Keeping meat on the table
Tips and recipes for affordable meat dishes
Intro
Meat can be one of the more expensive items on grocery shopping lists, so budgeting sites often suggest that you save money by eating it less or cutting it out entirely. There are plenty of tasty vegetarian recipes to try, but there are also more affordable ways to cook with meat.
Recipes that stretch meat tend to use it as a supporting ingredient rather than the star of the plate. Rather than a “meat and potatoes” kind of dinner, where a large serving of meat is the feature, think about pasta, tacos, casseroles, and chilli, where a smaller amount of meat adds flavour to the rest of the ingredients.
These types of meals are cost-effective because they get most of their heft from inexpensive starches (like noodles, potatoes, and grains), and use less meat overall. It also helps that the meat in these recipes is usually ground or shredded, seasoned, and mixed with other ingredients. This stretches a little bit of meat into a sizable meal and improves the texture and taste of inexpensive kinds of meat too.
Tips and recipes for stretch cooking with three budget-friendly varieties of meat are below. Try out anything that looks good to you, especially if you can find the ingredients on sale!
Canned meat
Canned meat has a reputation for being unhealthy, which is only somewhat deserved. Some kinds of canned meat indeed have high levels of sodium and saturated fat. These products such as canned ham, corned beef, Vienna sausages, and spam are best enjoyed in small doses. But canned chicken and seafood such as tuna, mackerel, sardines, anchovies, and salmon are perfectly healthy additions to your diet.
Just as importantly, canned meat is inexpensive, shelf-stable, and quick to prepare because it comes pre-cooked. It's a great thing to buy in bulk and keep in the kitchen, ready to throw into a last-minute meal.
Tips
- Steer clear of cans with dents, bulges, cracks, rust, or leaks. These are signs of botulism, or at least a damaged can containing spoiled food. Be especially cautious if you’re eating meat that was canned at home instead of commercially. Throw out anything foamy, mouldy, or smells off when opened. With canned meat, it’s always better to be safe than sorry.
- Canned meat will keep for years on a cool shelf (check the expiration date) as long as the can stays sealed and undamaged. After it’s opened, it’s only good in the fridge for a few days. If you don’t use the whole can in a recipe, move the leftover meat from the tin into a plastic or glass container for better storage.
- When using canned meat in a recipe, remember that the meat is already cooked and that the canning process has reduced some of its firmness and flavour. If canned meat is overcooked or handled too much, it can turn into a mushy blob. Unless a recipe says to do otherwise, you generally want to add your canned meat near the end of the cooking process and mix it as little as possible to preserve its texture and taste.
Recipes
Canned chicken:
Canned seafood:
- Salmon potato bake
- One pot tuna and broccoli pasta
- Classic tuna noodle casserole
- Tuna melt
- Tuna patties
Sausage
“Sausage meat” is ground meat mixed with fat, salt, and seasonings. It can include a variety of fillers and preservatives, and be prepared in a variety of ways. Uncooked breakfast patties, pre-cooked hot dogs and bologna, smoked kielbasa, and cured salami are all types of sausage. Any time you see seasoned meat in a tube, you are probably looking at a sausage, and some patties count too!
Like canned meat, sausage has a bad reputation. Canada’s Food Guide flags it as a highly processed food that should be limited in the diet, along with deli meat. Highly processed meats usually have high levels of sodium and saturated fat, and eating a lot of them has been linked with colorectal cancer. They’re also often inexpensive, quick to prepare, tasty, and beloved. If you like them, there’s no need to stop eating them entirely. All foods can fit into a healthy diet, and it’s also fine to make food decisions based on considerations other than optimal health.
Tips
- Different kinds of sausage call for different kinds of storage and handling, so make sure you know what type you’re buying.
- “Fresh” sausages contain raw meat and need to be cooked before they’re eaten. They will only last for a few days in the fridge; if you can’t use them right away, pop them in the freezer. Make sure you check the expiration date, and throw out fresh sausage that is slimy, gray (instead of pink or red) inside, or smells off.
- “Cooked”, “smoked”, and “cured” sausages all have gone through some degree of cooking before they’re sold. Their preparation and storage needs will differ depending on the type of processing they’ve undergone. Hot dogs, for example, are “pre-cooked”; they can technically be eaten straight from the package, but it’s safer to heat them through first to kill any harmful bacteria. An opened package will last for about two weeks in the fridge. Cured meats, like summer sausage and pepperoni, are safe to eat straight from the package and will last for much longer.
If you’re not sure what kind of sausage you have, double-check the cooking instructions on the package, or talk to a meat clerk at the grocery store.
- “Fresh” sausages contain raw meat and need to be cooked before they’re eaten. They will only last for a few days in the fridge; if you can’t use them right away, pop them in the freezer. Make sure you check the expiration date, and throw out fresh sausage that is slimy, gray (instead of pink or red) inside, or smells off.
Recipes
Ground meat
Ground meat is a budgeting classic. It’s usually inexpensive, and can be made even cheaper with the addition of meat extenders. Ground meat can be made into a huge variety of meals, cooks up quickly, and freezes well. It’s a little more work to prepare than canned meat or pre-cooked sausage, but well worth the effort!
Tips
- Ground meat has more surface area than whole cuts of meat, so there’s more potential for contamination and spoilage. If you can’t use a package of ground meat one or two days after you buy it, freeze it. If the meat is brown, slimy, or smells off, throw it out!
- Ground meat is classified by how much fat is in it. The same labeling system is used for every kind of ground meat, so “extra lean” ground chicken, beef, and pork will all have the same maximum fat content:
- Extra Lean – maximum fat content of 10% (90% lean)
- Lean – maximum fat content of 17% (83% lean)
- Medium – maximum fat content 23% (77% lean)
- Regular – maximum fat content 30% (70% lean)
The fat in ground meat renders down to a liquid as you cook it. This causes some shrinkage in the volume of meat from package to plate, especially in fattier kinds of ground meat. After the meat is cooked, the fat can be drained off into a glass or metal container to cool down before being thrown away in the garbage. You never want to pour fat into the sink. It can cool down and solidify in your pipes, causing major plumbing problems.
Any of these kinds of ground meat work fine in recipes. The higher fat content in medium and regular ground meat makes hamburgers and meatballs juicier, but can be greasy in dishes like cabbage rolls, where the meat can’t be pre-cooked and drained. Leaner ground meat is usually a little more expensive, but better for those types of meals.
- Frozen ground meat can go directly from the freezer into a pan, but it’s better to defrost it overnight in the fridge first. The natural juices in the meat freeze into ice crystals, and if the meat is cooked while it’s still frozen you’re likely to drain these juices away with the fat, resulting in dry, tough meat. The juices will also evaporate if the meat is cooked at a very high temperature, so be sure to cook with medium heat for best results.
Recipes