Getting Salad Down to Under 36p per Portion

pennypincher3562

Hi

I was making a salad, and worked out roughly how much it cost me for a single portion - 36.5p. Would like to try and get this lower, but might be a tough challenge.

Here is what was in one salad portion:

Wild Rocket - 8.5p
Red Onion (reduced) - 1.5p
Cherry Tomatoes (Tesco) - 15p
Courgette - 11p
Splash of Chilli sauce (giant bottle) - 0.5p

Total - 36.5p

At present the only thing I could probably do to beat the above is buy all the ingredients from Aldi/Lidl, and shave a few pence of the total.

Any tips on how to make it cheaper would be appreciated!

Cheers
PennyPincher3562

kippers

I sometimes grate a carrot in mine to make it go a bit further per portion

Nargleblast

Last year I bought two trays of young lettuce plants at a nursery. There were 12 green.lettuces and 12 red lettuces, and they cost £4.00 in total. That was our salad veg sorted for the entire summer, just adding cucumber, tomato or whatever you have in season. Worth considering if you like salad.

sharond101

I find Asda have similar prices to Aldi for salad but bigger produce. I buy an iceberg lettuce (49p), cucumber(49p) OR cherry tomatoes(99p) and red peppers (3 for 99p) every week. I use the peppers for other meals too. I occasionally add grated carrot. This makes around 12 portions of salad I reckon so if you take 49p lettuce +49p cucumber + 49p peppers (1/2 pack) + 25p (2 carrots)/12 portions = 14p per portions or if I buy tomatoes instead of cucumber then = 18.5p per portion. I don't like rocket or onions though.

flea72

Swap it all.

the rocket for iceberg/romaine/round lettuce and the cherry toms for salad ones. Yellow onions are cheaper than red, and carrot is cheaper than courgette too.

Ill let you off with the chilli sauce, but id prob water it down and use as a liquid dressing to coat it all

VfM4meplse

flea72 wrote: »

Swap it all.

the rocket for iceberg/romaine/round lettuce and the cherry toms for salad ones. Yellow onions are cheaper than red, and carrot is cheaper than courgette too.

Ill let you off with the chilli sauce, but id prob water it down and use as a liquid dressing to coat it all

Bl**dy hell, please don't ever invite me over for dinner!

PasturesNew

I'd ditch the poncy, short-lifespan lettuce and use grated carrot as a base. Tastier, cheaper - and actually provides "food" - I've never seen the point of lettuce at all.

If I wanted to ditch the courgette and chilli sauce I'd see what price radishes come in at - and grate that too if it turns out they're cheaper (no idea how much they cost).

Then there's beetroot... that's probably cheap. Although it might cost more in clothes replacement if you're careless with it.

You can also use grated cabbage. Celery's cheap (and nasty imho)

pennypincher3562

Thanks for the ideas, I will play about with substituting parts of my salads (which I eat all the time.)

In recent years I've always gone for the more expensive rocket over lettuce (taste and healthier), but the odd lettuce won't harm me. It might be my imagination, but rocket seems to last quite a long time lying in the fridge. If I come up with a super cheap salad solution, I will post the results in here.

I like beetroot, and see I can get 500g of Everyday Value Beetroot for 49p, as opposed to 3 courgettes for 99p. I've checked Mysupermarket.co.uk, and I've also noticed I can get salad tomatoes at almost half the price per kg compared to cherry tomatoes - so it looks like I can get price per salad portion even cheaper now :-)

Cheers
PennyPincher3562

Nargleblast

Another cheap salad idea - grated cabbage (red or white), a little grated or finely sliced onion (red or white), a little grated apple, a little grated carrot. Dress with salt and loads of lemon juice and chill in the fridge till ready to eat. Really crunchy and fresh-tasting. A spoonful of mayonnaise turns it into a coleslaw.

pawsies

I would consider adding sweetcorn and replace the courgette with cucumber?

shimmigirl

there has just been a post on Aldi's new super six - that would give you some items for your salads at a low cost, for two weeks (or even three if you buy on last day of offer as well)