Cooking Simple Meals For Two
Lately we’ve been talking about saving money on groceries. Did you know that cooking simple meals is one of the best ways to eat for less?
Here’s a confession: I can go down the proverbial rabbit hole looking at recipes on the internet.
I’ve also wasted hours scrolling through the multitude of delicious-looking recipes on Pinterest, Instagram, You Tube, or Facebook Reels. Sit me down in front of the Food Network and I can spend a whole day watching cooking shows. The endless number of ways to prepare delicious foods is truly mind-numbing.
But in truth, the best way to cook may be the way many of our grandparents did, making simple meals from a few fresh ingredients. For a number of reasons.
Reason #1: Cooking simple meals is the least expensive way to eat.
Let’s compare the cost of a simple meal I often make with one that uses more ingredients. We’ll call these our “Italian Night” meals for two.
- Simple Italian Meal For Two:
- Quick & Healthy “Chicken Parmesan”
- Sautéed zucchini and onions
- A side salad with Italian dressing
This is a Dinner for Two that I make often. I simply cook two chicken breasts (or four chicken tenders) in a little olive oil, top each one with marinara sauce, and sprinkle with freshly grated parmesan. For a side, I sauté sliced zucchini and onions in some butter and seasoned salt. With a simple salad, it makes a delicious dinner.
I made a list of all the ingredients needed to make this and entered them into Chat GPT to estimate the cost. This meal came out to $7.90.
- Italian Meal For Two With A More Complex Recipe:
- Loaf Pan Lasagna
- Garlic breadsticks
- A side salad with Italian dressing.
I grabbed this recipe from the Food Network website. It serves two and is actually a pretty easy recipe for lasagna. For this example, I added store-bought breadsticks and a simple side salad.
The estimated cost for this meal came out to $14.97, which was almost double the simple meal.
You can make your own comparisons on the cost of meals with Chat GPT pretty easily. But it’s easy to see that recipes with multiple, more costly ingredients are going to quickly drive up your grocery bill.
Reason #2: Cooking simple meals is often a more healthy way to eat.
I asked Chat GPT to give me the nutrition information from the ingredients list for both of the recipes above. Here are the results:
Total Nutrition Meal #1 Per Serving (assuming 2 servings):
- Calories: 368 kcal
- Protein: 35g
- Fat: 18g
- Carbohydrates: 18.5g
Total Nutrition Meal #2 Per Serving (assuming 4 servings):
- Calories: 569 kcal
- Protein: 32g
- Fat: 34g
- Carbohydrates: 42.75g
You can already see the difference, but did you notice the serving size? The lasagna recipe says it serves two, but Chat GPT assumed it would make four servings. If you made this lasagna and two of you ate the entire panful, the numbers above are doubled.
I sometimes track my calorie intake on My Fitness Pal when I need to drop a few pounds. I can tell you from lots of experience that eating simple meals made with only a few ingredients is almost always the healthier way to go.
Reason #3: Cooking simple meals is usually an easier, less time-consuming way to prepare meals.
Using the same Italian meal examples above, it takes me about twenty minutes to make the simple chicken parmesan meal. The only prep work is slicing the zucchini and onions and making a salad, which I can do while the chicken and zucchini cook.
The lasagna dinner involves more work and forty-five minutes of cooking time. It’s obvious that recipes with lots of ingredients and multiple steps are bound to be more difficult and take longer than simple meals.
If you’re someone who loves to make complex recipes, you may not like simple meals.
I get it. My daughter says simple meals are boring. She likes to constantly try new recipes and foods that are more exotic.
Maybe it was our Midwestern upbringing, but Bob and I are fine with a pretty plain, “meat and potatoes” menu. I am a huge fan of things like soups and stews, one-pot meals, and sheet pan dinners. And we’re fine with eating the same thing multiple times if we make a large batch.
You have to find what works for you. But try adding a few simple meals into your plan each week, and see if it doesn’t lower your food costs.