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How to eat the finest food for basic prices

Could you save by buying economy brands and adding ingredients yourself to make it a premium product?

Since we started actively cutting back on our spending, we’ve cut down on takeaways and meals out. However, it’s still very tempting to buy a pizza or curry from the supermarket on a Friday night, as a weekend treat.

But there’s a big difference in price depending on whether you buy a top-end or economy meal. For example, a luxury pizza can cost £5, but the same-sized meal from an economy range can be as little as £1.50. That’s more than three times the price!

Of course, economy ranges are cheaper for a reason. The ingredients are almost certainly cheaper, there might be fewer toppings or trimmings and the portion could be smaller.

I wanted to see if it was possible to buy an economy range, add my own ingredients to make it premium quality and still save money. Here’s what I did…


Pizza

Our local supermarket sells a huge range of fresh pizzas. My meat-eating husband would often be tempted by a large ham and mushroom pizza for £5, or a pepperoni feast for £4.50.

However, a similar-sized economy-brand pizza costs just £1.50, while a small economy cheese pizza is 50p. I bought the smaller one to see if we could pep it up with some pepperoni, which cost us £1 for a small packet. I also added a small amount of grated cheese.

[Cooking for a large family on a budget]


Did I save money?
If we bought the large economy pizza then we would save £3 compared to the top-end pizza, meaning we could buy three for the same price. But we had to buy pepperoni too, bringing the price up to £2.50. We only used a very small amount of extra cheese and it’s hard to price up, but I’d say no more than 20p’s worth.

That means we saved £1.80 on the price of a top-brand pizza. It’s worth mentioning that the pepperoni we bought would have generously covered two pizzas, so the savings would be greater if we were serving more than one meat eater.

If you fancy you can also throw some dried mixed herbs over the top (85p for a 30g pot, less for refills) and you can boost the taste even further for a few pennies more.

Did I lose out on taste?
Judging by how quickly my husband wolfed down this pizza, I’m confident it was just as good as the big-budget alternative.


Garlic bread

Two economy garlic batons cost 65p, so less than 33p each. But we prefer the high-end breads with mature cheddar and caramelised onion. We tried to recreate that at home.

Did we save money?
Absolutely. The garlic bread we prefer costs £2 and is smothered with butter, garlic and cheese. We also buy one with onions for around £1.50, so 65p was less than half price.

We used perhaps 30p-worth of cheese, a 30p onion and some butter, but that still brought the upcycled bread in at a much lower price.

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Did we lose out on taste?
Surprisingly, no. The economy garlic bread was actually very tasty, it’s just made with margarine not butter. Once we’d added the extra ingredients, it tasted like a premium product – although it certainly wasn’t diet food!


Scotch eggs

I was interested to see if we could improve an economy Scotch egg, perhaps by adding some chutney or serving it on a bed of salad.

However, it turns out that a Scotch egg is a Scotch egg; it’s hard to improve it once it’s been made.

Did we save money?
The savings here were considerable; the basics egg was 35p, the similar-sized top-end egg was £1.20. That’s a saving of more than 70%.


Did we lose out on taste?
My husband said that both eggs were quite tasty, neither one really stood out. He was surprised that the egg from a caged hen had a yellower yolk.

So the taste was much the same, even without pepping it up at home. However, when it comes to pork and eggs it’s not just about taste for us. We try to buy free-range meat and eggs whenever possible, and there’s no way of upcycling welfare.

We almost certainly won’t buy the cheaper brand again.

[Everything you didn't know about eggs and were afraid to ask]


Chocolate mousse

Mmmm, pudding. Again, there’s enormous variation in prices, you can pay £1.99 for an individual chocolate trifle or 35p for six pots of economy chocolate mousse (pictured).

The supermarket had helpfully printed the reason for the lower price on the packet – there’s less chocolate used in the recipe.

I added a splodge of chocolate sauce to one, and some crumbled chocolate buttons to another.

Did I save money?
It wouldn’t be fair to compare one economy mousse at less than 6p a serving to an individual chocolate trifle at £1.99. However, the supermarket also sold big brand chocolate puddings for £1.60 for four, or standard chocolate mousses for 90p for six.

I already had chocolate sauce and buttons in my cupboard, and it only needed a tiny amount of each to make it extra tasty.

[How to cook organic on a budget]


Did I lose out on taste?
The mousses were delicious even before my attempts at upcycling. I cannot imagine why I would bother buying a premium range again when the budget brand is so good.

However, serving them in a bowl with a few extra additions did make them feel even more of a treat. Yum.

What about nutritional values?

It’s all very well talking about price and taste, but that’s not the only thing we need to worry about with food. Was the economy branded produce worse in terms of nutrition?

Perhaps surprisingly, it wasn’t. Don’t get me wrong, none of this was health food – I’ve been looking at ready-made junk food for a weekend treat, not the kind of stuff I’d give to my kids every day.

However, the cheaper items were no worse than the bigger brands, and several of them contained less saturated fats and salt than the pricier alternatives.

I found a similar thing when I compared budget baked beans and breakfast cereals – it just shows that there’s no need to dismiss economy ranges, especially if you make them your own with a few extra ingredients.

[Never put eggs in the Fridge: A dozen food myths that could cost you]