Obviously the taste of the food you make may not be the same but eventually you can get used to it and even like it more. I know people who are are forced to use different ingredients because they've got allergies. It had me thinking that if these people can use cheaper ingredients everyone else who wants to save money can do it too. Do you ever try to find cheaper ingredients for you recipes?
I am the opposite of this thread. When it comes to food, quality is my priority and not the cost. Although I avail of discounted food items sometimes particularly the bread which is given on a buy-on-take-on basis after 9pm, with the ingredients of what I will cook surely would have quality regardless of the cost. Particularly for vegetable dishes, I choose the freshest even if it is more expensive than the ordinary.
I prefer to buy a mix of quality and cheap ingredients for the most efficient results. For example, if I were to make soup, I'd buy day old bread from a bakery which is less than half the price, because new bread would just be wasted on soup anyway, but when it comes to the olive oil I will always choose to buy a good brand because that will affect the overall taste. If I really has to then I would settle for cheaper brands because there are worse things in life that eating soup made with subpar olive oil, but if I can help it I will try and aim for quality.
I would say yes, in many cases I do try to get the ingredients for a dish at the cheapest prices possible. More expensive doesn't always mean better, and there are plenty of off-brand products that are just as good as their branded counterparts. In fact they may even be made by the big brand manufacturers themselves, as is the case with many products at Aldi and Trader Joe's. It's silly to overpay for fresh produce and fresh meats at big stores like Giant Eagle, when can get them much cheaper at places like IGA or Save-A-Lot or farmers markets. There are some things I won't skimp on though, such as soy sauce. Kikkoman for example is worlds apart from some store brand soy sauce. Kikkoman is actually brewed naturally, whereas cheaper soy sauces use a chemical extraction process plus a bunch of other additives to make what is basically a faux soy sauce. You can really taste the difference between the two. Recently, I was also displeased with Save-A-Lot's "Kurtz" brand of ketchup - it was really runny compared to Heinz or Hunt's. If you're going to try to save money on a product by watering it down, no thanks.
Sometimes off brands or different things taste better in a recipe. Plus a lot of times you can substitute what you have on hand or cheaper. I usually look it up. Most of the time you can use dried herbs instead of fresh, grant it, it will taste differently a bit, but generally is still delicious. The trick is to find something similar to the thing you are cutting out. Best way to save money and to have variety in your food.
I think it really depends on what product it is whether I'll buy a cheaper version. For some things like baking soda, baking powder, salt, dried spices I'll buy the no name version or I'll buy it in bulk to save money. There are some products that I just like the quality - be it texture or flavour - like soya sauce, Barilla pasta or Lays potato chips then I am very loyal to certain brands. I just wait until it goes on sale and then stock up. I'm still saving money by buying it on sale and usually the sale price is comparable to the no name item at full price.
My husband would always buy brand name products because he had worked for at a private school as a cook. He would complain about how much the total bill came to but didn't think about the cost of each individual item. There are only a few name brand products that I would buy otherwise I get more for my money buying the cheapest or store brand.
I like to make foods where you need safran, a very expensive spice but instead I just use more of other spices, such as sweet pepper or curry. Safran costs like 8 Euros (ca. 5 Dollars) over here.
I usually try to get the cheapest with the highest quality. That means not going with the name brand organic frozen fruit and going with store brand organic. Just stuff like that that tends to cut down on cost pretty significantly. The local dollar store around our way actually sells frozen veggies. They are complete trash and it makes no sense when I can pay twenty scents more for better quality.
I would not say that I find cheaper ingredients in the sense that I change the ingredients, but if you are talking about buying the brand name, more expensive, version or the store brand, much cheaper version, then yes I look for the cheaper one. The quality does matter though, so there are times when you just have to accept that you have spend a little money and buy the good stuff.
When it comes to food, medicines and beauty products I always try to buy the ones I think are best for me, regardless of the price. I try to save money by cutting my expenses on other things, getting quality food ingredients is not one of these.
It depends of my tastes. I always pay a fair amount for what I consider tasty ingredients made for a specific brand. Why do I have to pay for an ingredient that I personally don't like just for the fact it is cheaper?
