Frugal Feeds | Meat Shopping Guide

Buying in bulk works for most of the things that you need that aren't fresh. Now lets talk about the fresh meat ingredients.

Beef and Pork: If you eat meat you will find that it is the most expensive ingredient you buy on a regular basis. But there are some things you can do to cut down on your meat costs. First of all, if you are eating whole grains, beans, peas, corn, eggs and dairy then you don't have to eat meat to get your proteins. That means that you can use meat for flavor instead of for nutrition. If you think of meat as a flavoring aid then you can significantly cut down the amount of meat you buy. In most dishes 1/4 cup, or 1/4 pound of meat is enough for a meal that makes four servings.

Let's do some math here. I am going to use the spaghetti meal as an example because the spaghetti meal is one of the least expensive meals that the family eats regularly. If we can reduce the costs on this meal then we can gain even higher savings on the meals that cost more.

If you normally use 1 pound of ground beef for a spaghetti recipe it might cost you $1.69/# for super lean ground beef in a 4# bulk package. That would be $6.76 a month, or $81.12 a year for just one spaghetti meal a week.

One pound of bulk super lean ground beef is 1/4 cup (4 servings) at .42 each, or 1.69 per meal.
One pound of store brand dry Parmesan cheese is 1 Tablespoon (90 servings) at .18 each, or .72 per meal.
One pound of store brand fresh grated cheese is 2 teaspoons (88 servings) at .14 each, or .56 per meal.
One pound of frozen green peas is 1/2 cup (6.6 servings) at .12 each, or .48 per meal.

So, if you reduce your meat to 1/4 cup for four servings and add 8 teaspoons Parmesan and 2 cups of peas you will save .23/ meal, have a wider variety and by the end of the year you will save $11.96 on this meal alone. If you were to make these changes to all three of your daily meals, over the course of the year you would save $251.16. Remember though that this is one of your least expensive meals that you can save on. For your more expensive meals the savings will be higher.

Not every meal will be great if you replace meat with cheese and peas, so lets look at ways to extend the meat, and alternatives to the meat.

Using bread crumbs to replace a portion of meat called for in the recipe. See the Frugal Feeds blog about that here: 15 Ways With Bread Crumbs

Using beans or peas to replace a portion of meat called for in the recipe.

Using low fat cheeses to replace up to half of the meat.

Using textured vegetable protein.

Using savory vegetables, like sauteed onions, celery, mushrooms, garlic, potatoes, carrots, etc...

Using seasoned tofu or tempeh.

Using eggs.

Let's look at a few other dishes.

Bacon is a great flavor booster. Think of bacon not as the side dish to an egg breakfast but rather a seasoning, like you think of salt and pepper. When you fry up your bacon make it extra crisp. Place it between paper towels and pat it completely dry of oil. Then crumble it up into tiny pieces. Place it into a covered canning jar in the refrigerator. Every time you need to pump up the flavor of a dish, sprinkle a Tablespoon of bacon onto it. Works for pasta dishes, egg dishes, bean dishes, vegetable dishes, salads and casseroles. At around $2.50/# it is more expensive per pound than ground beef but you only need a little bit to make the flavor really come through. One pound of bacon will give you about a cup of bacon bits. (It depends on how fatty that bacon was because the fattier it was, the more you will cook off from it and drain away). So, if you have one cup of bacon bits, you will have 16 Tablespoons and can flavor 16 dishes with it. The cost will be around .15 per meal, or about 10% of what the ground beef costs.

Sausage is also great but not quite as versatile. While bacon goes with almost everything (there are even many desserts and chocolates out there that feature bacon) sausage needs to be considered more thoroughly. There are tons of sausage types out there and each has its special qualities. Breakfast sausage is a good basic sausage for a lot of dishes but remember that it has sage in it that can be the wrong flavor for some dishes. Kielbasa's, German sausages, Italian sausages, they all taste remarkably different so use them where you know the flavor will work before experimenting. To use sausage, slice it lengthwise and then cut it into small cubes or half moons. You want to cut it down as much as possible so that you can cook off the fat. The more surface area that you saute the more flavor that sausage will impart as well. Once it is fully cooked, drain it in a colander lined with paper towels. Put another few paper towels on a plate and top with the drained sausage. Using another bunch of paper towels, pat the sausage dry. Reserve 1/4 cup of the sausage for your recipe and place the remainder of the sausage into small freezer bags, each bag holding 1/4 cup. Label the bags with the sausage type and the date. Use it all up within three months.

Using Textured Vegetable Protein (textured soy flour nuggets) can be effective but if you use too much in the dish it will over power the flavor of the meat. I recommend no more than 1/4 of the meat in the recipe be replaced by TVP. I use low sodium beef broth to reconstitute it and then cook it with the rest of the ground meat and no one can ever tell that it is in there. TVP is exceptionally inexpensive. You can get it for as little as .11 cents per quarter cup and a quarter cup is all you need to replace 1/4 of the ground meat in a dish. If you figure that 1/4 cup of ground beef is .40 cents, you can see how replacing it with the TVP will give you a lot of savings in the long run.

Some meat cuts to look for:

Ground beef, extra lean
Flat Iron Steaks--incredibly flavorful, very inexpensive, makes small delicious steaks that cook up quickly.
Chuck eye steaks--very flavorful, inexpensive, diced up it goes with a lot of dishes
7 bone roast--flavorful and has a great many uses, but you will have to work around the bones
Pork shoulder--very flavorful, but can be fatty, so use for flavoring a dish in that case. Otherwise cook it on a low heat for a long time in a braise and use it shredded into dishes.
Skirt steak--very flavorful for when you need a little meat to make a big impact. It is often used for fajitas for that reason, but you can use it anywhere that sliced steak would work.
Tri-tip--When you need a steak to be a steak but a little flat iron steak won't do. Very flavorful when cooked slowly.

So, lets recap. Use your meat as a flavoring aid rather than the major component of a meal. Buy it in bulk if you can cut it down to 1/4 cup or 1/4 pound servings and freeze the remaining servings. Remember that you will have to defrost the meat in the refrigerator at least one day before using. Look for the low cost meats listed above. Try using meat extenders.