Save Real Money with Cheaper Cuts of Meat
Times are tough and they’re bound to get tougher. There’s a million ways to save a buck, and you’ve probably heard most of them. But I’m going to talk about one that deserves more attention, and can save you a significant amount of money each month. I’m talking about meat. Specifically, cheap meat.
We’ve all heard older relatives tell stories of living through the Great Depression. We’ve heard their tales about buttering bread with bacon grease and eating organ meat for dinner every night. No cut of meat was too cheap (or disgusting), because nobody had much money but still had to put food on that table.
Well I don’t think we’re quite there yet, and I don’t plan to start eating chicken gizzards and tripe for dinner. But now’s the time to really start buckling down on our spending in any way possible. Groceries cost more than ever, and the prices are only going up from here. Meat costs, in particular, have begun to skyrocket. Frugality will be key to getting through the coming hard times, and some sacrifices have to be made. That being said, spending less on food doesn’t have to seem like a “sacrifice,” because you can prepare absolutely tasty and wholesome meals with some of the cheapest cuts of meat.
We could go into great depth and discuss all manner of poultry, seafood, lamb, game meat, and every other type of protein. But let’s just stick with the most common meat choices around these parts: Chicken, beef, and pork.
Chicken
These days it’s all about boneless skinless chicken breasts. Grilled chicken salad, chicken sandwiches, chicken stir-fry. It’s the leanest and healthiest way to eat chicken, and that’s a strong selling point. That being said, I’m not sure I’d even seen a boneless skinless chicken breast from a store until I was a teenager. We ate chickens. Roasted, baked, fried, or grilled. We bought a chicken, cut it up, and cooked it. If we wanted meat for kebabs or stir-fry, we cut it from a chicken.
You can generally buy an entire raw chicken for less than $10. That’s about how much a pack of 2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts costs at my local grocery store right now. If you want those chicken breasts to be boneless and skinless, put in some work and save some money (and get bonus thighs, wings, and legs out of the deal)!
Ok, I get it. The kids are hungry, you’re tired from working all day, and you don’t want to sit there and de-bone an entire chicken. I’ve got just the thing for you. Boneless, skinless chicken thighs! I’d never actually seen a package of boneless, skinless chicken thighs until a few years ago. I’m not sure what prompted the rise in their popularity, but I’m glad for it. Now I see them at every major grocery store I shop at. I mentioned the cost of two chicken breasts is around $10. At the same store, a package of 6 thighs is about $5.00. Of course a thigh isn’t as big as a breast, but you still end up with more meat for the money.
Yes, the thighs are more fatty. But that also means they taste better! Everything is about balance, and the formula tends to be “healthier = more expensive”. But when belts have to be tightened, that delicious chicken thigh may just be a welcome delight. Cook them any way you’d make a breast. Cut them up for a stir-fry, throw them on the grill with some BBQ sauce, or deep fry them with breading. My favorite is to cook them in a big skillet in a little olive oil with seasonings. They cook quite fast, and have great flavor. Baked is even better, but I’ll usually go for regular bone-in thighs for that.
Beef
Growing up, a decent cut of steak was something for special occasions. I think I ate a t-bone or strip steak about once every two years in my youth. And forget about ground sirloin hamburgers. We never had to resort to the really weird parts of a cow, but if beef was on the menu it was almost certainly ground chuck. There was no “sirloin tips in gravy”. It was meat loaf with ketchup, or meatballs with red sauce. And you know what? Those meatballs were delicious every time. Yes, a beautiful cut of steak is delicious and satisfying. Yes, eating a succulent Beef Wellington for dinner is what dreams are made of. But we’re talking about saving money, and when cost is of the essence there are lots of ways to make cheap meat into a very satisfying meal.
How about the most classic beef family dinner there is: Pot roast. Roasts can get pricey, but they can also be quite cheap. My local store often has buy one get one sales on entire roasts. For around $15.00 I can stuff 4 people to the gills. If you roast that hunk of fatty meat all day, it will become a mouthwatering, tender dinner that’s almost impossible to beat.
Pork
There are cheaper options for pork as well, but it can depend a lot on what your grocery store chooses to carry. Just like beef steaks, there are cheaper pork chop cuts and more expensive pork chop cuts. You can buy a pork loin instead of a shoulder roast. Instead of baby back ribs, try spare ribs. Need to feed a lot of people? Go with a classic bone-in ham (and then use that bone and leftover meat to make soup, of course). And keep your eye out for sale prices on pork sausage. Even now, I can find bratwurst and Italian sausages at the meat counter for about $1 apiece. Two brats and a scoop of baked beans is a fine dinner in my world, all for about three bucks.
Since we’re talking pork, here’s a quick rant about bacon. When I was a kid, everything wasn’t wrapped in bacon. There weren’t bacon shakes and candied bacon and bacon-wrapped jalapenos. Times are much more enlightened now, with regards to our bacon-consuming options, but sometimes I think it’s a bit too much. Bacon should be a special, delicious thing to have here and there. But now it’s hard to find a new recipe, or order something at a restaurant that isn’t adorned in bacon. It’s starting to become as mundane as packaged bologna. Bacon has also gotten a bit pricey in recent times. I’ve personally made it a point to stop eating and buying bacon so frequently. It’s extremely salty, it’s not especially cheap, and I don’t find anything as delicious when I eat it too often. Just food for thought: Try buying less bacon for awhile. Fry up a bit of that leftover ham with your eggs once in awhile.
