Budget Friendly tips
- The Beans: Switch from buying canned beans to buying dry in bulk. Invest in freezer friendly 16 oz containers, cook the dry beans in advance and portion them out in these containers to substitute for canned beans in recipes! Keep the excess in your freezer and use as needed
-Pros: Reduce sodium content in recipes, produce less waste, cheaper in the long run
-Cons: takes a bit more prep time, but if you have an instant pot you can set it up and forget about it while you catch up on some chores or read a book/watch tv.
- Vegetable Broth: Substitute half or all of the vegetable broth for water in any recipe. Get better than the bouillon vegetable version and dilute it in the water. One $7 jar makes the equivalent of 9.5 boxes of 32 oz vegetable broth. Alternatively you can go for a cheaper jar of bouillon as well.
-Pros: Reduce sodium content in recipes, produce less waste, save money on a not-totally-necessary ingredient
-Cons: may reduce some of the flavor in your recipe, so you may have to adjust seasonings accordingly
- Cheese: Buy your cheese in large blocks and shred it as needed for recipes
-Pros: produce less waste, save money and calories when you switch from pre-shredded
-Cons: a little bit more time consuming, and takes up some space in the fridge
- Herbs: Instead of buying dehydrated herbs in jars, buy them fresh and chop them up, place them in the freezer. If you have the inclination, you can even grow them yourself in pots on a windowsill.
-Pros: they will taste better, reduce waste, and are cheaper
-Cons: more time consuming to chop them yourself or grow yourself
PROTIP: if only using the greens of green onions, place the ends in a small cup/container with water covering the roots and leave in a sunny spot by a window, The greens will grow back and can be used at least one more time!
- Need extra protein? Buy pure pea protein powder, you can get an extra 8 grams of protein for only 35 calories. Mix it into soups and pretty much any bean dish and you won’t taste it much as long as you can dissolve it in liquid.
- Lemons & Limes: Some recipes only need a tablespoon of juice, but your fruit may produce 2-4 tablespoons. Don’t waste that juice! Get an ice cube tray and measure out tablespoons of juice to freeze. Once Frozen, place them in a Ziplock bag (I like thick reusable ones personally, for budget effect and environment friendliness) and label them. Now you can easily grab as needed.
- Pesto: jar pesto is never as tasty, and it can get expensive. You can easily make a big batch of pesto at the end of summer to freeze if you can grow some basil plants! Basil is incredibly easy to grow, you can start by seeds or grow from supermarket basil plants. Grow those babies, then at the end of the season, use all that basil for pesto! Basil plants generally die off in winter, so don’t feel bad about plucking that plant naked. Make the pesto and spread it on a sheet pan lined with parchment paper, then freeze. Once frozen, break into pieces and store in a freezer safe container or bag. Frozen pesto melts super easily and is ready to go, tasting as fresh as the day you made it.
-Pros: Cost effective and you get the pleasure of growing basil.
-Cons: You have to grow basil. I guess this is only a con if you hate gardening.