SAVING MONEY ON GROCERIES WITH RECIPE SUBSTITUTIONS

THERE IS NO RULE TO FOLLOWING RECIPES EXACTLY

A recipe is just something that someone created to make a meal. There is no rule that a recipe must be followed exactly as written. However, please don’t be one of those people who writes a recipe review after explaining how you changed almost the entire recipe.  That drives me crazy! Most times you can substitute or leave out ingredients and still have a good meal. I’m not a huge baker.  I do bake a lot during the holidays.  But, in this episode, I am mainly referring to regular cooking. There is a lot more science involved in baking and some ingredients are necessary.  While some of those can be substituted too, you just have to be more careful. With regular cooking, there is a lot more flexibility in what you can do.

USE UP WHAT YOU HAVE

One of the easiest things and most rewarding things I do when making a recipe is use up ingredients I already have. Several times I have used mozzarella cheese instead of cheddar because I had a bag of shredded mozzarella that I didn’t think would get used up. I have even made mac and cheese with a mixture of mozzarella and cheddar because that’s what I had on hand. Whenever I am able to use up what I have on hand I am so happy.  I can’t stand to see food go to waste. I also do this if I am just a little bit short on an ingredient.  Instead of buying more so that I have the exact amount, not being sure if the leftovers will be used up, I just use up what I have.

Before I prepare my grocery shopping list I always check to see what I have that I might be able to use up instead of buying more. Using up what you have may or may not mean substituting ingredients, but it might just mean using a little more or less than what the recipe actually called for. 

SPECIALTY INGREDIENTS

Often recipes call for a special type of spice or cheese. These can get expensive and they are often hard to find. Unless it is a special recipe that you really want to get just right, you can usually skip or substitute those ingredients. Especially when it comes to a huge list of seasonings, I’m definitely more of a skipper. I sometimes laugh when I’m reading through the list of seasonings and thinking in my head “nope, nope, nope” through half of the list.

SOME COMMON SUBSTITUTIONS

Ketchup instead of tomato paste.  I have not and probably wouldn’t do this in an actual pasta sauce recipe.  But, when a recipe calls for say a tablespoon of tomato paste, I have many times substituted ketchup.  I realize that I could portion out a can of tomato paste and use it as needed.  But, it’s just something I know I am not going to do.

Milk and vinegar for buttermilk.  I would imagine that most people don’t normally have buttermilk on hand.  And, often a recipe is going to call for less than the portion in the containers that the buttermilk is sold in.  To avoid having to buy buttermilk and pouring half of it down the drain you can easily substitute it by mixing one tablespoon of distilled white vinegar with a cup of milk.

Chicken or Vegetable Broth can usually be substituted with water.  To make up for the lack of flavor found in those ingredients, I will usually just add a little more seasonings.

I recently read that you can substitute sunflower seeds for pine nuts.  I haven’t tried this out yet, but I definitely will.  In the summer I grow basil and have always wanted to try to make my own pesto.  I often have a hard time even finding the pine nuts, and when I did find them once, they were so expensive.  So, maybe I’ll get both and see how the pesto differs.  Then I can decide if I should just stick with the easier-to-find sunflower seeds!

Pasta is one of the easiest things to substitute.  The only thing to really keep in mind is how the shape will impact the recipe.  For example, in some recipes, you want pasta that kind of holds the other ingredients.  For example, if you were making peas and pasta, you would generally want something that the peas would kind of sit-in.  Like shells, for example.  Not sure if I am explaining this correctly.  But, either way, even if it’s not the best type of pasta for the meal, it will still taste just fine!

Once I made vegetable lasagna and had to use bowtie pasta to make the meal.  The prep of the vegetables and sauce was a lot of work, and then I realized I didn’t have lasagna noodles when I went to grab them.  I had to use the lasagna filling mix and did not want to run out to the store.  Instead, I found some bowtie pasta that I was able to use.  I cooked up the bowtie pasta and mixed it in with the filling mix and made a casserole.  It wasn’t lasagna, but it was really good!

There are so many other recipe substitutions.  Just do a simple search on the internet and you will almost always find simple substations.

OTHER TIPS

If you do have to buy something specific that will not all be used up by the recipe, look for other ways it can be used.  An example of this for me is ricotta cheese.  The recipe that I use for baked ziti calls for 24 ounces of ricotta cheese.  Where I shop, they seem to carry 15-ounce or 32-ounce containers.  So, the best I can do is get two 15-ounce containers because ricotta cheese is not something I am going to substitute or skip.  I can’t really use all of that extra ricotta cheese in the ziti so I found that you can put it on eggs.  I know it sounds kind of weird, I actually like it.  So, know each time I make baked ziti, I have eggs with ricotta cheese for breakfast for a few days after.

I also frequently do searches for “what to do with leftover …”.   For example, on Easter, we had a lot of people over and I was kind of frantic getting everything ready.  During our entire Easter dinner, the mashed potatoes that I had prepared earlier in the day sat in the microwave, while the microwave flashed “end”.  So, when I realized that I had a huge amount of mashed potatoes I had to figure out what the heck to do with them.  Some did get eaten as leftovers with the rest of the food.  But, with the rest, I made potato pancakes.  Kind of obvious, but still I did a quick search and found a quick easy recipe to make them. So, we did not let the mashed potatoes go to waste.

Keep granular bouillon on hand for broths.  Unless a recipe specifically calls for a can of broth, I never use anything but bouillon.  I can’t stand to waste anything. So often the amounts of broth called for in a recipe are odd amounts so the whole can gets used.  I know you can buy broth in a resealable container, but I never know when I will be using it again.  So, I prefer to just keep bouillon in my cabinet.  If you haven’t used it before, it’s just dehydrated broth basically.  You just add water to it to make the broth for your recipe.

If you have tacos often, make your own taco meat seasoning.  There are so many recipes online to make your own taco mix.  I go super lazy in this area and just season the meat with seasoned salt and chili powder.  We all think it tastes good, so I’m sticking with that!

Thanks so much for checking in! If you would like to hear the podcast version of this topic to check out Lola’s Frugal Life Podcast! Also, be sure to check out my other blog posts on this site!

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