Cheap fish and meat

I live near a supermarket so I go there daily looking for deals. When I find cheap meat, I buy a few pounds and stuff my fridge. This way I save around 25% from what I'd have to pay on meat if I bought at full price. Another great purchase is minced meat. It can be cooked in various ways and you pay less than on raw meat. Finally, let's not forget chicken, the cheapest meat in my opinion.

 

Meat is also the highest thing in our budget currently, and we've all but given up on fish because it is just too spendy. I agree that watching sale prices is the best way to go... and I don't just mean weekly sales, I check the stores for extra-markdowns on meat. One of my grocery stores puts all the meat markdowns in one area, another just puts yellow stickers on individual packages to draw attention to the sale. This is the only way we've continued to keep our budget reasonable without giving up some of the things we love.

I will admit we eat steak much less often. I've been doing beef stew meat and london broil when I see it BOGO - and I make it in the crock pot and serve it with rice. Steaks on the grill have become kind of a celebration dinner for us.

I'm also very careful to watch prices in general. Sam's Club is not the best deal on meat, most often, but I recently noticed their 90/10 ground sirloin is only $3.33 a pound, which is cheaper than I can ever find it on sale.

Meat is going to continue rising in price this year. The drought in California (and across the country last year) made animal feed go up and in turn is now affecting the price of meat.

 

If you have the time to prepare foods, you can often use cheaper cuts of meat that take more time to cook. Stewing beef is cheap around my location but it needs to be cooked a while before it becomes tender enough to eat. Fish is more of a challenge. I am fortunate to live in a coastal city and it is possible to get cheaper seafood right off the boats. It is fresh and avoiding the middleman is going to save you money. Avoid "fisherman's wharves" as they are often designed to sell to the public and the rent on the wharf space can bring the prices up to store prices.

Take the kids out fishing for a day and that is probably the only way to get fresh and cheap fish in most localities.

 

They're definitely the most expensive!

Chicken is usually fairly cheap if you're not set on red meat and are willing to put in a little effort. I can get a whole chicken for $.79 a pound and that can be stretched across several meals.

For red meat, ground beef can be found on sale frequently and can also be stretched across several meals. Mix it down with ground turkey and it's even cheaper.

 

We have a grocery store a couple of blocks away. I buy the marked down meat and chicken. We also have a Save-a-Lot nearby. I buy the tubes of ground turkey for 99 cents each. I use that in spaghetti, chili, stuffed peppers... It really isn't bad. It soaks up flavor. As already suggested, you can also mix it with ground beef.

 

I would be wary of "cheap" fish products. The processed breaded/battered fish fillets aren't so bad, you may find some off brand ones that are relatively inexpensive and of good quality. But the plain fish fillets are a ripoff imo. They typically soak them in a chemical solution that causes the fish or shrimp to absorb a ton of extra water, making them look much bigger than they really are. Then when you cook them, they shrink down to like 1/4 of their size, not to mention they are really mushy. Also, pay attention to where the fish comes from, if it says it's from China - skip it. Most of their farmed fish is the fed waste from the nearby cow and chicken farms. Even their non-farmed fish is bad since their waters are so polluted. I've tried several varieties of the plain frozen fish and shrimp at Save-A-Lot and was not pleased with them at all for the above reasons. Also, they all smelled awful when I thawed them out, very "fishy" and almost like sewage, that can't be a good sign.

Sardines are actually really good for you, if you and your kids aren't grossed out by them. They are loaded with protein, calcium and omega3's. Tuna fish will likely be more popular with them, and in addition to the usual Tuna Noodle Casserole, you can also put tuna into a tomato based pasta sauce (instead of the usual ground beef). Sometimes you will even find the imitation crab meat on sale really cheap, when they are trying to move that too. It's great over a fresh salad, or you can make crab cakes. I will even make sandwiches with it, by shredding the meat, and tossing it in some cocktail sauce, then putting it on a crusty roll with some lettuce, tomato, and red onion.

Pork is often going to be the cheapest option. Keep an eye out for any pork roasts on sale (as well as beef). They often do buy one get one free's on them each week to get rid of them. You can easily cut them into chops, in fact you can make the chops a little thinner than normal to get more out of the roast, then perhaps bread them with some seasoned panko to make them look bigger and more substantial when cooking them. Or cut them into thin strips and dredge them in corn starch (known as "velveting") and fry them in some oil, then toss with other stir fry vegetables and your favorite sauce to stretch them out even further. Other times I will slow roast the pork for hours until it is almost fall apart tender, then cut the meat into large chunks and pour the excess fat over them and pop them under the broiler until the crisp up, for some carnitas.

Chicken Thighs are cheap and an even better deal if you get them with the bone in and skin on. I will de-bone them and remove the skin myself when I get home with them, and save all that for some home made chicken broth. You don't need a bunch of vegetable and herbs to make the stock. Just some onion, garlic, salt and pepper (and maybe a bay leaf if you got them) will do just fine. Plus it's a great way to use up veggies that are about to go bad if you got those too. I will also take the time to clean off any cartilage, sinew or other tough bits from the chicken so it looks more appetizing. It's fantastic marinated overnight then grilled or cooked in a pan with some oil until a nice dark crust forms. Or you can bread them with seasoned panko as well and bake them in the oven. I usually just bread the top of the chicken, and put them on a wire rack, so the bottoms of the chicken don't get soggy.

 

Chicken is generally the cheapest meat. It's what I get most often. For fish, I don't think going cheap is going to be worth it, because if they are farmed in poor conditions there are too many toxins, and it kind of defeats the purpose of fish being healthy. I think cod is perhaps the lowest in price. You'll probably want a nice tartar sauce or something else for flavor, but it's fish and if it came from the ocean it should be pretty healthy for you.