Instant meals are convenient if you don’t mind sacrificing taste, texture, and often satisfying portion sizes. However, online recipes today are very informative on how to do the individual steps, so even novice cooks can manage a meal. Let’s compare a major brand versus a simple homemade version to see how much just cooking one meal a day will save per person eating (so multiply the number of people in your family and you can see yearly savings more accurately too).
Today we’re going to pick on Marie Callender’s Classic Chicken Parmigiana Bowl for $2.67. Ingredient-wise, it’s a good choice for an instant meal. Chicken breasts are inherently high in sodium, but Marie Callender’s is still greater than the recipe we’re about to use. Otherwise, overall, the nutrition panels are pretty comparable between the store-bought and homemade, with each having its strengths and weaknesses.
As of today, when buying the lowest price ingredients from my local Walmart Neighborhood Market, the total for the ingredients is $35.47. Wait, how is that cheaper than a $2.67 meal?! Well, most people already have eggs, flour, oil, and grated parmesan cheese, but that still doesn’t explain my statement that homemade is more affordable.
Here’s the explanation: when you break down the cost of the ingredients. For instance, Great Value marinara is $1.62. I only need half of the container for this one recipe so I can use the other half in another recipe (this is why themed grocery trips are cost-saving too). So, the price of marinara for this recipe is 81¢. By doing this process with all the ingredients, the price of the meal is $9.32, divided by 4 (the total number of servings), each plate is $2.33.
BUUUUUUTTTTT GEEEEENNNNN!!!!! $2.33 isn’t that much less than the convenient package! 34¢ isn’t going to pay my electricity bill! I hear you, and individual times are not a big deal. However, if you eat these once a day every day, that adds up to $88.40 per package per year. This scales if it’s more than just one person being fed.
Another perk of homemade is all the ingredients that you have leftovers can be used for other meals which further lowers the serving price. Let’s revisit the notion by removing what I already have in my cabinets from the shopping list. I have eggs, Parmesan cheese, basil, flour, olive oil, and breadcrumbs. Now my shopping list is $20.57 versus the original $35.47.
The new price per serving for this meal is $5.17. Still 4 servings, so $5.17 divided by the 4, and the individual portions cost is $1.29. That is cheaper than Marie Callender’s and adds up more quickly. By making changes like that repeatedly for a year your savings could be in the $300-$400 range.
Also, let me show you a snippet of other meals you can create with the leftovers of just this meal (HUGE thanks to SuperCook.com for making this possible).
If techniques like this are what you are looking for, contact me for a consultation.
Munching Raw Enjoyment Coaching, LLC. 