How to Cook Gourmet Meals on a Budget
Around 50 percent of millennials spend more on eating out than they do on saving for the future. If you have decided that you need to be savvier with your cash, you may need to start eating gourmet meals on a budget.
But, that doesn’t mean that you have to satisfied with TV dinners and cold sandwiches. There are a bunch of ways that you can enjoy gourmet food while sticking to your tight budget.
Are you ready to discover more about how you can take advantage of our gourmet meals on a budget cooking tips? Check out the below!
1. Set Yourself a Budget
Around one-third of Americans don’t budget at all. How can you know if you’re spending more money than you have if you don’t budget your expenses?
If you want to eat gourmet food on a budget, you need to stay organized. That means working out how much you’re prepared to spend per month on your groceries.
Once you have made the calculations and any touch decisions, you need to stick to it throughout the month. When you find yourself struggling to keep it, start eating out of the cupboards.
2. Don’t Be Afraid to Rotate Your Favorite Recipes
You don’t need to come up with thousands of meals. You can eat the same dishes over and over again. Once you have put together approximately a dozen dishes that you enjoy eating and cooking, you can simply rotate the same recipes.
If you’re rushed for time, you’ll get much faster at preparing your favorite dishes simply through practice. They’ll even taste yummier as you get better cooking them as well.
If you want to eat Mac n’ Cheese, nobody is stopping to whipping this deliciously cheesy dish every other week.
3. Add a Little Bit of Class at the End
Gourmet food doesn’t mean that each ingredient is expensively sourced from your local specialty store. There are normally only one or two ingredients that really lift your dish into the realms of gourmet standards.
For instance, when you make your classic mushroom risotto, just add a couple of fine slices of high-quality chorizo for the luxury experience.
Next time you’re making cauliflower curry, top it off with some tasty paneer cheese purchased from your nearest Asian store. These small pieces of gourmet at the end of the dish can really make the difference. You’ll quickly feel like you’re eating in a restaurant.
4. Definitely Avoid Any Food Waste
Americans collectively throw away more than 150,000 tons of food every day. That’s a lot of food that could be going into your recipes. You can play your part to end this madness. Never throw anything unless you really have to.
You need to keep track of the food in cupboards. Don’t allow that pesky onion to go rotten or the milk in your fridge freezer to turn sour.
It’s also good to remember that the sell-by-date isn’t the eat-by-date. You often still eat food that has already gone out of date. If it looks edible, it probably is.
5. Get to Know Your Beans
If you’re cooking gourmet meals on a budget, then you need to take advantage of the cheap and tasty ingredients that can play a huge part in your meals.
Beans are a perfect example of this. There are so many kinds of beans; from kidney beans and white beans to black beans to chickpeas. You can also really bulk out your stews, soups, and curries with a can of beans. Beans are also a great source of nutrients, packed with protein, fiber, potassium, and zinc.
6. Learn to Get Good at the Basics
You don’t have to be an award-winning chef to cook some of the basics. Anyone can make an amazing porridge from scratch or a delicious tomato sauce.
Once you have learned the basics of cooking, the rest will quickly flow from this. You can most of this stuff simply by watching YouTube. Before you know it you’ll be ready to order fresh seafood from Crab Dynasty to impress your dinner party guests with some amazing dishes.Â
7. Discover How to Make Your Own Bread
Bread is one of the staple foods for many Americans. If you want to eat gourmet bread, you’ll find yourself breaking the bank to keep yourself fed.
If you refuse to eat the yucky sliced bread that is popular among many people, you’re left with the only option left. You’ve got to prepare your own bread. Invest in a breadmaker and get started. It’s pretty simple to make all kinds of loaves of bread.
The good news is that the ingredients are extremely cheap as well. You won’t go poor buying flour and yeast.
8. Always Make Enough for Leftovers
Have you ever noticed that other people are always bringing leftovers to work the next day?
If you never have anything left in the bottom of the pot after you have finished eating, that’s a sign that you should be making more food.
If you’re cooking food for four people, then you should be making enough for six and eight people. It’s time and money-saving as well. You can box up anything leftover and freeze it to eat sometime in the future.
Make sure you invest in some sturdy boxes to store away food all of the time so that you can enjoy it at a later date.
9. Shop for Seasonable Produce
Over two-thirds of Americans expect to be able to buy any ingredient all year round. People in the U.S. are extremely fortunate to be able to get a wide variety of ingredients shipped in from all over the world.
But, you can save a lot of money by shopping seasonally. It’s often tastier to eat seasonal fruit and vegetables that have been grown and sold down the road.
This can also spark your creativity as you have to return to some of the old classics that your parents (or even grandparents) would prepare to save money.
10. Experiment With Vegetarian Dishes
Do you spend a lot of your budget on meat? Many shoppers will know that meat can be extremely expensive. If you’re buying a fancy chicken breast or a butcher’s best sausages, you can spend half of your budget on meat alone.
This is not only bad for your health and the environment. Meat can also leave a huge hole in your pocket. Switching to a vegetarian diet can help you stick to your budget without compromising on gourmet dishes.
You can even go a stretch further and go vegan. Many people also praise the benefits of veganism for your health, environment, and wallet.Â
11. Perfect Your Meal Planning
When you come home from work exhausted and hungry, what do you do? You’re probably always tempted to order delivery. But, if you have everything planned already, you wouldn’t need to spend a fortune on expensive delivery meals or going out to restaurants.
On a Sunday, you can shop, prepare and cook everything you need to do for the rest of the week. This saves you time during your busy week. This way, when you get home late without any energy to cook, you’ll have your pasta sauce in the freezer ready for you to reheat and tuck into.
12. Don’t Shop on an Empty Stomach Without a List
Picking the right time to go grocery shopping is essential if you’re going to keep to your budget. Never do this activity when you’re hungry.
You’ll end up spending a lot more when you have an empty stomach because you’re more tempted by the smells and looks of the food in the store.
You can be stronger and more disciplined when you’ve already eaten a delicious meal before you head to the store. But, you should also make sure you have a list with you. There’s nothing worse than arriving back home only to realize you forget to buy any milk.
Gourmet Meals on a Budget
If you’re a massive foodie, you don’t need to always visit expensive restaurants to be able to enjoy amazing dishes. You can make them yourself at home. If you can’t afford to splash the cash on gourmet food, you need to think carefully about how to cut corners.
Following our tips on how to make gourmet meals on a budget so that you can stay healthy, eat yummy food and save money at the same time.
Do you want to read more about how to be savvy with your salary? Check out our blog for many more money-saving tips.
