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7 foods you’re buying that you could make more cheaply at home

June 22, 2015 at 7:00 a.m. EDT

One of the first steps to saving money on food is to cut down on the fancy nights out and cook at home. So if you’re already doing that, congratulations!

But you could probably be saving even more.

A ton of the items people toss into their grocery carts can often be made more cheaply at home using just a few basic ingredients. It might take a little more time, but many of these dishes can be prepared in large batches that you can package, freeze and store for later.

There’s not just savings in it for you. Making food at home is often much healthier: fewer preservatives, less sugar, and the comfort of knowing more about the food you’re eating.

Below are some recipes that might save you money on your next trip to the grocery store:

Granola

A 12-ounce bag of gourmet granola likely costs somewhere between $4 and $6, if not more, depending on the brand. This chunky date granola recipe from Epicurious recipe yields about 6 cups (48 ounces) of granola for roughly $10, or roughly half the price per serving. Total prep time is an hour and a half, including baking and cooling. (That estimate assumes that you already have sugar, honey and butter at home, but if you don’t, the amounts needed are pretty small.) This granola recipe from The Post makes more than 13 cups that can be stored for up to eight weeks or frozen for several months.

Hummus

A 10-ounce container of hummus typically cost $4.50. But you can make that much hummus at home in about 10 minutes and for half the price. You need one 15-ounce can of chickpeas, which costs about $1.20, and some garlic, lemon juice and tahini. After blending the chickpeas, tahini and garlic in the food processor, drizzle some olive oil and sprinkle paprika, cumin and some other garnishes. You might even chop up some red pepper to make things more interesting. One can should lead to roughly 10 ounces of hummus, or about the same amount that you can get at the supermarket. The rest of the garnishes are things you probably already have at home. It should be good in the fridge for about a week.

Pesto

Don’t know what to do with that basil that’s about to spoil? Chop it up with garlic and olive oil in a food processor and you have pesto. Total prep time is five minutes. You can also make a bigger batch and freeze the pesto sauce, which you can store in the freezer for up to three months, according to this recipe from the Food Network. Gardeners will come out ahead here by picking fresh basil from their gardens for free. Others might just about break even, since the pack of basil needed to make one cup of pesto will cost roughly $3, about the same as a 6-ounce jar of the stuff.

Bread

It’s hard to argue that making bread is easy, but some of the recipes out there actually require very little work. Mark Bittman has a simple recipe that uses instant yeast and can be ready in three or four hours. It calls for mixing the ingredients in a food processor, letting the dough rise for an hour and then baking for 30 to 45 minutes.  There are different ways to go about making bread but the basic ingredients needed are flour, yeast, salt and oil. A pound of instant yeast costs about $9, and 5 pounds of all-purpose flour will cost about $4. That’s $13 for enough ingredients to make at least five loaves, with yeast to spare for next time.

Smoothies

Instead of paying at least $5 for a smoothie, toss some frozen berries, a banana, yogurt and some ice into the blender to make one yourself.  Stack those in the right order and you’ll have a sensational smoothie (as beautifully illustrated by my colleagues at The Washington Post.) The fruit and yogurt you’ll need for one serving will probably cost you no more than $2, or less than half of what you might pay at a juice stand. And don’t waste money on a pack of frozen berries either. Instead, throw some of the fresh fruit you buy each week — which might otherwise go bad — into a zip lock bag or airtight container that you keep in the freezer. Peeled bananas can also be stored the same way.

Pasta sauce

Yes, it takes longer to make pasta sauce than it does to grab a jar off of the shelf, but not that much longer. Mario Batali has a simple recipe for a basic tomato sauce that takes about 30 minutes—and it tastes far better than the stuff off the shelf. (The Washington Post also has an easy spaghetti sauce recipe.) Simmer some diced onions and sliced garlic in olive oil, then add carrots, thyme and canned tomatoes. The biggest expenses will be the two 28-ounce cans of tomatoes, which will probably cost about $3, and the onion, which might go for $1. (Savings here will vary based on how much you tend to splurge on a jar of pasta sauce, which can cost between $2 and $9 depending on the brand.)

Salad dressing 

Rather than grab a $4 bottle of salad dressing next time you’re at the store, think about making some in the kitchen for practically pennies. And you can make it as needed, instead of storing a whole bottle in your fridge that may go bad before you’ve used it all up. There are so many options here for anyone who keeps vinegar, olive oil, mustard and salt and pepper at home. Those are the ingredients for a basic vinaigrette but you can come up with a series of combinations by switching out the type of vinegar by adding extras like cheese, chopped veggies or fresh fruit. This article from the Food Network Magazine lists 50 possibilities. Again, you probably have all of these ingredients at home anyway, and can stir these up in just a few minutes.

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