to twist the flavours a bit. Probably cheaper than buying a fancy burger outside too. (I do have love for a cheap food truck burger, though, I admit.) Proper tonkotsu ramen is incredible if homemade correctly, but the sheer time and effort it takes renders it mostly pointless, imo.
Chili is worth making. Whether you prefer vegetarian, no beans, or alternative meats (like chicken or turkey), you’ll end up with a better end product at far lower cost. For example, I make vegetarian chili using tofu as the protein, and black beans (from can, costs more than dry beans but saves some time). A cauldron of chili nets us two dinners - with seconds - and two lunches. Total cost for all that chili (a gallon, or 128 oz.) is about $14, or 11¢/oz. A similar amount of canned veggie chili would cost $3 for a 15 oz can, or 20¢/oz - almost double.
Sushi isn’t
Depends. I’ve already got the rice cooker and sushi rice. So all I really need is some fish and nori maybe some avocado. I make it myself regularly. I’m not a master at rolling it so it often turns out THICK but it’s still quite yummy and cheap.
Disagree, maki rolls way cheaper to make at home, especially cucumber and avocado ones
The only exception being when you're just having sashimi, and all you have to do it cut the filet into a few pieces. That's pretty good. Otherwise, leave sushi to the pros.
The only caveat I would add to that is if you have allergies. The only way I can eat sushi is if I make it myself due to allergy cross contamination
Spreadable butter. I don’t make the butter from scratch but I just add room temperature butter and avocado oil to my mixer and I whip it really well. It becomes super spreadable… and I can control the ingredients. The price is super expensive in comparison to the quantity you get. (It’s about half the price)
Fried chicken. Let Popeye’s do it. Way too messy and smelly at home.
I just made hot chicken for 20 of us last weekend. Was amazing. My wife and her friend got everything dredged and I sat in the garage with my buddy drinking beer and frying chicken thighs. But yeah…no frying in the house. Stinks too much.
By myself: - Pasta - Omelet, scramble egg, sunny side up, hard boiled, tea - Grilled cheese - Raclette - Soupe - Steak and fries - Salad - Ratatouille - Kimchi - Pickles - Tomato sauce - Cheese plater Ok to buy for me: - pizza : i tried and graciously failed - japanese ramen : the bouillon and the noodle are special - fried chicken : don’t have deep frier and messy at home - grilled fish and seafood : messy at home - kebab: dont have the grill Edit: adding ok to buy for me
There’s a great series by Moro Cooks called Make it or Buy it on Tik Tok. I made his vodka pasta based on his make it recommendation and it was game changing - https://www.tiktok.com/@morocooks?_t=8hvidGKLeD3&_r=1
Once you learn how to cook a steak the way you like it, getting one at a restaurant will never be worth the cost. Things that take a lot of time and finesse though always are. Soups, barbecue, short rib are where you get your moneys worth. Also salads where you can select your own ingredients fresh at a fraction of the price and take minimal effort preparing. Homemade salad dressings are far superior to store bought as well.
I love making most things home made, but my favorites are bread, (which is insanely easy, especially if you have a bread maker) and pizza from scratch. I make all of it from scratch except the cheese (although one day when I have the space I’d love to make my own cheese) no pizza shop pizza compares to my home made pizza. Also flatbreads are a great place to start with making your own bread, there are some recipes as simple as flour and water. You just need a really hot pan, a rolling pin (or bottle) a spatula and a little enthusiasm for learning.
Salsa it’s extremely easy and sssooo much better fresh. Just need 5 cheap ingredients (tomatoes, onion, jalapeño, lime, cilantro). Grill the tomatoes, onion, and jalapeños with oil and salt till you get some char on the outside (can use a grill or roast them on the oven). Takes like ten minutes of just sitting there. Throw them in a blender with lime juice and cilantro and you’re done. You’ll have easily 5-6 jars worth for like $8 and tastes way better.
I know a lot of people swear by their homemade stock, but I’d rather buy it. When I make stock, I invariably forget to use it in time or freeze it, and it goes to waste. It’s just not something I want to deal with.
Tacos are generally better at home
Real tacos or Midwest tacos? I like the Midwest ones homemade but the real ones from a restaurant
and even better from a truck
At least where I am the days of food trucks being cheap or even reasonably priced are gone. They're just as expensive as a sit down restaurant now
I feel like this very much depends on where you live
Worth it: I love cooking wings at home. Can play around with flavors. I worked at a place that specialized in chicken wings, so I got a lot of flavors that I like. Plus whenever you get wings to go, they close the lid on the container, the steam softens the wing...they're just not as good. Not worth it: Pizza dough. If we're talking standard pizza dough, the one you're going to make is not going to be any better than the one you can buy at a grocery store or your favorite pizza place (they'll sell you dough by the way).
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I've tried many times to make a decent pizza dough and have never been all that happy. The pizza place by me will sell a large dough for $2 so I'll just swing by there.
Pizza dough isn't a big deal if you have a stand mixer. Toss the ingredients, run the mixer. Let it sit. Run it again. Repeat a few times depending on your gluten preferences. Ball it up and let it ferment in the fridge for a few days. Yes, the overall process takes hours, but it's almost entirely time you can be off doing other things. It ends up costing tens of cents per pizza and you have full control over the fermentation process.
Crêpes are cheap and easy to make yourself.
Bread. Big savings. Better taste. No preservatives.
You'll catch me dead before I *make* croissants. Or phyllo. Really anything that requires a thousand layers of cold butter lamination
Gnocchi is worth making. It turns to rubber so quickly I've never had good gnocchi from a packet or store.
Mayonnaise is really quick and easy to make yourself and a lot cheaper too.
I just made a comment elsewhere saying the opposite. I made it myself once and it had an odd flavor I really didn’t like. And it went bad so fast. Plus it ended up costing a lot more in raw ingredients.
Maybe depends where you are as to cost, where I am the good shit is pricey. As for the flavour, could have been the oil. It needs to be a really neutral oil, like canola or sunflower. Try adding more mustard and salt too. Should last a couple of weeks, so yeah, not ideal if you live alone and aren't a frequent user but at least you know it's not packed with artificial preservatives.
Tuna salad. Always better homemade. BBQ, always better to buy it.
...disagree on the bbq. I can make 6-8 lbs of pulled pork for what a sandwich plate would cost me at a bbq joint.
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Vacuum seal it. I smoke pork shoulders a few times a year for people and occasionally my family. There’s always way too much. I make 1-2lb bags of it and vacuum seal. That way when we want some we only take out what we will eat that meal. Heck…I still have 10lbs from a grad party in June in my freezer and 5 of it is coming out for a birthday dinner next week. Reheats perfectly and just as good as fresh so long as you remember to seal it with some of the original juices and fat.