Making meat affordable @ Saver Queen

Making meat affordable

Posted on February 11th, 2012 Saver Queen 5 comments

As I’ve written about before, I tend to eat a semi-vegetarian diet, cooking with meat perhaps once, maybe twice per week. My strategy for purchasing meat is usually to buy large packages of meat when they go on sale. For example, Food Basics and FreshCo have had many sales recently of bone-in chicken thighs or drumsticks for $5; each package yields about 8 pieces of meat. This is a good price, but because I may eat just one or two pieces of meat per serving, I end up eating the same dish over and over again until I’m absolutely sick of it.

In response to this, I first tried making two dishes out of one package of meat. For example, I split up a recent purchase of Italian sausages to create two dishes; one, a slow-cooker dish of Kale, Sausage and Tomatoes, the other a Stir-fry. But this still meant that I was still eating meals containing sausage all week long.

So I adjusted my strategy: Buy a large package of meat, and then repackage it and freeze in small portions – putting 4 pieces of meat in one bag. This allows me to cook 2 – 4 meals at a time.

I find that when the meat is incorporated into a larger meal including lots of vegetables and grains, one or two pieces of meat is all that is necessary, and this leads to meals that are very low on the cost-per-serving ratio. Some of the meals I’ve calculated have come out to less than $2.50 per serving. This includes: Honey-Mustard Glazed Drumsticks with Roasted Carrots & Potatoes, served with Cauliflower Soup & homemade Garlic Croutons (about $2.30 per serving including the soup) and Chicken & Basmati Rice Bake with Peppers, Onions, Tomatoes & Green Beans (about $2.60 per serving.) Another meal I made with the drumsticks was a hearty Black Bean & Chicken slow-cooker Stew. All of these meals, by the way, were delicious.

When possible and depending on the dish, I may separate the chicken from the bones and put them into a freezer bag. Once I have enough bones (coupled with vegetable scraps like onion peelings, celery leaves, broccoli stocks, etc.) I make a delicious chicken stock, which can then be used for soups or infusing rice with more flavour. Considering this eliminates the need to buy chicken stock from a store (and improves the flavour as well as the nutrition of the stock), this makes the meat purchase even more economical. It’s this “minimal waste” philosophy that lets me eat for $150 – $175 a month. For example, the Cauliflower soup I mentioned was made with a cauliflower on sale for $1.49 and homemade croutons with leftover stale french bread and my own window-box herbs.

I also repeated this same strategy when buying stewing beef to make meals like Goulash and Beef Coconut Curry. These items are easily frozen so it makes sense to make a large batch and then freeze is smaller portions.

A final tip? When buying the chicken, I pick the greatest weight, since all packages are the same cost.

If any meal I’ve mentioned especially appeals to you, let me know and I will post the recipe!

What is your favourite money saving tip for buying meat?

5 responses to “Making meat affordable”

The Witch February 11th, 2012 at 16:15

This is a great way to save money and the vegetable stock is always delious with the left overs veggie scraps. I can never understand why everyone buys the commercial brand of stock which is so full of salt. Thought you can get no-salt PC blue menu brand. I love the idea that you are not just throwing out the veggie scraps. I do the same and if I cook a turkey or chicken I usually freeze the left over carcass to make soup with at a later date.
I would love the recipe for the Beef Coconut Curry.
Really enjoyed this post.
Jen Dodd February 13th, 2012 at 18:44

A variation on the stock idea: after a roast chicken, I boil up the whole carcass with any left over bits of roasted vegetables and scrapings from the roasting tin, and any other veggies I have around. I find this makes a yummy roast chicken soup, because there’s usually a lot of meat left even when it’s “all” been carved off. It even works with store-bought roasted chickens.
Saver Queen February 13th, 2012 at 21:38

The Witch – completely agree that using veggie scraps is a good way to go. Will follow up with the recipe soon!

Jen – thanks for posting. That’s a great tip. Do you just pull the carcass out afterwards and find that most of the remaining meat has fallen off, or do you have to kind of “carve” the last little bits off?
Nancy February 19th, 2012 at 14:02

I never seem to think about saving the vegetable peelings etc…down they go into the garburator. And we eat a ton of veggies. Thanks for the good reminder, I use a lot of vegetable stock and usually buy the organic, low sodium kind that’s very costly when it’s not on sale.
I often buy organic vegetables so I don’t have big concerns about the peels etc going into a stalk.
Thanks ! Very practical little tidbit!
Saver Queen February 19th, 2012 at 15:08

Oh, it’s such a great idea to save the veggie peelings. For example, carrot peelings, onion layers, etc. I also include any veggies or herbs that are kind on their way out and I throw in extra cooked potatoes that aren’t going to get eaten, etc. It’s easy to make a really flavourful stock this way. The other day I used the end of a chili pepper, left over potatoes, the top parts of a fennel bulb, left over broccoli and some garlic, salt, and parsley. It was really tasty!