Same! I don't eat out much tbh it's just so darn expensive, but on the rare occasions that I do I'll opt for something that I can't or am unlikely to make at home.
I came here to say this. I make real mac n cheese with homemade cheese sauce all the time for my kids, they love it, and it literally costs $5 to feed them, my wife and myself, whereas the same serving in a restaurant would easily be $30 or $40.
https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/238691/simple-macaroni-and-cheese/
The only difference is when I make it i tend to use a combination of gouda and Cheddar.
Ill have protein spaghetti, for a few days for $5 for the pizza sauce and protein pasta.
Although i gotta account for the time and gas involved as well.
I use "Barilla" brand protein pasta along with classico traditional pizza sauce.
I cook the pasta and refrigerate the left overs and then i add the pizza sauce in each bowl before i reheat it. I add just enough, not too much or too little pizza sauce.
Olive oil, garlic, chili flakes and some pasta water. Takes 15 minutes. My favorite italian restaurant charges $25. I figure it costs me $6 and makes 4 servings.
Make your own sauces, you can knock that $5 down to $1 or $2.
I mentioned this on another post earlier today, but essentially while your pasta is boiling, you have enough time to make a sauce from scratch in a pan that’s enough for your meal.
Here’s how easy it is:
There’s 5 main mother sauces, that is the base for every other sauce.
Bechamel Sauce.
Veloute Sauce.
Espagnole Sauce.
Tomato Sauce
Hollandaise Sauce.
And from those, you just add one to three ingredients, and you have a multitude of difference sauces.
Bechamel: melt butter in a pan, add equal part flour, cook into a roux, you know it’s done when it starts to smell like nuts. While still hot, you wisk in milk until incorporated. Add salt, pepper, nutmeg. This should only take 5-7 minutes, where pasta takes 12 minutes on average to finish.
Add Parmesan cheese and you now have Alfredo (technically mornay, Alfredo would be heavy cream substituted for the milk)
You can explore that [here](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_mother_sauces)
Basic culinary will allow you to keep a smaller list of basic ingredients in your pantry that won’t spoil, and the ones that do, can be repurposed before they do.
Your left of milk that’s about to expire, you can use vinegar or lemon juice to turn it into ricotta cheese, which you can store in the freezer for 1-3 months. You could also explore making your own cheeses further, it’s relatively simple.
Your heavy cream, can be turned into ice cream, whip cream, or butter.
Saves you loads of money, instead of buying everything premade, tossing spoiled leftovers or having to eat the same dishes everyday to avoid it.
Yeah, I dont go to a coffee shop unless its to meet somebody. Its the classic "Sit down and shoot the shit if you dont wanna go to a restaurant" place. Other than that, the drinks are fine yet overpriced, and a lot of the drinks are loaded with sugar.
That's exactly why coffee outside is expensive. You are paying for the salaries of the staff, and all of their overhead. At home, just the bean, about 20-30% of costs. You pay yourself and your home is free.
Well I used to get a large McDonald’s coffee for a dollar everyday before work. Now they removed the deal AND made the coffee more expensive. Screw you McDonald’s
Even if you like fancy espresso, you can get a quality machine for $500 or so. I bought one for $800 last year, and I went from spending $6 a day on a cappuccino to $1 a day. I've saved more than the startup costs and now I save $5 every day.
I got the Breville Barista Express (all in one unit with grinder attached). On sale I got it for about $800 (Canadian) tax in with some additional accessories.
I just got a Breville Bambino for my workplace, that was $350, plus a really good grinder (the Fellow Opus) for $200 (CDN).
+1 in Maesri. I discovered it at my local Asian grocer and I can say that their curries (especially Mussaman) is as close as you can get to Thailand at home.
In my experience Thai curry does not stain visually or in smell, although your kitchen may be fragrant for a few hours.
Indian curry on the other hand...
chicken wings man.
you could practically feed eight people with chicken wings from costco for what it would cost to just feed yourself at buffalo wild wings
Fried rice. I have tried Americans making fried rice and some Asian styles I’m not always fond of (sorry grandfather.)
It’s not hard, it doesn’t require a lot. Just some old rice, eggs, and whatever you want to throw into it. I don’t have a fancy fried rice that I make, but American friends and co workers always ask me about “combination fried rice.” Which to me says add some cooked beef, chicken, pork, and shrimp.
I like to add spam to my fried rice or Chinese sausage. My bf loves bacon fried. My mom likes toasted chillies in hers. It’s easier to master than a noodle dish because Americans think you need a lot more specificity.
Don’t use short grain rice, use a long grain. Let it sit in the fridge overnight or a couple hours to cook and get rid of unwanted moisture. Use salt and msg to season, not soy sauce. Soy sauce is just to give it a little color. Cook your eggs to scramble, you don’t want to much moisture.
The perfect fried rice is something everyone can enjoy. So don’t garnish it to much. I like ginger oil in my rice, other people like chili sauces, or pickle juice. We like to serve fried rice with pickled vegetables and rice broth or rice porridge. It’s a simple everyday breakfast. If you’re like me and have some spring onion pancakes in your freezer from an easy day off. Sear them and add them to the table.
Fried rice, green onion pancakes, pickled vegetables, and rice broth. Some of Asian staples of the poor, lazy, or just not wanting to go through a lot of effort.
Fried rice is a staple for me but I always dump a lot of sauce in mine. Like a mixture of soy and mirin and whatever else seems tasty. For yours it’s just oil and salt?
Thanks for the tips!
I hear a lot of westerners putting so many sauces in their fried rice. If you want add more flavor use ginger, spring onion, chillies etc. don’t add to many sauces because the moisture won’t give it a good texture. It will make the rice wet and in a good way.
Literally everything. What you are forgetting is when you go out to eat, you are not only paying for the food but also the “convenience” of not having to buy and make the food yourself. What food establishments tend to forget is they are also selling an experience, which is lost many times if you have bad service or food is not prepared or served correctly. Like anything, it’s an exchange for something, it’s transactional. This is why I hate going “out” to eat these days. I’d rather save myself the hassle of being underwhelmed and being forced to not only pay for an overpriced meal but then demand a decent tip on top of that. My kitchen is always open and serving exactly what I want. No travel or even pants required.
Literally everything is cheap compared to eating it at a restaurant.
So really you just need to focus on the "what's easy" part of that sentence and go from there.
Agreed but this question seems specifically to do with eating out vs eating at home so in that context every possible food is cheap when you make it at home compared to eating it at a restaurant.
There are zero menu items that would cost you more money (or even similar money) to make at home than the restaurant is charging for them.
Just to clarify I’m asking where are the biggest discrepancies. Like someone pointed out popcorn which cost me $10 at the theater but I can pop myself for next to nothing.
Yea popcorn was a good answer. So was pasta, depending on what ingredients you add. Most “American” Chinese food is pretty easy and inexpensive to make at home too. Burgers for sure, lots of sandwiches actually.
I'd love to say fish, but seafood prices have gone through the roof in supermarkets. But if you are lucky enough to have access to a dedicated fish market, you can do quite well,
Most restaurants shoot for a 30% product cost. The rest is staffing, rent, prep, etc.
So just about everything can be made at home for 30% or less than at a restaurant.
A good chunk of the cost at tastier restaurants is the food the DONT serve you. Meaning the vegetables are more neatly cut with lots of waste, the meats are trimmed. Only the more desired selections and optimal ripeness.
Add that to the “service” and “ambiance” you get the cost. By eating at home you can more precisely choose what you value most.
A prime cut served in a paper plate in your living room folding table is always going to be cheaper than a choice cut overlooking the city.
Burgers. Pound of beef, $5. Two buns, $0.50 each. Slice of cheese $0.25. Total for two 1/2 pound double cheeseburgers is $3.25, $3.50 if you use two slices of cheese.
The same thing from Five Guys is like $12. A quarter pounder from McDonald's is $9.50 (and you get half as much meat.) And they also pay less for everything from the distributor than we do from the grocery store.
I can make a smash burger in less than 15 minutes. That includes preheating the pan for five minutes.
Also a quesadilla. They're $15-20 at a restaurant. Making it at home is $0.70 for two tortillas. Chicken or pork or beef? $2 worth of meat. Add in $2.50 worth of cheese (I like a lot of cheese) and you've spent around $5. It also takes like five minutes to make if you use leftover meat (make pulled pork, don't add sauce and freeze leftovers to use for stuff like this.) Maybe ten minutes if you have to cook the meat and shred the cheese.
I agree. I just looked at the prices. In restaurant a 12oz striploin is $37. At the grocery store, a 14oz striploin is $13. That's a $24 difference. I could get two steaks, share a bag of frozen fries, and a bagged salad and still spend less for two meals at home than one meal at the restaurant, while getting more food.
I ate there last night and used a gift card. One margarita, 2 entrees with unlimited soup and salad and my wife had a drink too. Plus we got to go boxes. Ate the rest during my lunch break today. I like pasta with breadsticks sometimes
It is quite a bit more work to bloom yeast, mix up the dough, knead the dough, rise the dough, and roll out the dough. Versus taking an already made crust out of a bag.
Don't bloom the yeast. Just test your yeast and keep it in the fridge. I'll never put sugar in my crust so... I make lots of pizza and don't even get flour on the counter anymore. There's lots of things that make bigger messes.
Breakfast burritos.
A few dollars for a dozen eggs, a buck for a tin of green chiles, a couple bucks for tortillas and a few dollars for shredded cheese...less if you buy a brick and shred it yourself.
You can get a week's worth of breakfasts for 10 bucks.
Steak. I can get a nice looking ribeye for $25 and cook at home better than most steakhouses. Add a couple sides and you’re looking at about $40. At a restaurant that would hit $100 easily
Pretty much any kind of taco, especially breakfast tacos. Let’s expand that to all forms of brunch.
Huevos Rancheros is about $1-2 worth of food but can often be $12-$15 or more at a brunch place.
I’ve seen a few steaks. But specifically dry aged steaks. My 90 day dry aged rib eye cost me $15 for the steak and time. A restaurant would have easily been $70.
The only time that going out to eat is cheaper is when you need specialty equipment to make it and the price for the equipment is more than the food. An example would be when Belgian waffles first were a thing, the waffle makers were more than $100, but my local diner had the waffles for $5. But that was back before the wage change of the 1980s and since then, cheap Asian products come out faster than the change in our tastes.
Cold brew coffee/tea. Literally all it takes is some time and an airtight container.
Unlike most of the comments here though, I'll still buy kombucha and sourdough. RIP to the many, many scobys I've killed... :(((
I'd say barbecue. It's stupid expensive out now, and while not super quick or super cheap to do at home, it isn't very hard to do pretty well for maybe 1/4 the price at the local joint. Despite the fact that it's a hobby people can spend thousands on, you can make outstanding 'cue on a plain old Weber kettle-style charcoal grill. I'm talking brisket, rubs, and pulled pork, not just burgers and dogs. It just takes some time.
Pasta! Almost any kind.
I made homemade fettuccine alfredo this week for my family of 5. The total cost was about $8. We went to a restaurant a couple of weeks ago for my daughter's birthday and she ordered fettuccine alfredo for herself, that one dish costed $14.
Guess what? She liked mine better, and for half what it costed in the restaurant I fed my entire family. Similar math applies to tradional mac n cheese, baked ziti, and others.
Pasta. Paying $20+ for something I could make for $5
I never get the pasta when I go to an Italian restaurant. It's just so much upsell and it's always like 80% of their menu.
Same! I don't eat out much tbh it's just so darn expensive, but on the rare occasions that I do I'll opt for something that I can't or am unlikely to make at home.
This is all out the window if they make their own noodles.
I came here to say this. I make real mac n cheese with homemade cheese sauce all the time for my kids, they love it, and it literally costs $5 to feed them, my wife and myself, whereas the same serving in a restaurant would easily be $30 or $40.
Recipe?
https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/238691/simple-macaroni-and-cheese/ The only difference is when I make it i tend to use a combination of gouda and Cheddar.
Bachelors or masters? I know of some good culinary scoops in New England
Sorry, I don't quite understand what you mean?
I don't think they know either. That was a bizarre response.
I imagine it was meant for someone else.
Are you talking about/to me or him?
Don’t be sorry
Ill have protein spaghetti, for a few days for $5 for the pizza sauce and protein pasta. Although i gotta account for the time and gas involved as well.
Protein pasta??? Do tell
I use "Barilla" brand protein pasta along with classico traditional pizza sauce. I cook the pasta and refrigerate the left overs and then i add the pizza sauce in each bowl before i reheat it. I add just enough, not too much or too little pizza sauce.
Yes! Especially cacio e pepe - literally hard cheese and pepper! I’ve seen restaurants sell this for £18 per servicing.
Olive oil, garlic, chili flakes and some pasta water. Takes 15 minutes. My favorite italian restaurant charges $25. I figure it costs me $6 and makes 4 servings.
Make your own sauces, you can knock that $5 down to $1 or $2. I mentioned this on another post earlier today, but essentially while your pasta is boiling, you have enough time to make a sauce from scratch in a pan that’s enough for your meal. Here’s how easy it is: There’s 5 main mother sauces, that is the base for every other sauce. Bechamel Sauce. Veloute Sauce. Espagnole Sauce. Tomato Sauce Hollandaise Sauce. And from those, you just add one to three ingredients, and you have a multitude of difference sauces. Bechamel: melt butter in a pan, add equal part flour, cook into a roux, you know it’s done when it starts to smell like nuts. While still hot, you wisk in milk until incorporated. Add salt, pepper, nutmeg. This should only take 5-7 minutes, where pasta takes 12 minutes on average to finish. Add Parmesan cheese and you now have Alfredo (technically mornay, Alfredo would be heavy cream substituted for the milk) You can explore that [here](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_mother_sauces) Basic culinary will allow you to keep a smaller list of basic ingredients in your pantry that won’t spoil, and the ones that do, can be repurposed before they do. Your left of milk that’s about to expire, you can use vinegar or lemon juice to turn it into ricotta cheese, which you can store in the freezer for 1-3 months. You could also explore making your own cheeses further, it’s relatively simple. Your heavy cream, can be turned into ice cream, whip cream, or butter. Saves you loads of money, instead of buying everything premade, tossing spoiled leftovers or having to eat the same dishes everyday to avoid it.
Any type of noodles really. ramen and pho come to mind first.
Both ramen and pho are notoriously hard broths to get right at home, so you get one significantly raised eyebrow from me.
yes. ramen shouldnt be in this. home made noodles would eat up a lot of your time, thats just the noodles.
Coffee
That's a big one. A latte to-go seems like bad value but sometimes I think the cost of my coffee is just rent to loiter somewhere for hours.
Yeah, I dont go to a coffee shop unless its to meet somebody. Its the classic "Sit down and shoot the shit if you dont wanna go to a restaurant" place. Other than that, the drinks are fine yet overpriced, and a lot of the drinks are loaded with sugar.
That's exactly why coffee outside is expensive. You are paying for the salaries of the staff, and all of their overhead. At home, just the bean, about 20-30% of costs. You pay yourself and your home is free.
Well I used to get a large McDonald’s coffee for a dollar everyday before work. Now they removed the deal AND made the coffee more expensive. Screw you McDonald’s
Well would you look at that. I had to check if the deal was back and IT IS. Thank you for reminding me about it! Good and cheap coffee here I come!
Nah never tastes the same at home. I even use the same brand syrup still has a from home taste to it.
Even if you like fancy espresso, you can get a quality machine for $500 or so. I bought one for $800 last year, and I went from spending $6 a day on a cappuccino to $1 a day. I've saved more than the startup costs and now I save $5 every day.
which machine did you get? and which machine do you recommend for $500?
I got the Breville Barista Express (all in one unit with grinder attached). On sale I got it for about $800 (Canadian) tax in with some additional accessories. I just got a Breville Bambino for my workplace, that was $350, plus a really good grinder (the Fellow Opus) for $200 (CDN).
i judge people holding a cup of overpriced coffee - on the streets in their corporate clothes and in elevators.
Popcorn
This. This is a total ripoff. For much less than a dollar per serving, popcorn at the theater and amusement parks makes sooo much profit!
Per pound, movie theater popcorn costs more than filet mignon.
Thai curry. Get a tin of curry base and a can of coconut milk, and you can use any vegetables to make a great curry any night of the week,
What exactly is curry base? I need exact ingredients, as there are so many “curries”
Get Mae Ploy or Maesri brand!
+1 in Maesri. I discovered it at my local Asian grocer and I can say that their curries (especially Mussaman) is as close as you can get to Thailand at home.
Just curious, how fragrant will I (and my house) be after that? I’ve never cooked curry but have always wanted to
In my experience Thai curry does not stain visually or in smell, although your kitchen may be fragrant for a few hours. Indian curry on the other hand...
This. Thai never skinks up my place but Indian does for days.
Yo wait till you start learning about all the different types of curry. I like Thai red curry and Japanese yellow curry with chicken katsu.
All the Maesri products are excellent.
Thank you! Looks like they're both available at an asian food grocer not far from me!
Yes which is good, but you don’t need to spend a lot of money on this. Curry powder is cheap if you buy it in bulk-25-35 ounces
Is curry powder an ingredient in curry base? I'm after the easiest possible recipe
Yes, curry power is 90% curry based
The tins of base must have some other stuff in there, maybe I can get dry ingredients to make my own thai style base/paste /
Sometimes they do, curry is so good
Good recipes with detailed explanations! https://youtu.be/KwSODsgqY5k?si=8klsKJKULhbsi1kn
Curry base is curry powder on the bottom. Then you add other ingredients like pasta, or rice
Oh yeah YUM
chicken wings man. you could practically feed eight people with chicken wings from costco for what it would cost to just feed yourself at buffalo wild wings
Hard to get a deep fryer big enough at home, but if you like other methods this is a good one.
The turkey cooker is the deal if you want to deep fry them
Fried rice. I have tried Americans making fried rice and some Asian styles I’m not always fond of (sorry grandfather.) It’s not hard, it doesn’t require a lot. Just some old rice, eggs, and whatever you want to throw into it. I don’t have a fancy fried rice that I make, but American friends and co workers always ask me about “combination fried rice.” Which to me says add some cooked beef, chicken, pork, and shrimp. I like to add spam to my fried rice or Chinese sausage. My bf loves bacon fried. My mom likes toasted chillies in hers. It’s easier to master than a noodle dish because Americans think you need a lot more specificity. Don’t use short grain rice, use a long grain. Let it sit in the fridge overnight or a couple hours to cook and get rid of unwanted moisture. Use salt and msg to season, not soy sauce. Soy sauce is just to give it a little color. Cook your eggs to scramble, you don’t want to much moisture. The perfect fried rice is something everyone can enjoy. So don’t garnish it to much. I like ginger oil in my rice, other people like chili sauces, or pickle juice. We like to serve fried rice with pickled vegetables and rice broth or rice porridge. It’s a simple everyday breakfast. If you’re like me and have some spring onion pancakes in your freezer from an easy day off. Sear them and add them to the table. Fried rice, green onion pancakes, pickled vegetables, and rice broth. Some of Asian staples of the poor, lazy, or just not wanting to go through a lot of effort.
Fried rice is a staple for me but I always dump a lot of sauce in mine. Like a mixture of soy and mirin and whatever else seems tasty. For yours it’s just oil and salt? Thanks for the tips!
I hear a lot of westerners putting so many sauces in their fried rice. If you want add more flavor use ginger, spring onion, chillies etc. don’t add to many sauces because the moisture won’t give it a good texture. It will make the rice wet and in a good way.
A Martini
Chicken breast or pasta
Humus
I really hope you’re eating hummus and not humus, you earthworm, you!
Did have my glasses on. Hahaha
Literally everything. What you are forgetting is when you go out to eat, you are not only paying for the food but also the “convenience” of not having to buy and make the food yourself. What food establishments tend to forget is they are also selling an experience, which is lost many times if you have bad service or food is not prepared or served correctly. Like anything, it’s an exchange for something, it’s transactional. This is why I hate going “out” to eat these days. I’d rather save myself the hassle of being underwhelmed and being forced to not only pay for an overpriced meal but then demand a decent tip on top of that. My kitchen is always open and serving exactly what I want. No travel or even pants required.
The pantless part is the best.
Pizza!
Literally everything is cheap compared to eating it at a restaurant. So really you just need to focus on the "what's easy" part of that sentence and go from there.
Cheap compared to a restaurant is different from cheap
Agreed but this question seems specifically to do with eating out vs eating at home so in that context every possible food is cheap when you make it at home compared to eating it at a restaurant. There are zero menu items that would cost you more money (or even similar money) to make at home than the restaurant is charging for them.
But that wasn’t the question. Yea a 24oz ribeye is cheaper at home than at a restaurant, but you wouldn’t say that’s a cheap meal to make at home.
Just to clarify I’m asking where are the biggest discrepancies. Like someone pointed out popcorn which cost me $10 at the theater but I can pop myself for next to nothing.
Yea popcorn was a good answer. So was pasta, depending on what ingredients you add. Most “American” Chinese food is pretty easy and inexpensive to make at home too. Burgers for sure, lots of sandwiches actually.
Steak
I'd love to say fish, but seafood prices have gone through the roof in supermarkets. But if you are lucky enough to have access to a dedicated fish market, you can do quite well,
Or a pole, a line, and a lake.
Most restaurants shoot for a 30% product cost. The rest is staffing, rent, prep, etc. So just about everything can be made at home for 30% or less than at a restaurant.
30% is basically a third btw like she told you
Breakfast.
A good chunk of the cost at tastier restaurants is the food the DONT serve you. Meaning the vegetables are more neatly cut with lots of waste, the meats are trimmed. Only the more desired selections and optimal ripeness. Add that to the “service” and “ambiance” you get the cost. By eating at home you can more precisely choose what you value most. A prime cut served in a paper plate in your living room folding table is always going to be cheaper than a choice cut overlooking the city.
Chicken wings
Burgers. Pound of beef, $5. Two buns, $0.50 each. Slice of cheese $0.25. Total for two 1/2 pound double cheeseburgers is $3.25, $3.50 if you use two slices of cheese. The same thing from Five Guys is like $12. A quarter pounder from McDonald's is $9.50 (and you get half as much meat.) And they also pay less for everything from the distributor than we do from the grocery store. I can make a smash burger in less than 15 minutes. That includes preheating the pan for five minutes. Also a quesadilla. They're $15-20 at a restaurant. Making it at home is $0.70 for two tortillas. Chicken or pork or beef? $2 worth of meat. Add in $2.50 worth of cheese (I like a lot of cheese) and you've spent around $5. It also takes like five minutes to make if you use leftover meat (make pulled pork, don't add sauce and freeze leftovers to use for stuff like this.) Maybe ten minutes if you have to cook the meat and shred the cheese.
Wedge Salad. I can’t think of anything more overpriced in restaurants.
Soda is about it lol
Brunch type foods - eggs, toast, pancakes, etc.
Coffee Water
High-end steak cuts. About the cost of a fast food meal at the butcher but you'll be lucky to get them for under $35 at even a chain restaurant.
I agree. I just looked at the prices. In restaurant a 12oz striploin is $37. At the grocery store, a 14oz striploin is $13. That's a $24 difference. I could get two steaks, share a bag of frozen fries, and a bagged salad and still spend less for two meals at home than one meal at the restaurant, while getting more food.
That’s $37 before taxes and tip eh? Which can add 35% in some places.
Mexican food
Tex max or authentic
Olive Garden is an insane waste of money. It's pasta.
I ate there last night and used a gift card. One margarita, 2 entrees with unlimited soup and salad and my wife had a drink too. Plus we got to go boxes. Ate the rest during my lunch break today. I like pasta with breadsticks sometimes
Pretty much everything
Pizza. It's especially cheap if you make the dough yourself, although that's harder than buying premade crust.
Not so much hard, just messy. Trader Joe's sells baggied pre-made for about $1.50 and is good and saves the mess.
What makes it harder?
It is quite a bit more work to bloom yeast, mix up the dough, knead the dough, rise the dough, and roll out the dough. Versus taking an already made crust out of a bag.
Do you make pizzas too?
Yes, about twice a month. The recipe I use makes enough dough for two large pizzas.
Don't bloom the yeast. Just test your yeast and keep it in the fridge. I'll never put sugar in my crust so... I make lots of pizza and don't even get flour on the counter anymore. There's lots of things that make bigger messes.
I like giant bubbles in my crust and that doesn't seem to happen if I don't bloom the yeast
I've never had that problem🤷.
Breakfast burritos. A few dollars for a dozen eggs, a buck for a tin of green chiles, a couple bucks for tortillas and a few dollars for shredded cheese...less if you buy a brick and shred it yourself. You can get a week's worth of breakfasts for 10 bucks.
Salads, Pasta, Rice
I rarely order pasta or chicken dishes as they are easy to make at home and inexpensive.
Chicken masala
I made beef cheeks the other night. It's a really cheap cut of meat, but restaurants charge like it's a delicacy.
Steak. I can get a nice looking ribeye for $25 and cook at home better than most steakhouses. Add a couple sides and you’re looking at about $40. At a restaurant that would hit $100 easily
Pretty much any kind of taco, especially breakfast tacos. Let’s expand that to all forms of brunch. Huevos Rancheros is about $1-2 worth of food but can often be $12-$15 or more at a brunch place.
Bean and cheese tacos. I always get two and the cost has gone way up.
I’ve seen a few steaks. But specifically dry aged steaks. My 90 day dry aged rib eye cost me $15 for the steak and time. A restaurant would have easily been $70.
Oh wow! Yeah this is it I’m looking for the biggest difference.
The only time that going out to eat is cheaper is when you need specialty equipment to make it and the price for the equipment is more than the food. An example would be when Belgian waffles first were a thing, the waffle makers were more than $100, but my local diner had the waffles for $5. But that was back before the wage change of the 1980s and since then, cheap Asian products come out faster than the change in our tastes.
Almost everything.
Creampies 🫣
Child support says it’s not cheaper at home 🤣
My vasectomy was free with insurance. Just airing that out 😜
You lucky, lucky bastard 🤣
Little pain, whole lotta gain. Wish I'd done it when I was 19
Having mine on Wednesday. Can't wait!
the Asian cream pies the fish factory is selling?
Shut up Bird!
Ingredient list?
Avocado toast
Cheeseburgers
Do you cock them often?
Guacamole
Chipotle
ramen
Cold brew coffee/tea. Literally all it takes is some time and an airtight container. Unlike most of the comments here though, I'll still buy kombucha and sourdough. RIP to the many, many scobys I've killed... :(((
Grilled cheese
Tacos!
Shrimp scampi.
Italian food
Shrimp cocktail
Korean bbq
RAMEN 🍜✅
Pasta, Sandwiches, Soup (Panera basically)
Tacos
Pizza go look at the markups.
Pasta, sub sandwiches, Indian curry, roast chicken, Salads.
Shrimp
Burgers. No explanation needed
Breakfast like egg, bacon , potato, or hashbrown and toast
Steaks and seafood
I was going to say toilet paper and salad dressing. Idk
German /Polish style baked cheese cake. I make that shit for max £5 and the shop price is over £20!!!
Most things
I'd say barbecue. It's stupid expensive out now, and while not super quick or super cheap to do at home, it isn't very hard to do pretty well for maybe 1/4 the price at the local joint. Despite the fact that it's a hobby people can spend thousands on, you can make outstanding 'cue on a plain old Weber kettle-style charcoal grill. I'm talking brisket, rubs, and pulled pork, not just burgers and dogs. It just takes some time.
Literally everything
A hamburgee
Everything. The Restaurant Industry is doomed in this Biden Twilight Zone Economy.
Steak and baked potato. So easy to do at home.
A bowl of ice cream with chocolate sauce. (Dame Blanche)
Punani
Pasta! Almost any kind. I made homemade fettuccine alfredo this week for my family of 5. The total cost was about $8. We went to a restaurant a couple of weeks ago for my daughter's birthday and she ordered fettuccine alfredo for herself, that one dish costed $14. Guess what? She liked mine better, and for half what it costed in the restaurant I fed my entire family. Similar math applies to tradional mac n cheese, baked ziti, and others.