The Frugal Cook – Cooking Without Spending More

Article by Carolyn Anderson

Cooking is an interesting hobby and it does not have to be expensive. Of course, you can still make healthy recipes without spending more. You can be the frugal cook but someone who will not sompromise a healthy recipe over the budget. If you love cooking, you don’t have to be held back by your budget to make a healthy recipe. Of course, you can still make healthy recipes even by beign frugal. Here are a few tips that you might find useful in trying to enjoy cooking without having to spend more.

1. Plan your meals and prepare your recipes. Of course, planning helps you cut cost as you can find cheaper ingredients. This will also help you buy in bulk in case you need an ingredient for more than one recipe that you plan for the whole week. A well-prepared recipe will also help you decide on possible alternatives if there are ingredients that are not available or if such ingredients are costly in that particular time.

2. Find a recipe with ingredients in season. Vegetables are healthy ingredients for your healthy cooking but keep in mind that they can also be expensive especially if you buy them when they are off-season. Buying them at these times will cost you and you wouldn’t want that for sure, thus keep this thing in mind if you want to be the frugal cook.

3. Make your own recipes with leftovers. There are just times that you get leftovers but you can make something out of these leftovers and come up with another recipe. You can even make your own pizza recipe from it, so make sure you freeze or refrigerate your leftovers and try to research and experiment on what new recipes you can do with them.

4. Cut down on meat. If you want to make healthy recipes without spending more, then you have to increase more of your vegetables and cut down on meat. You don’t have to totally eliminate all the meat though if you can’t live without it, but instead of focusing on all-meat recipes, try to have a variety of vegetables and less meat.

5. Grow your own herbs if you can. Herbs and spices make cooking more inviting, tasty and healthy but they can also be expensive. If you can find Asian markets that have exotic herbs and spices at lower price, then lucky for you, but you can also plant your own potted herbs or in your backyard garden to save a lot from them. This is also a good option if you want fresher and healthier herbs for your recipes.

You can also buy straight from the farmers if you really want to make sure you are getting fresh produce and you will not be spending too much. Of course, those in the supermarkets may have passed through a number of middlemen that may also add more to the product’s price.

These are only a few tips to help you become the frugal cook and at the same time will help you promote and serve healthy meals for the family.

About the Author

Carolyn Anderson enjoys healthy cooking. If you love cooking without spending more, check out this guide to once-a-month cooking. Also check out Becoming A Professional Organizer, if you are also looking for a career in events organizing.