Why Are Groceries So Expensive? Here’s Why (And How to Save Money)

This post is part of the Eating on a Budget series, which includes the essential tools, tricks and tips that underpin eating on a budget, and a collection of recipes to put those tools into practice.

Have you ever left the supermarket after shopping for ingredients for a recipe you’ve found online, and wondered to yourself: how can one meal cost so much money?

In other words, why are groceries so expensive?

If so, you’re not alone. This is something that used to happen to me every single time I went shopping. I’d find a recipe online, then I’d go to the supermarket and buy every ingredient that the recipe called for: every exact condiment, herb and spice — I’d even buy the specific brands the recipe suggested.

Even though I had a cupboard full of condiments, herbs and spices at home, because the recipe didn’t call for those exact ingredients, I’d buy new stuff every time.

For instance, some meatball recipe that I used back in the day called for Maldon Salt, a luxury finishing salt from the coastal English town of Maldon.

I didn’t realise it at the time, but although Maldon salt is delicious, it is literally just salt. Regular sea salt, Kosher salt (which is more of a thing in the U.S.) or even simple table salt, would have sufficed — but no, not for my naive self. I had to buy exactly what the recipe said, so I bought Maldon salt.

This is just one example of so many instances of this. I’m sure you have your own stories.

The crux of my point is that many of the ingredients called for in a given recipe, you probably already have — or you have something close enough.

If you can learn how to substitute the ingredients called for in a recipe with those that you already have, you can save an absolute fortune cooking (and you’ll probably become a better cook, too).

In this post, we’re going to explain what substitution is and why it’s much better to use what you have on hand instead of buying new stuff every time you shop. (Hint: duh, it’s cheaper).

What is substitution?

When I say substitution, I mean swapping out ingredients that a recipe calls for with those that you already have.

I’ve already given the example of swapping out fancy Maldon salt for a more generic salt. But there are many other ingredients that can be swapped out and used interchangeably.

A few examples:

• Almost all salts — sea salt, table salt, Kosher salt (as already mentioned)
• Alliums, such as onions, red onions and shallots (and even leeks)
• Ground cinnamon and ground ginger
• Pretty much any chilli powders — paprika, cayenne chilli, Kashmiri chilli, etc
• Lemons and limes (and even oranges)
• Beans (in most dishes, the type of bean you use isn’t important)
• Dried and fresh herbs
• In a carbonara, eggs can be substituted for any fat/emulsifier combo
• Sugar — “solid” sugars (caster sugar, granulated sugar, brown sugar, icing sugar, etc) or “liquid” sugar (molasses, honey, maple syrup, golden syrup, sugar syrup, etc)

The list goes on. The New York Times have put together a comprehensive guide to substitution which I highly recommend.

The key to substitution is to know your ingredients. You need to understand what role they serve in the dish you’re preparing.

If you can learn to substitute ingredients, you’ll no longer be asking yourself why are groceries so expensive. Instead, you’ll be patting yourself on the back for saving much money.

Let’s look at an example: the lemon.

A case study: a lemon

Before I started taking cooking seriously, I didn’t realise how incredibly versatile and commonplace lemons were. But this citrus fruit is a staple across domestic and professional kitchens alike.

They provide a fresh citrusy kick to take dressings to the next level, or to finish off a dish. And they have high acidity, which means they can balance out other tastes, such as saltiness and sweetness.

So if life gives you lemons, be bloody grateful!

Lemons are part of the citrus fruit botanical family, which also includes limes, oranges and grapefruit.

The lemon originated in Asia, but they’ve since spread across the world (they’re a staple in back gardens across New Zealand, for instance).

Armed with this knowledge, we can start to think more critically about how to substitute lemons if we don’t have any on hand — if we can substitute it at all, that is.

When a recipes calls for lemon, I’ll ask myself a few questions, such as:

• What the lemon is adding to the dish. Is it adding acidity? If so, what purpose does that acidity serve? Or are we using the lemon purely for its flavour, or a generic fresh and citrusy tinge?
• How are we incorporating it? Are we adding the lemon in slices, or are we adding the zest and juice, or even just the juice?
• How much are we adding? Will the flavour be subtle? Will it be a major component of the dish?

If we were making jam, I know that the lemon juice provides acidity which helps firm up the pectin. In that case, I know that it’s best to use a source of acid that is consistent. The acidity of fresh lemons varys depending on a bunch of factors. That means for jam, its (surprisingly) best to use in this case pre-packaged lemon juice.

I also know that any acidic ingredient will do the job, so instead I could use lime juice, grapefruit juice or (because, after all, it is a jam) orange juice. In fact, there’s a bunch of acidic substitutes you could use.

Or, if we were using lemon as a finishing garnish to a dish or in a dressing, I know that the flavour will be subtle and the lemon’s main role is as an acidic ingredient to balance out other flavours.

Because the lemon is serving as simply an acidic ingredient, pretty much any acidic ingredient would also suffice here. Lime juice would be a fine substitute, as would balsamic vinegar, cranberry sauce, or rose water.

But if we’re looking for a zesty tinge to finish off the dish, I know that’s an itch that only a lemon, or one of its citrus counterparts, can scratch.

Or, if we were making lemon curd, then because the lemon is a critical component, it can’t really be substituted. The lemon adds the bulk of the flavour to the sauce, and would really be missed if substituted or omitted. (I mean, the clue is in the name). In this case, I’d never substitute the lemon.

That’s just a few examples of recipes that typically call for lemons. But as you can see, by understanding the role that the lemon plays in a dish, we can be more critical about how and why we’re using it, and we can start to consider other options.

Why are groceries so expensive?

And this sort of thinking can be applied to any ingredient. The more you understand about any given ingredient, the more you’ll be able to think critically about why it’s being added to any given dish.

And once you understand the purpose of the ingredients in any given dish, you’ll be able to make decisions as to whether that ingredient is important, whether it can be substituted, or whether it can be omitted entirely.

People often wonder why are groceries so expensive, and that’s why — most people don’t think about this stuff. They just try to replicate whatever recipe they’re making with the exact same ingredients, and they rarely consider how they could instead mould the recipe to whatever ingredients they have on hand.

But by being able to think like this, you’ll be able to make use of the ingredients that you already have in your kitchen, instead of buying a whole new set of spices every time you go to the supermarket that you’ll use once before condemning them to the back of your cupboard for the next 10 years.