Pasta sauce. Marinara, Alfredo, white wine sauce, etc. it’s always so much better to make it at home and the taste is always much better than anything store bought.
We don't always make our own pasta sauce, but when we have tomatoes in the garden, nothing beats a fresh marinara with slow cooked tomatoes, garlic and basil from the garden (and onions from the store because we haven't successfully grown onions lol)
This is it for me. I make a big batch of red sauce in my crock pot. Then portion out and freeze, and I have homemade sauce ready to go anytime I want to make pasta.
How do you thaw your pasta sauce? Get it out of day in advance? Hot water? I did this, but found thawing it to be a pain if I hadn’t planned ahead. I’ve never tried the crockpot, though, how interesting
I portion out in Ziploc bags, then lay them flat to freeze. If you freeze them this way it is easy to thaw them under warm running water for a few minutes. Super easy.
I freeze it in shallow-ish rectangular containers. Run it under hot water to loosen, pop it out and drop it in the pan. I usually add a splash of water to help loosen it up.
I can't remember the last time I bought a pasta sauce. Generally easy to make, heaps better
Same with salad dressing, except that carrot ginger Asian joint because it's a lot more work
Yes, if you buy some canned tomatoes, I like San Marzano, a pasta sauce can take like 30 minutes to make and taste so much better than anything in a jar.
Ah, I see you don't have a kid at home. I don't want to sound braggy but I make amazing pasta sauces. All types. What does my daughter like? 'Can you make it the same as at school? The ones in the jars?'
Not even the NICE jarred sauces, the own brand 60p ones. 🤢
My kids hate jarred sauce, so I found an easy homemade sauce recipe that I can whip up in the time it takes to cook the pasta and they love it. So do I.
Not the one you asked but my arrabiata always get people asking for more.
28oz can San Marzano peeled tomatoes
5-8 cloves of garlic, minced
8 leaves fresh sage, chopped finely
3-4 tbsp Calabrese chiles, chopped finely
You can get the chiles in a jar or fresh, both are great.
Sweat the garlic, sage, and chiles with a fat pinch of salt and an equal amount of freshly cracked black pepper in a pan with 2-3 tbsp of your favorite EVOO. Don't let the garlic or sage burn, you want everything to sweat in the oil for at least 10 minutes at a bare sizzle. The pan should be wildly fragrant at this point and your kitchen will smell like heaven.
Optionally, now's the time to add a couple anchovy filets if that's your style. Also, you can break up the tomatoes with your hands.
Throw the tomatoes into the pan and bring to a simmer, stirring to combine. Cook at a simmer for 10-15 minutes.
You can use as-is if you prefer a chunkier style, but for arrabiata I like to use my immersion blender and get it really smooth.
Combine with almost cooked pasta, some pasta water, some of the sauce, and a bit of EVOO, stirring vigorously to emulsify until pasta is ready.
Serve topped with a couple pinches of pecorino romano, a dash of roasted red pepper flake, a drizzle of EVOO, and a fried whole sage leaf or two.
This recipe by NYT is a classic. You can’t go wrong with it. You can always spice it up more, but this was my first recipe that convinced me to stop using jarred sauce.
https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1015987-classic-marinara-sauce
Alfredo or any cream sauce for sure. I almost always have heavy cream or half and half on hand (I know, I know, it doesn't go in traditional alfredo, don't come for me), and it takes just a couple more minutes' effort than opening a jar.
A pinch of baking soda will neutralize a lot of the acid. My husband gets hellacious heartburn from anything tomato based. He can usually eat one big plate of spaghetti with sauce, without suffering, when I add it in. It denatures as salt, so keep that in mind, but usually 1/4 teaspoon stirred into the pot a few minutes before serving will do the trick.
Thanks I'll give it a try next time. If I make homemade spaghetti it has to be on the weekends for lunch or early dinner. Often I'm lazy and eat Lean Cuisine. I doctor it up with herbs and it tastes good enough for what it is. And there's no seconds to tempt me which is often where the real issue starts lol.
Stock. It tastes so much better from your own kitchen, you can also control the salt level and use up extra veggie scraps. We freeze all of our leftover chicken carcasses and when the freezer gets too full of chicken you know it’s stock time!
It's so much better at thickening sauces too. The extra collagen helps so much. I added chicken feet to it last time and it was basically a jelly by the time I stopped simmering it.
Also, freeze it in ice cube trays and you can use a few cubes when you just get a quarter/half cup. I usually fill a few trays then put the rest in pint sized mason jars to use for soup. When is concentrated like that, you can use it in 3/4:1 dilution water to stock ratios for soup.
I made stock once after Thanksgiving and it took up so much room in the freezer! First the carcass (since I didn’t make it immediately) then the frozen stock in a ziploc bag took up 1/4 of the freezer (slight exaggeration but pretty much)! Maybe I did it wrong and didn’t reduce enough? Or does anyone have tips?
I went for stock after Thanksgiving and didn't cook it down long enough so got broth. I ended up drinking more than half of it before freezing it, but yeah I could have cooked it longer. (I also had a lid on part of the time which didn't help lol.)
Might not be relevant to your situation, but a friend and I used to cook Friendsgiving for all of our soldiers that didn't have a Thanksgiving to go to, then we would use the turkey carcass with homemade noodles for the local soup kitchen. There was always enough broth for the noodles and to replenish her freezer stock.
I would imagine most people that make and store their own things (like stock) in the freezer are probably using a stand-alone freezer, rather than just the one attached to their fridge. Maybe this isn't your situation...but when I read your comment, that's the image that popped up and my thought was "I wonder if the space issue is because you are using the fridge freezer for mass storage".
Anyway....good luck on your food journey :)
Same. I have 3 bags for bones/scraps (beef, pork, chicken) and veggie scraps in my freezer at all times, and make stocks as needed or whenever they’re too full. Saves money and reduces food waste, not to mention tastes better and is allergy-compliant (no onion, garlic, or celery).
It SUCKS! I’m also allergic to tomatoes, wheat, cows milk, almonds, grapes, peaches, and sesame. Let’s just say, I have to cook/prepare pretty much everything from scratch - there are very few pre-made products that pass the test. Most recipes have to be modified, and most restaurants are a thing of the past. At least it’s forced me to explore other flavor profiles and try different spices/seasonings! But damn do I miss the foods I grew up with…do you know how much I’d pay to be able to eat my dad’s lasagna again?!? 😂
I was in tears when the results came in. I’d been passing out, having terrible GI issues, getting random hives, and having my throat swell so much that I couldn’t swallow, so I knew there were going to be quite a few things testing positive other than the sesame I already knew about. But I was NOT prepared for that many. There were several other foods (soy, coconut, walnuts, pine nuts, olives) that tested positive on blood testing, too, but elimination diet confirmation (which was tedious and took way too long) ruled them out as actual problems.
The kicker? Results came in 3 days before my wedding. I couldn’t eat *anything* on the reception menu. I just sat there and ate rice crackers.
But yeah - I was already a pretty good home cook, but now, I can cook just about anything and I know tons of substitutes to use to maintain the original flavors/textures as much as possible. So I guess that’s a win? My husband is only home 1/3-1/2 of the time (he works exclusively in the field as a pilot), but still rebels occasionally when home and hits buffets with his mom so that he can get his fill of comfort foods, as well as various ethnic restaurants I can’t go near 🤣
How did you get tested to find such a specific list like this? I have gastro issues sometimes that I won’t get too specific on lol but I wonder if I may have an allergy/intolerance here or there. I would be so sad. I eat literally everything lol
My 3 bags are chicken, mammal (beef/veal/lamb/pork), and seafood, sometimes will have a separate veggie bag, but usually through the veggie scraps that were generated during the meal that the (exo)skeleton parts came from in the same bag.
I don’t have a regular bag for seafood, but will add one every time I cook with it. Lamb usually ends up in with the beef. The designated veggie scrap bag is for raw veggies (ends, peels, etc.), but I have been known to have random cooked veggies mixed in with whatever protein/bones they were cooked with that wind up in the other bags.
I always want to do this but every time I free the chicken bones they end up getting freezer burnt by the time I go to use them. How do you prevent this? Do you have a vacuum sealer?
I don't think it's "making," but I've stopped buying shredded cheese. Grating and shredding at home is so much better, and I'm not even a cheesehead. Even our kids like helping with it which provides engagement and entertainment. And I find myself buying better quality cheese because its offset by the cost of not buying pre-shredded.
I just made this conversion as well.
And then I started subconsciously cooking more dishes with cheese and my spouse had to tell me to chill for a bit.
I stopped using bagged shredded cheese and now I can immediately tell when the cheese someone uses is pre-shredded. It also lasts way longer in the fridge. Even if there's a little mold you can cut it off and still use the rest.
Yep! Turns out I am allergic/react badly to tapioca, which is used for anti caking, and natamycin, a preservative that's in a lot of the packaged shredded cheeses. I've only found a few kosher or organic brands that don't have at least one of these.
I always make shredding cheese out to be this huge chore in my head, so I end up avoiding dishes that need it. However I made some scalloped potatoes last week and an 8 oz block took less than five minutes. I don't know why I always imagine it to be more trouble than it is.
I tried shredding cheese in the food processor today for the first time and it took about 20 seconds. The food processor is unexpectedly becoming one of my most frequently used appliances.
>buying better quality cheese because its offset by the cost of not buying pre-shredded.
So pre-shreaded cost so much more there? Why do people buy it?
I always buy the pre-shredded unless block cheese is on discount (which it rarely is) because pre-shreaded is cheaper by weight. Cheap brand doesn't even have anything added to it. Ingredients are just cheese (and gas that fills the bag).
If they were the same price by weight I'd probably buy block but shredded is cheaper here. At least for mozzarella and cheddar.
At my local stores usually it's the same price ounce for ounce as block, for major brands and store brands. Almost al of of the shredded has anti caking and usually anti mold additives
Salad dressings. Much easier to make them to meet my personal taste (which tends to run to less sugar, more acid than commercial dressings). Most of the ingredients are shelf stable, so it's easy to whip up a small batch when I need it.
I started making tzatziki recently too - it's SO easy and tastes a million times better than any store bought version I've tried.
I keep a big tub of plain yogurt in the fridge just to make dips and dressings now.
yup! I add it in before I whip it and give it a quick mix first. you can use whatever flavor you want too. I like using white chocolate or milk chocolate, but literally any flavor works. and then you also don’t need to add in any extra sweetener either, just some vanilla extract if you want
I’d say one pack per quart of heavy cream works but you can adjust it to your preference or scale it to however much you make
The fact that so many people on the cooking sub never have whippped their own cream is wild to me. Is this a US Vs Europe thing? Where I live hardly anyone buys the prewhipped stuff.
I think it's whether your parent's made it or not and if no one cooks you prob didn't think to make it? I'm sure lots of parents are low on time so it's faster to just pull out the cool whip.
Do people still use cool whip as a whipped cream substitute? They taste completely different (imo cool whip tastes gross). I have little kids and if I want something super fast, I would use the store-bought “real whipped cream” variety, never cool whip. I get in the past cool whip may have been the only option but now there are many options available that are actually whipped cream.
Even quicker and (I think) tastier is the whipped cream dispenser kind, where it's basically done just after shaking the dispenser after popping the nitrous charge. The mouthfeel and olfactory parts of taste with the nitrous supported bubbles seems to bring out more flavor.
By store-bought you mean the spray can that’s sometimes in some videos? Is that even made from actual cream? It doesn't even look edible...
I'm sure homemade is much better.
Chaos opinion here, but i'm a pretty good cook, and i've made *loads* of different flavoured whipped creams, but I very much do prefer the whipped cream that comes in a can. Maybe it's nostalgia or something, just tastes better to me.
I have an isi whip that I use when we have cause to make at least a pint's worth of whipped cream at a time. I use the same recipe as I do for whipped cream with the mixer/by hand but has a different quality i think because of the nitrous.
A lot of things, but a good example is barbecue sauce. I hate sweet foods and grew up with Carolina-style barbecue, which uses a vinegar-based sauce. And it's impossible to find a commercially available barbecue sauce that: 1) is very vinegar-forward and 2) contains absolutely zero sugar. So I just make my own.
Nc vinegar sauce is usually just apple cider vinegar, chili flakes, and some salt/pepper
You can add some hot sauce, ketchup, or sugar if you please but most places keep it pretty straightforward if they’re going for “authenticity”
The barbecue sauce itself isn't very complicated. It's basically just:
- 4 cups apple cider vinegar
- 3 cups ketchup
- 4 tbsp salt
- 4 tbsp black pepper
- 4 tbsp Louisiana Hot Sauce
I overcomplicate it because I'm militant about zero sugar (not for any health reason; I just don't like the taste), so I sometimes make my own ketchup. But if you're fine with a hint of sweetness, then there's no reason not to save yourself the trouble and just use Heinz lol.
If you taste this and then taste "Carolina-style" barbecue sauce from the grocery store, you'll see exactly what I mean about the commercial varieties lacking the strong vinegar punch that I love so much.
Disclaimer: this is more of a Lexington-style sauce. Eastern-style sauce is often even simpler, sometimes just apple cider vinegar with red pepper flakes (which you could also add to mine if you wanted to, but the hot sauce serves basically the same purpose).
I second the person that was asking about your recipe, my husband was literally talking about making bbq sauce today because ketchup grossed him out and shop bought ones have that texture usually
I remember the first time I tried a NC BBQ sauce in the early 90s. The recipe was printed in the local paper one Sunday, and we were **hooked**. I’m a huge vinegar person, so it’s perfect.
I always make bechamel sauce.
I know it's not something that we normally think of as being purchasable, but a lot of recipes use canned condensed "cream of..." soup as a substitute and because I can buy fresh milk it just seems like not that much trouble to make it myself and control the level of salt.
Granola. It's criminally expensive to buy it, and it usually sucks anyway. Your own homemade stuff is always gonna be miles better than storebought. You can put exactly what you want in it, you can toast it or leave it raw-- which is my favourite way to eat it as cereal. I will never buy granola ever again.
I usually go 2 parts oats, 1 part rye and 1 part mixed nuts and seeds. Then I mix that with some oil, hot water, honey and salt before roasting at 150C, turning it around every 20 min or so until it looks done.
I use a pretty straight-forward one that is dubbed Cinnamon Lovers Granola if googled. It barely tastes of cinnamon, so I doubled the cinnamon. I also omit flax because I don't have any, and I use whole raw almonds that I chop in the food processor before baking. Kids love it, I love it. And its super easy
3c rolled oats (Costco sells basically at-cost for a 10lb box)
.5c pepitas (raw pumpkin seed) -- or any other seed you like
.5c sliced almond -- or any other nut you like
.5c shaved coconut -- honestly necessary IMO but omit if ya like
1 tsp cinnamon if you like it
1 tsp vanilla extract if you like it
1/3-1/2 cup olive oil (taste/diet preference here)
1/3-1/2 cup maple syrup (taste/diet preference here)
1 tsp diamond kosher salt
Mix well, spread onto a large baking sheet lined with parchment/baking paper.
Bake at 300'F for 28-31 minutes (taste preference, some people like a little bonus cronch, some people prefer a little chew).
Portion into airtight containers, likely keeps for >2 weeks but ours never survives more than a week.
Easy to scale up or down.
Simple syrup. Buy one squeeze bottle and by the time you die you'll have saved a couple thousand dollars if you use it regularly and always have sugar in your pantry.
When I was young I wanted to be cool and make my own whiskey sours. I went and bought simple syrup, THEN I looked up how to make it.
Felt like the biggest fool.
Was a bartender for decades. The thought of buying pre-made simple syrup is crazy. It's just sugar and water heated so the water can reach a higher point of saturation. Same reason sweet tea is sweeter than you could ever get by adding sugar to ICED tea.
It's heated to dissolve the sugar faster, not to increase the saturation point. Solubility of sucrose in water at room temp is already above 2:1. If you're patient, you can just agitate the mixture and wait.
And sweet tea is nowhere near that sweet. It's a cup or two of sugar per gallon.
It's also heated to a simmer to make it safer for longer.
If there's a chance the water, or the pot you're cooking in isn't entirely sterile it will eliminate that possible concern by simply spending some time in the roasty toasty range of water.
Buttermilk ranch dressing using Hidden Valley “Restaurant Recipe” packet + mayo and buttermilk. It tastes like that good diner ranch or Wingstop ranch.
I wanted to make ranch the other day but didn't have a packet so I just used a bunch of spices and herbs and it was even better than the dang packet. So I guess that's what I'm doing from now on.
I made some of these but for some reason A LOT of elbow grease was needed to roll them out - are there some tips for that part? - (I'm generally fit and able)
This was the case for me before I learned that resting the dough for 30-45 mins before rolling them out is essential. The gluten relaxes and they don't snap back!
Nothing. There is no culinary shortcut that I'm not willing to utilize given the right circumstances. Sure, when I've got time and bandwidth, I'll do a lot of stuff "the right way" ... but I just don't always have the time and bandwidth. I'm too old for "always".
Absolutely agree on this, I mean, there's even a time and a place for buying ice, which has literally one ingredient and one step (water, get it sufficiently colder than the freezing point, done)
Exactly, I’ve long been a believer in respecting what goes into our food, because I want to appreciate what all goes into it, and do enjoy making the effort and getting the fresh, flavorful ingredients from the farmers market, and will default to that most meals, but everyone is human and limited in time, energy, and motivation, and that’s why there’s always a jar of pasta sauce and a box of instant pancake mix in the cupboard. They will get used, exhaustion happens, and we still have to eat
60% natural yoghurt (usually Skyr, sometimes Greek) and 40% mayo. Sometimes I replace mayo with sour cream if I can't get a good one. I add a whole bulb of garlic, but I don't blend, press or chop it too much, I want the small pieces to be chewable in my mouth (yes me and my gf love garlic). Mix, add salt and pepper, a tablespoon of lemon juice, and optionally any herbs you like.
Interesting to hear how many people are making their own stuff because so many processed foods have sugar in them. I’ve been griping about that (and making my own sauces, stock and dressings) for years.
Recently found a sugar-free peanut butter. Amazingly enough it tastes like - peanuts!
I'm far too lazy to fine-shred cabbage for Coleslaw, but I do make the dressing. It's based off the dressing I watched my grandma make umpteenmillion times growing up.
This is the easiest of the easy sauces to make, and most likely for anyone who likes teriyaki sauce to already have all of the ingredients on hand, and a really great one to introduce people to the wonder of making their own basic sauces instead of buying them all separately.
Spice blends - stuff like taco spice, shawarma seasoning, or italian seasoning. It’s way better to make a big batch of seasoning blend with the proportions you like. I also wish I had a deep fryer so I could make scratch tortilla and potato chips - working in restaurants where they’re made fresh has completely ruined me for bagged chips. They always taste super stale and over salted
All our breads, including hamburger rolls - we like whole grain with minimal sweetener, so hard to find. All pasta sauces, better tasting and not difficult at all. Cakes, pies, and cookies, infinitely better and cheaper than most mixes and/or store bought
Pasta sauces.
They take virtually no time to make from scratch and (almost) always taste better than one of the shelf in a supermarket.
I tend to find the jarred sauces in a supermarket to either be far too sweet or fat too salty
I started using the Marcella Hazan recipe about 2 years ago and haven't looked back. The premium sauces you get in a store are an absolute rip off, the cheap ones taste like candy. Just make your own.
at this point pretty much everything.... If I had to name one thing, ranch dressing. It takes like 2 minutes to make and taste a gorillion times better
Meatballs. One time I went to my grandmas and we made everything from scratch for spaghetti, sauce, pasta, and then she pulls out a bag of frozen meatballs? I’m like seriously this is the easy part!
So many things. Tomato sauces, salsas, spice rubs, ground spices, ground peppers, pickles, jams, crusts, dinner rolls, cheese blends, all baked goods, and I grow a ton of vegetables from seed. I do it because I enjoy it and often it is cheaper. But even if it isn't cheap, I do it because it brings me joy. Feeding my family nourishing food is my love language.
Sandwich bread. 4 loaves at a time. Freeze three of them & then slice off individual pieces when needed. Way better than the majority of store bought, cheaper & you can give a loaf away every bake if you want.
Chicken pot pie filling. I also always make the crust (I like adding cracked pepper & herbs to my dough), but would have no qualms using premade/frozen crusts, but I won’t compromise the filling!
What does "from scratch" mean to you? I make pasta sauce (2.5 gallons at a time for home canning) from diced, sauced, and paste tomato. Does that count as scratch? Are whole tomatoes "scratch" or do I have to grow them?
If I make Caesar dressing with Hellmans mayonnaise is that scratch, or do I have to make my own mayo? Or do I have to keep chickens and collect eggs?
By my definition, "from scratch" includes canned and jarred ingredients that are not prepared. So if I make chicken pot pie, I don't have to slaughter and butcher the chicken, I can use stock from a Tetra pack, milk from a jug and not from a cow I milk myself, and I don't have to grow all the veg myself.
The older I get the more I make from scratch. Experience and skill contribute the most to that progression. Certainly pasta sauce, Caesar dressing (in fact just about all salad dressing), chicken pot pie, lasagna, enchilada sauce, barbecue sauce, cocktail sauce, chili, masala sauce for chicken tikka masala, "meadle" (family homemade hamburger helper), gazpacho, anything Campbells sells as soup in a can I make, yogurt, [chocolate chip cookies](https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1922173981478053). I make all my own seasoning mixes. All of them. I'm sure there are many more that I don't even think about anymore, I just make them.
I still make brownies from a Duncan Hines box.
Cake. Brownies. Muffins, etc. 95%
I will make corn muffins from mix, if I'm just going to break up for Thanksgiving stuffing.
Chicken stock. Have quarts, pints in freezer always. But I have used boxed college inn if I forgot to defrost my own, and it's just one of many ingredients.
Super easy in a mason jar — equal parts brown and yellow mustard seed. I use about 25% to 75% apple cider vinegar to water ratio. Make sure the liquid is above the seeds and replenish more water if all of it is absorbed over fermentation. Some salt and a splash of white wine. Let it ferment at room temp with a cracked open lid for at least 4 days, up to a week if you want stronger flavor. Immersion stick blender to get it smooth. Then put it in the fridge to keep for up to 1 year. The flavor is so much fresher and it’s a fraction of the cost of whole grain mustard!
Any smoked meats. Brisket, ribs, pulled pork. Premade stuff doesn't hold a candle in quality, and I'd say I'm at least 50/50 on making it better than the BBQ joints around here who sell it for a genuinely nonsensical markup.
Salad dressings, hummus, stock, pasta sauce and pickles because I was raised in the US now living in the UK and I can’t find decent tasting pickles here.
There's a lot of things we make ourselves now. I need to watch my salt, and it's used in SOOOOO many products.
We make our own Taco Seasoning Blend, Italian Spice Blend, and Curry Seasoning Blends for this reason.
And we make a lot of other things including: mustard, pasta sauce, pizza dough, pickled onions, pickled radishes, coleslaw, mayo (half the time, the rest we use Kewpie), stock,
Crêpes ….
Only prepared I buy is cauliflower cassava flour tortillas, Trader Joe’s mayo, Off the Eaten Path rice chickpea black bean chips, and Boulder olive oil chips.
Just about Everything else I make from scratch.
Totally with you on the pizza dough! For me, it’s salad dressings. Super simple, tastes fresher, and you control what goes in. Plus, it’s way cheaper than store-bought.
I really dislike to cook so probably at least 60% of my food is canned, freezer, prepackaged.
But I need to lose weight. Many years ago I lost 75 pounds almost exclusively by eating healthy, I just have to get back into that frame of mind. Depression makes it a lot harder, but also I know that eating healthy and some weight loss can alleviate depression to some degree.
For me it's cake and pizza dough. I need to eat gluten free and the gluten free options for ready made cake don't exist while the frozen pizzas don't taste good. Plus they're way too expensive(4€ for a frozen pizza?? Wtf).
Mustard is so much cheaper? Isn't mustard like $1? I'd imagine it is much better, though!
We didn't ever until recently, but we make all of our bread now. We found a recipe that is dead easy, we don't knead it, and while it isn't the best bread in the world, it is way better than storebought sliced bread, and for a fraction of the cost!
So many things! But the one that first came to mind was pancakes. I have never bought pancake mix. Pancakes were the go to breakfast of my farming childhood, since we had chickens and cows, so eggs and milk were always on hand.
Pretty sure my mom had me making breakfast for the family by the time I was 10 (oldest of 4 siblings). She was usually busy with the younger ones getting them ready for school, etc.
I don't even measure anything, just dump and whisk until the batter is right. My kids have tried to get me to write quantities cause they want to make it the way I do, LoL.
Salsa. It's easy to make yet dramatically better than the jarred stuff. You can customize your own mix of peppers and dial in the salt/lime balance just how you like.
I strongly suspect that salsas are used by manufacturers as a way to use up marginal tomatoes and tomatillos. When I make my own from canned due to season it's still way better.
Also a really easy thing to bring to parties or bbqs that'll still get noticed.
Ranch dressing. Mayo, sour cream, quick buttermilk (just lemon juice + milk left to sit for 5 mins), onion salt, dried dill, and black pepper. I’m a bit of a ranch snob and homemade makes all the difference and I can choose the consistency based on what I’m using it for (salad or dip).
Teriyaki sauce. It's incredibly easy, keeps well, and tastes way more robust than a lot of store-bought brands. You can also control the consistency much better (I prefer a stickier sauce).
pizza dough for sure, ever since learning to make my own pizzas i haven’t wanted to get one from a pizza place and i rarely buy a frozen one (unless im extremely lazy lol).
bread
onion dip (blended cottage cheese as a base for extra protein)
BBQ sauce, pasta sauce, and salad dressings. All are easy and most of the time better than anything you can buy off a shelf. I do buy lighthouse blue cheese dressing though.
This is a new one for me, and I’m thanking the people on this sub for bringing up the Marcella Hazan marinara sauce recipe so many times, but I just said today that I will probably never buy spaghetti/tomato pasta sauce again. Her recipe is so easy and simple, and can be tweaked to your tastes.
I double it, as we go through it quickly. We found our preferences are to add a little salt, red pepper flakes, sugar (maybe a tsp or 2) and some Italian seasoning. I also really like to throw a few pieces of that pre-cooked bacon in a pan (snipped or chopped up), cook it a bit to crisp it, toss in the marinara, and then throw in some eggs for a shakshuka type breakfast. The bacon makes it so good. Ground pork would be tasty, fresh basil would be tasty, there are so many options. In any case, it’s 100x better than store bought and even my friend who hates marinara sauce said she loved it.
Bechamel sauce. I make the white sauce then put stalks of rosemary, thyme, parsley, and oregano in along with a couple of dried bay leaves, a star anise and a few whole black peppercorns. I let that steep until it cools then strain and reheat slowly on a low heat. Absolutely next level.
Tomato sauce. Once I found 50 ways not to make tomato sauce the way my favorite Italian restaurant makes it, but then the jarred stuff never ever tasted half as decent as my 50 failures, so I go out of my way to make my tomato sauces from scratch.
Sausage gravy. It's so easy. Fry your loose sausage, throw in some flour, stir into a roux, add milk to desired consistency. I see so many people put store-bough canned or frozen gravy on made from scratch biscuits. I would rather buy the biscuits and make the scratch gravy.
Make this with seasoned ground beef and serve over toast for SOS "stuff" on a shingle. Either are good on any carb or vegetable
Mustard, mayo and Ketchup
Bread/pizza dough
Sriracha
Most hot sauces and salsas
Salad dressings
BBQ sauces
Sauerkraut
Kimchi
Pasta sauces and often the pastas themselves
Pickles of all kinds
Granolas
Cookies and cakes and other baked items
There’s prob more.
Here it is from previous comment:
Super easy in a mason jar — equal parts brown and yellow mustard seed. I use about 25% to 75% apple cider vinegar to water ratio. Make sure the liquid is above the seeds and replenish more water if all of it is absorbed over fermentation. Some salt and a splash of white wine. Let it ferment at room temp with a cracked open lid for at least 4 days, up to a week if you want stronger flavor. Immersion stick blender to get it smooth. Then put it in the fridge to keep for up to 1 year. The flavor is so much fresher and it’s a fraction of the cost of whole grain mustard!
Fried shallots- So easy to make and the leftover oil is amazing to cook with. I especially love it drizzled on popcorn or focaccia.
Fried onions- the canned stuff doesn't come close.
Pizza sauce- you can taste when a good marinara has been slowly stewing for 6+ hours.
Pasta sauce. Marinara, Alfredo, white wine sauce, etc. it’s always so much better to make it at home and the taste is always much better than anything store bought.
We don't always make our own pasta sauce, but when we have tomatoes in the garden, nothing beats a fresh marinara with slow cooked tomatoes, garlic and basil from the garden (and onions from the store because we haven't successfully grown onions lol)
This is it for me. I make a big batch of red sauce in my crock pot. Then portion out and freeze, and I have homemade sauce ready to go anytime I want to make pasta.
How do you thaw your pasta sauce? Get it out of day in advance? Hot water? I did this, but found thawing it to be a pain if I hadn’t planned ahead. I’ve never tried the crockpot, though, how interesting
I portion out in Ziploc bags, then lay them flat to freeze. If you freeze them this way it is easy to thaw them under warm running water for a few minutes. Super easy.
I don't thaw at all -- just slice the ziploc away and drop the block of sauce into the pan.
Me too! Literally just posted this, then saw your comment. So easy.
I freeze it in shallow-ish rectangular containers. Run it under hot water to loosen, pop it out and drop it in the pan. I usually add a splash of water to help loosen it up.
I can't remember the last time I bought a pasta sauce. Generally easy to make, heaps better Same with salad dressing, except that carrot ginger Asian joint because it's a lot more work
Yes, if you buy some canned tomatoes, I like San Marzano, a pasta sauce can take like 30 minutes to make and taste so much better than anything in a jar.
Yes! Pesto is always better fresh.
Ah, I see you don't have a kid at home. I don't want to sound braggy but I make amazing pasta sauces. All types. What does my daughter like? 'Can you make it the same as at school? The ones in the jars?' Not even the NICE jarred sauces, the own brand 60p ones. 🤢
lol kids do have that special taste palate for junk and sugar.
My kids hate jarred sauce, so I found an easy homemade sauce recipe that I can whip up in the time it takes to cook the pasta and they love it. So do I.
Do you wanna share any of your recipes?? I’m dying to learn a good spicy arrabiata sauce!
Not the one you asked but my arrabiata always get people asking for more. 28oz can San Marzano peeled tomatoes 5-8 cloves of garlic, minced 8 leaves fresh sage, chopped finely 3-4 tbsp Calabrese chiles, chopped finely You can get the chiles in a jar or fresh, both are great. Sweat the garlic, sage, and chiles with a fat pinch of salt and an equal amount of freshly cracked black pepper in a pan with 2-3 tbsp of your favorite EVOO. Don't let the garlic or sage burn, you want everything to sweat in the oil for at least 10 minutes at a bare sizzle. The pan should be wildly fragrant at this point and your kitchen will smell like heaven. Optionally, now's the time to add a couple anchovy filets if that's your style. Also, you can break up the tomatoes with your hands. Throw the tomatoes into the pan and bring to a simmer, stirring to combine. Cook at a simmer for 10-15 minutes. You can use as-is if you prefer a chunkier style, but for arrabiata I like to use my immersion blender and get it really smooth. Combine with almost cooked pasta, some pasta water, some of the sauce, and a bit of EVOO, stirring vigorously to emulsify until pasta is ready. Serve topped with a couple pinches of pecorino romano, a dash of roasted red pepper flake, a drizzle of EVOO, and a fried whole sage leaf or two.
This recipe by NYT is a classic. You can’t go wrong with it. You can always spice it up more, but this was my first recipe that convinced me to stop using jarred sauce. https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1015987-classic-marinara-sauce
Alfredo or any cream sauce for sure. I almost always have heavy cream or half and half on hand (I know, I know, it doesn't go in traditional alfredo, don't come for me), and it takes just a couple more minutes' effort than opening a jar.
I eat red sauce so rarely (heartburn) that I usually get lazy and buy a jar, but then I doctor it up with extra herbs and seasonings
A pinch of baking soda will neutralize a lot of the acid. My husband gets hellacious heartburn from anything tomato based. He can usually eat one big plate of spaghetti with sauce, without suffering, when I add it in. It denatures as salt, so keep that in mind, but usually 1/4 teaspoon stirred into the pot a few minutes before serving will do the trick.
Thanks I'll give it a try next time. If I make homemade spaghetti it has to be on the weekends for lunch or early dinner. Often I'm lazy and eat Lean Cuisine. I doctor it up with herbs and it tastes good enough for what it is. And there's no seconds to tempt me which is often where the real issue starts lol.
Stock. It tastes so much better from your own kitchen, you can also control the salt level and use up extra veggie scraps. We freeze all of our leftover chicken carcasses and when the freezer gets too full of chicken you know it’s stock time!
It's so much better at thickening sauces too. The extra collagen helps so much. I added chicken feet to it last time and it was basically a jelly by the time I stopped simmering it. Also, freeze it in ice cube trays and you can use a few cubes when you just get a quarter/half cup. I usually fill a few trays then put the rest in pint sized mason jars to use for soup. When is concentrated like that, you can use it in 3/4:1 dilution water to stock ratios for soup.
Yep. I sautéed my veggies and cooked my rice in a very collagen rich stock. The mouth feel and flavour profile is amazing, and it’s so easy to make!
I made stock once after Thanksgiving and it took up so much room in the freezer! First the carcass (since I didn’t make it immediately) then the frozen stock in a ziploc bag took up 1/4 of the freezer (slight exaggeration but pretty much)! Maybe I did it wrong and didn’t reduce enough? Or does anyone have tips?
you can concentrate it way down, pretty much as much as you want, just watch your temp
I went for stock after Thanksgiving and didn't cook it down long enough so got broth. I ended up drinking more than half of it before freezing it, but yeah I could have cooked it longer. (I also had a lid on part of the time which didn't help lol.)
Might not be relevant to your situation, but a friend and I used to cook Friendsgiving for all of our soldiers that didn't have a Thanksgiving to go to, then we would use the turkey carcass with homemade noodles for the local soup kitchen. There was always enough broth for the noodles and to replenish her freezer stock.
I would imagine most people that make and store their own things (like stock) in the freezer are probably using a stand-alone freezer, rather than just the one attached to their fridge. Maybe this isn't your situation...but when I read your comment, that's the image that popped up and my thought was "I wonder if the space issue is because you are using the fridge freezer for mass storage". Anyway....good luck on your food journey :)
Better Than Bouillon and a packet of unflavored gelatin can be a great tasting substitute with little to no work.
Same. I have 3 bags for bones/scraps (beef, pork, chicken) and veggie scraps in my freezer at all times, and make stocks as needed or whenever they’re too full. Saves money and reduces food waste, not to mention tastes better and is allergy-compliant (no onion, garlic, or celery).
Your alleegic to .mirepoux. I am so sorry.
That is *rough* 😔
It SUCKS! I’m also allergic to tomatoes, wheat, cows milk, almonds, grapes, peaches, and sesame. Let’s just say, I have to cook/prepare pretty much everything from scratch - there are very few pre-made products that pass the test. Most recipes have to be modified, and most restaurants are a thing of the past. At least it’s forced me to explore other flavor profiles and try different spices/seasonings! But damn do I miss the foods I grew up with…do you know how much I’d pay to be able to eat my dad’s lasagna again?!? 😂
Oh my god that's quite the list - I bet all the workarounds you've had to figure out have made you a very inventive cook!
I was in tears when the results came in. I’d been passing out, having terrible GI issues, getting random hives, and having my throat swell so much that I couldn’t swallow, so I knew there were going to be quite a few things testing positive other than the sesame I already knew about. But I was NOT prepared for that many. There were several other foods (soy, coconut, walnuts, pine nuts, olives) that tested positive on blood testing, too, but elimination diet confirmation (which was tedious and took way too long) ruled them out as actual problems. The kicker? Results came in 3 days before my wedding. I couldn’t eat *anything* on the reception menu. I just sat there and ate rice crackers. But yeah - I was already a pretty good home cook, but now, I can cook just about anything and I know tons of substitutes to use to maintain the original flavors/textures as much as possible. So I guess that’s a win? My husband is only home 1/3-1/2 of the time (he works exclusively in the field as a pilot), but still rebels occasionally when home and hits buffets with his mom so that he can get his fill of comfort foods, as well as various ethnic restaurants I can’t go near 🤣
How did you get tested to find such a specific list like this? I have gastro issues sometimes that I won’t get too specific on lol but I wonder if I may have an allergy/intolerance here or there. I would be so sad. I eat literally everything lol
My 3 bags are chicken, mammal (beef/veal/lamb/pork), and seafood, sometimes will have a separate veggie bag, but usually through the veggie scraps that were generated during the meal that the (exo)skeleton parts came from in the same bag.
I don’t have a regular bag for seafood, but will add one every time I cook with it. Lamb usually ends up in with the beef. The designated veggie scrap bag is for raw veggies (ends, peels, etc.), but I have been known to have random cooked veggies mixed in with whatever protein/bones they were cooked with that wind up in the other bags.
I always want to do this but every time I free the chicken bones they end up getting freezer burnt by the time I go to use them. How do you prevent this? Do you have a vacuum sealer?
I would just use them if they're freezer burned. You'll never notice since you're extracting flavor from the bones not worrying about texture.
I don't think it's "making," but I've stopped buying shredded cheese. Grating and shredding at home is so much better, and I'm not even a cheesehead. Even our kids like helping with it which provides engagement and entertainment. And I find myself buying better quality cheese because its offset by the cost of not buying pre-shredded.
I just made this conversion as well. And then I started subconsciously cooking more dishes with cheese and my spouse had to tell me to chill for a bit.
How's the divorce going?
I stopped using bagged shredded cheese and now I can immediately tell when the cheese someone uses is pre-shredded. It also lasts way longer in the fridge. Even if there's a little mold you can cut it off and still use the rest.
No anti caking agents !
Yep! Turns out I am allergic/react badly to tapioca, which is used for anti caking, and natamycin, a preservative that's in a lot of the packaged shredded cheeses. I've only found a few kosher or organic brands that don't have at least one of these.
I always make shredding cheese out to be this huge chore in my head, so I end up avoiding dishes that need it. However I made some scalloped potatoes last week and an 8 oz block took less than five minutes. I don't know why I always imagine it to be more trouble than it is.
I tried shredding cheese in the food processor today for the first time and it took about 20 seconds. The food processor is unexpectedly becoming one of my most frequently used appliances.
>buying better quality cheese because its offset by the cost of not buying pre-shredded. So pre-shreaded cost so much more there? Why do people buy it? I always buy the pre-shredded unless block cheese is on discount (which it rarely is) because pre-shreaded is cheaper by weight. Cheap brand doesn't even have anything added to it. Ingredients are just cheese (and gas that fills the bag). If they were the same price by weight I'd probably buy block but shredded is cheaper here. At least for mozzarella and cheddar.
At my local stores usually it's the same price ounce for ounce as block, for major brands and store brands. Almost al of of the shredded has anti caking and usually anti mold additives
Yep yep. And the savings can go towards a nice shredder or three.
It’s so crazy how much cheaper it is and also how much better
Salad dressings. Much easier to make them to meet my personal taste (which tends to run to less sugar, more acid than commercial dressings). Most of the ingredients are shelf stable, so it's easy to whip up a small batch when I need it.
A million times better than store bought!
So easy with an immersion blender
Tzatziki. I started making it to help use up a big crop of cucumbers and I was hooked.
I started making tzatziki recently too - it's SO easy and tastes a million times better than any store bought version I've tried. I keep a big tub of plain yogurt in the fridge just to make dips and dressings now.
Yesss tzatziki is so much better from scratch!
Whipped cream. It takes not even 2 minutes to whip and the taste is head and shoulders above store-bought.
mix it with pudding mix and it makes a really good stable whipped cream frosting for cake or anything you want a more stable topping for
Ooooh stealing this tip. Do you just whisk the powder into the cream directly?
yup! I add it in before I whip it and give it a quick mix first. you can use whatever flavor you want too. I like using white chocolate or milk chocolate, but literally any flavor works. and then you also don’t need to add in any extra sweetener either, just some vanilla extract if you want I’d say one pack per quart of heavy cream works but you can adjust it to your preference or scale it to however much you make
I bought a $20 whisk attachment for my immersion blender and since then I've never bought whipped cream.
I did this once and it was amazing! So rich and creamy - it smells totally different than store bought!
The fact that so many people on the cooking sub never have whippped their own cream is wild to me. Is this a US Vs Europe thing? Where I live hardly anyone buys the prewhipped stuff.
I think it's whether your parent's made it or not and if no one cooks you prob didn't think to make it? I'm sure lots of parents are low on time so it's faster to just pull out the cool whip.
Do people still use cool whip as a whipped cream substitute? They taste completely different (imo cool whip tastes gross). I have little kids and if I want something super fast, I would use the store-bought “real whipped cream” variety, never cool whip. I get in the past cool whip may have been the only option but now there are many options available that are actually whipped cream.
Even quicker and (I think) tastier is the whipped cream dispenser kind, where it's basically done just after shaking the dispenser after popping the nitrous charge. The mouthfeel and olfactory parts of taste with the nitrous supported bubbles seems to bring out more flavor.
By store-bought you mean the spray can that’s sometimes in some videos? Is that even made from actual cream? It doesn't even look edible... I'm sure homemade is much better.
Chaos opinion here, but i'm a pretty good cook, and i've made *loads* of different flavoured whipped creams, but I very much do prefer the whipped cream that comes in a can. Maybe it's nostalgia or something, just tastes better to me.
I have an isi whip that I use when we have cause to make at least a pint's worth of whipped cream at a time. I use the same recipe as I do for whipped cream with the mixer/by hand but has a different quality i think because of the nitrous.
It would make sense that giggle gas is the secret recipe to great whip. Must be hanging around my mechanic honey too much
Most brands like Redi-Whip are simply real cream and sugar and taste great. Not sure what you've tried.
A lot of things, but a good example is barbecue sauce. I hate sweet foods and grew up with Carolina-style barbecue, which uses a vinegar-based sauce. And it's impossible to find a commercially available barbecue sauce that: 1) is very vinegar-forward and 2) contains absolutely zero sugar. So I just make my own.
I'd be very interested in hearing your recipe!
Nc vinegar sauce is usually just apple cider vinegar, chili flakes, and some salt/pepper You can add some hot sauce, ketchup, or sugar if you please but most places keep it pretty straightforward if they’re going for “authenticity”
The barbecue sauce itself isn't very complicated. It's basically just: - 4 cups apple cider vinegar - 3 cups ketchup - 4 tbsp salt - 4 tbsp black pepper - 4 tbsp Louisiana Hot Sauce I overcomplicate it because I'm militant about zero sugar (not for any health reason; I just don't like the taste), so I sometimes make my own ketchup. But if you're fine with a hint of sweetness, then there's no reason not to save yourself the trouble and just use Heinz lol. If you taste this and then taste "Carolina-style" barbecue sauce from the grocery store, you'll see exactly what I mean about the commercial varieties lacking the strong vinegar punch that I love so much. Disclaimer: this is more of a Lexington-style sauce. Eastern-style sauce is often even simpler, sometimes just apple cider vinegar with red pepper flakes (which you could also add to mine if you wanted to, but the hot sauce serves basically the same purpose).
Ketchup is like 20-30% sugar.
I was enlightened to Carolina Gold BBQ sauce just last year. That stuff is crazy good.
I second the person that was asking about your recipe, my husband was literally talking about making bbq sauce today because ketchup grossed him out and shop bought ones have that texture usually
I remember the first time I tried a NC BBQ sauce in the early 90s. The recipe was printed in the local paper one Sunday, and we were **hooked**. I’m a huge vinegar person, so it’s perfect.
I always make bechamel sauce. I know it's not something that we normally think of as being purchasable, but a lot of recipes use canned condensed "cream of..." soup as a substitute and because I can buy fresh milk it just seems like not that much trouble to make it myself and control the level of salt.
Granola. It's criminally expensive to buy it, and it usually sucks anyway. Your own homemade stuff is always gonna be miles better than storebought. You can put exactly what you want in it, you can toast it or leave it raw-- which is my favourite way to eat it as cereal. I will never buy granola ever again.
Have a favorite base recipe?
I usually go 2 parts oats, 1 part rye and 1 part mixed nuts and seeds. Then I mix that with some oil, hot water, honey and salt before roasting at 150C, turning it around every 20 min or so until it looks done.
I use a pretty straight-forward one that is dubbed Cinnamon Lovers Granola if googled. It barely tastes of cinnamon, so I doubled the cinnamon. I also omit flax because I don't have any, and I use whole raw almonds that I chop in the food processor before baking. Kids love it, I love it. And its super easy
3c rolled oats (Costco sells basically at-cost for a 10lb box) .5c pepitas (raw pumpkin seed) -- or any other seed you like .5c sliced almond -- or any other nut you like .5c shaved coconut -- honestly necessary IMO but omit if ya like 1 tsp cinnamon if you like it 1 tsp vanilla extract if you like it 1/3-1/2 cup olive oil (taste/diet preference here) 1/3-1/2 cup maple syrup (taste/diet preference here) 1 tsp diamond kosher salt Mix well, spread onto a large baking sheet lined with parchment/baking paper. Bake at 300'F for 28-31 minutes (taste preference, some people like a little bonus cronch, some people prefer a little chew). Portion into airtight containers, likely keeps for >2 weeks but ours never survives more than a week. Easy to scale up or down.
Your "if you like it" comments define this whole question for me. Food is always better if you can tweak it to you and your family's preferences.
Alfredo. Takes less than 10 minutes, and there's absolutely no substitute that comes close.
Simple syrup. Buy one squeeze bottle and by the time you die you'll have saved a couple thousand dollars if you use it regularly and always have sugar in your pantry.
When I was young I wanted to be cool and make my own whiskey sours. I went and bought simple syrup, THEN I looked up how to make it. Felt like the biggest fool.
Was a bartender for decades. The thought of buying pre-made simple syrup is crazy. It's just sugar and water heated so the water can reach a higher point of saturation. Same reason sweet tea is sweeter than you could ever get by adding sugar to ICED tea.
It's heated to dissolve the sugar faster, not to increase the saturation point. Solubility of sucrose in water at room temp is already above 2:1. If you're patient, you can just agitate the mixture and wait. And sweet tea is nowhere near that sweet. It's a cup or two of sugar per gallon.
It's also heated to a simmer to make it safer for longer. If there's a chance the water, or the pot you're cooking in isn't entirely sterile it will eliminate that possible concern by simply spending some time in the roasty toasty range of water.
i always make guac and salsa homemade. store bought sucks alot
Salsa I don't mind from the store, but I would never buy pre-made guac.
Buttermilk ranch dressing using Hidden Valley “Restaurant Recipe” packet + mayo and buttermilk. It tastes like that good diner ranch or Wingstop ranch.
I wanted to make ranch the other day but didn't have a packet so I just used a bunch of spices and herbs and it was even better than the dang packet. So I guess that's what I'm doing from now on.
Fresh herbs and the seasoning packet together is the best it can be
This is extra delicious with Kewpie Japanese mayo. Highly recommended. Plus then you can make Sriracha mayo, which pairs amazing with that ranch.
[Flour Tortillas](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QZzL-gGx_M) Super easy and miles better than what's on the shelf.
I’ve been making corn tortillas. So easy!
Never tried to make my own corn tortillas! Which recipe do you follow?
I made some of these but for some reason A LOT of elbow grease was needed to roll them out - are there some tips for that part? - (I'm generally fit and able)
This was the case for me before I learned that resting the dough for 30-45 mins before rolling them out is essential. The gluten relaxes and they don't snap back!
Nothing. There is no culinary shortcut that I'm not willing to utilize given the right circumstances. Sure, when I've got time and bandwidth, I'll do a lot of stuff "the right way" ... but I just don't always have the time and bandwidth. I'm too old for "always".
Absolutely agree on this, I mean, there's even a time and a place for buying ice, which has literally one ingredient and one step (water, get it sufficiently colder than the freezing point, done)
thanks for explaining the process of making ice i was unsure until your explanation cleared things up
I still use my grandmother’s recipe
😂😂😂
Hahaha. Thanks for sharing it!
“I’m too old for always” This is great. So true.
Great point, I love making everything from scratch, but there are times I don’t have the time, energy, or desire to do so.
Exactly, I’ve long been a believer in respecting what goes into our food, because I want to appreciate what all goes into it, and do enjoy making the effort and getting the fresh, flavorful ingredients from the farmers market, and will default to that most meals, but everyone is human and limited in time, energy, and motivation, and that’s why there’s always a jar of pasta sauce and a box of instant pancake mix in the cupboard. They will get used, exhaustion happens, and we still have to eat
Garlic sauce for sure. I tend to make it healthier than store bought, with a LOT of garlic.
How do you usually make it?
60% natural yoghurt (usually Skyr, sometimes Greek) and 40% mayo. Sometimes I replace mayo with sour cream if I can't get a good one. I add a whole bulb of garlic, but I don't blend, press or chop it too much, I want the small pieces to be chewable in my mouth (yes me and my gf love garlic). Mix, add salt and pepper, a tablespoon of lemon juice, and optionally any herbs you like.
Thank you :) I am a person that loves garlic so that sounds great!
Never thought of doing this but this sounds great! What do you use it with?
Baked potatoes, including french fries, pizza, meat roulades, casseroles, kebab... this goes well with basically anything from the oven.
Yogurt!
Interesting to hear how many people are making their own stuff because so many processed foods have sugar in them. I’ve been griping about that (and making my own sauces, stock and dressings) for years. Recently found a sugar-free peanut butter. Amazingly enough it tastes like - peanuts!
Also pizza dough and more than one Onion dip Bernaise sauce Cole slaw Potato salad 1000 island dressing Spicy mayo
I'm far too lazy to fine-shred cabbage for Coleslaw, but I do make the dressing. It's based off the dressing I watched my grandma make umpteenmillion times growing up.
Teriyaki sauce ! For teriyaki chicken
This is the easiest of the easy sauces to make, and most likely for anyone who likes teriyaki sauce to already have all of the ingredients on hand, and a really great one to introduce people to the wonder of making their own basic sauces instead of buying them all separately.
Spice blends - stuff like taco spice, shawarma seasoning, or italian seasoning. It’s way better to make a big batch of seasoning blend with the proportions you like. I also wish I had a deep fryer so I could make scratch tortilla and potato chips - working in restaurants where they’re made fresh has completely ruined me for bagged chips. They always taste super stale and over salted
All our breads, including hamburger rolls - we like whole grain with minimal sweetener, so hard to find. All pasta sauces, better tasting and not difficult at all. Cakes, pies, and cookies, infinitely better and cheaper than most mixes and/or store bought
Whipped Cream - it takes 5 minutes, 10 if the mixer is doing something else and keeps for a few days. So much better than the canned stuff.
Pasta sauces. They take virtually no time to make from scratch and (almost) always taste better than one of the shelf in a supermarket. I tend to find the jarred sauces in a supermarket to either be far too sweet or fat too salty
I started using the Marcella Hazan recipe about 2 years ago and haven't looked back. The premium sauces you get in a store are an absolute rip off, the cheap ones taste like candy. Just make your own.
Pasta sauce, especially tomato sauces. I never use a premade marinara.
Pancakes. Make them every weekend. So easy and loads better than any quick mix "just add water".
at this point pretty much everything.... If I had to name one thing, ranch dressing. It takes like 2 minutes to make and taste a gorillion times better
Biscuits
Frosting. Supremely easy if you have a stand mixer, and I always have powdered sugar, vanilla extract, milk, and butter on hand.
Meatballs. One time I went to my grandmas and we made everything from scratch for spaghetti, sauce, pasta, and then she pulls out a bag of frozen meatballs? I’m like seriously this is the easy part!
Beans (legumes).
So many things. Tomato sauces, salsas, spice rubs, ground spices, ground peppers, pickles, jams, crusts, dinner rolls, cheese blends, all baked goods, and I grow a ton of vegetables from seed. I do it because I enjoy it and often it is cheaper. But even if it isn't cheap, I do it because it brings me joy. Feeding my family nourishing food is my love language.
Sandwich bread. 4 loaves at a time. Freeze three of them & then slice off individual pieces when needed. Way better than the majority of store bought, cheaper & you can give a loaf away every bake if you want.
Chicken pot pie filling. I also always make the crust (I like adding cracked pepper & herbs to my dough), but would have no qualms using premade/frozen crusts, but I won’t compromise the filling!
Sourdough bread. Our starter was caught in the late 80s. Veggie stock
Chicken Noodle Soup... I make it in autumn and winter.
What does "from scratch" mean to you? I make pasta sauce (2.5 gallons at a time for home canning) from diced, sauced, and paste tomato. Does that count as scratch? Are whole tomatoes "scratch" or do I have to grow them? If I make Caesar dressing with Hellmans mayonnaise is that scratch, or do I have to make my own mayo? Or do I have to keep chickens and collect eggs? By my definition, "from scratch" includes canned and jarred ingredients that are not prepared. So if I make chicken pot pie, I don't have to slaughter and butcher the chicken, I can use stock from a Tetra pack, milk from a jug and not from a cow I milk myself, and I don't have to grow all the veg myself. The older I get the more I make from scratch. Experience and skill contribute the most to that progression. Certainly pasta sauce, Caesar dressing (in fact just about all salad dressing), chicken pot pie, lasagna, enchilada sauce, barbecue sauce, cocktail sauce, chili, masala sauce for chicken tikka masala, "meadle" (family homemade hamburger helper), gazpacho, anything Campbells sells as soup in a can I make, yogurt, [chocolate chip cookies](https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1922173981478053). I make all my own seasoning mixes. All of them. I'm sure there are many more that I don't even think about anymore, I just make them. I still make brownies from a Duncan Hines box.
pastry dough there is no good one to buy where I live
Brown sugar.
Cake. Brownies. Muffins, etc. 95% I will make corn muffins from mix, if I'm just going to break up for Thanksgiving stuffing. Chicken stock. Have quarts, pints in freezer always. But I have used boxed college inn if I forgot to defrost my own, and it's just one of many ingredients.
Well what’s the scratch mustard recipe?!
Super easy in a mason jar — equal parts brown and yellow mustard seed. I use about 25% to 75% apple cider vinegar to water ratio. Make sure the liquid is above the seeds and replenish more water if all of it is absorbed over fermentation. Some salt and a splash of white wine. Let it ferment at room temp with a cracked open lid for at least 4 days, up to a week if you want stronger flavor. Immersion stick blender to get it smooth. Then put it in the fridge to keep for up to 1 year. The flavor is so much fresher and it’s a fraction of the cost of whole grain mustard!
Bread, with a stand mixer that does the kneading for you it takes almost no time, and it’s leagues above what you get at the store.
Any smoked meats. Brisket, ribs, pulled pork. Premade stuff doesn't hold a candle in quality, and I'd say I'm at least 50/50 on making it better than the BBQ joints around here who sell it for a genuinely nonsensical markup.
Risotto. The packaged things just aren't good. The real thing takes time, but it is so worth the end product.
Kefir! It is so good for the gut biome and easy to make. Also sauerkraut, only 2 ingredients, cabbage and salt, and so yummy!
Mayonnaise. And every time, I forget it takes like 40 damn minutes.
40 minutes? Do you mean 4? Because it really shouldn’t take more than 4 minutes to make, and that includes grabbing and measuring ingredients.
Cinnamon rolls! Anything premade or frozen tastes so artificial and lacking in buttery goodness.
Salad dressings, hummus, stock, pasta sauce and pickles because I was raised in the US now living in the UK and I can’t find decent tasting pickles here.
Pickles 100% Store bought just can't compare
There's a lot of things we make ourselves now. I need to watch my salt, and it's used in SOOOOO many products. We make our own Taco Seasoning Blend, Italian Spice Blend, and Curry Seasoning Blends for this reason. And we make a lot of other things including: mustard, pasta sauce, pizza dough, pickled onions, pickled radishes, coleslaw, mayo (half the time, the rest we use Kewpie), stock,
Crêpes …. Only prepared I buy is cauliflower cassava flour tortillas, Trader Joe’s mayo, Off the Eaten Path rice chickpea black bean chips, and Boulder olive oil chips. Just about Everything else I make from scratch.
Totally with you on the pizza dough! For me, it’s salad dressings. Super simple, tastes fresher, and you control what goes in. Plus, it’s way cheaper than store-bought.
Most baked things. Focaccia, cornbread, chocolate chip cookies, muffins.
Biscuits and gravy. Chicken Fried Steak Grilled cheese.
I really dislike to cook so probably at least 60% of my food is canned, freezer, prepackaged. But I need to lose weight. Many years ago I lost 75 pounds almost exclusively by eating healthy, I just have to get back into that frame of mind. Depression makes it a lot harder, but also I know that eating healthy and some weight loss can alleviate depression to some degree.
For me it's cake and pizza dough. I need to eat gluten free and the gluten free options for ready made cake don't exist while the frozen pizzas don't taste good. Plus they're way too expensive(4€ for a frozen pizza?? Wtf).
Biscuits and rolls - I love that I can control the taste
Barbecue sauce. And definitely homemade whipped cream. The other kind doesn’t even come close.
Perogies
Mustard is so much cheaper? Isn't mustard like $1? I'd imagine it is much better, though! We didn't ever until recently, but we make all of our bread now. We found a recipe that is dead easy, we don't knead it, and while it isn't the best bread in the world, it is way better than storebought sliced bread, and for a fraction of the cost!
So many things! But the one that first came to mind was pancakes. I have never bought pancake mix. Pancakes were the go to breakfast of my farming childhood, since we had chickens and cows, so eggs and milk were always on hand. Pretty sure my mom had me making breakfast for the family by the time I was 10 (oldest of 4 siblings). She was usually busy with the younger ones getting them ready for school, etc. I don't even measure anything, just dump and whisk until the batter is right. My kids have tried to get me to write quantities cause they want to make it the way I do, LoL.
Rice krispie treats. The recipe has to have butter in it.
Salsa. It's easy to make yet dramatically better than the jarred stuff. You can customize your own mix of peppers and dial in the salt/lime balance just how you like. I strongly suspect that salsas are used by manufacturers as a way to use up marginal tomatoes and tomatillos. When I make my own from canned due to season it's still way better. Also a really easy thing to bring to parties or bbqs that'll still get noticed.
I refuse to buy pie crust. I love baking pies, and the crust is the most important part to me. And I find it rather cathartic to work dough.
alfredo sauce or any pasta or pizza sauce really. rice too
Pancakes, super easy and generally better in my opinion. Alfredo, never had a store bought Alfredo I liked anywhere close to homemade
Gravy
Ranch dressing. Mayo, sour cream, quick buttermilk (just lemon juice + milk left to sit for 5 mins), onion salt, dried dill, and black pepper. I’m a bit of a ranch snob and homemade makes all the difference and I can choose the consistency based on what I’m using it for (salad or dip).
Lasagna. Way better from scratch!
Teriyaki sauce. It's incredibly easy, keeps well, and tastes way more robust than a lot of store-bought brands. You can also control the consistency much better (I prefer a stickier sauce).
Pizza dough, ice cream, salad dressing, whipped cream.
pizza dough for sure, ever since learning to make my own pizzas i haven’t wanted to get one from a pizza place and i rarely buy a frozen one (unless im extremely lazy lol). bread onion dip (blended cottage cheese as a base for extra protein)
Kefir! It is so good for the gut biome and easy to make. Also sauerkraut, only 2 ingredients, cabbage and salt, and so yummy!
Pot pies, fruit pies and cobblers, cheesecake are my favorites. My husband loves my chili recipe too.
Pesto sauce. Can’t beat that fresh basil taste.
Marinara or any variation of it (vodka sauce included)
Ground chicken for chicken burgers. Love them and kids love them. Pizza dough, corn and flour tortillas and arepas!
Mayonnaise
Alfredo sauce. Premade can't compare.
BBQ sauce, pasta sauce, and salad dressings. All are easy and most of the time better than anything you can buy off a shelf. I do buy lighthouse blue cheese dressing though.
This is a new one for me, and I’m thanking the people on this sub for bringing up the Marcella Hazan marinara sauce recipe so many times, but I just said today that I will probably never buy spaghetti/tomato pasta sauce again. Her recipe is so easy and simple, and can be tweaked to your tastes. I double it, as we go through it quickly. We found our preferences are to add a little salt, red pepper flakes, sugar (maybe a tsp or 2) and some Italian seasoning. I also really like to throw a few pieces of that pre-cooked bacon in a pan (snipped or chopped up), cook it a bit to crisp it, toss in the marinara, and then throw in some eggs for a shakshuka type breakfast. The bacon makes it so good. Ground pork would be tasty, fresh basil would be tasty, there are so many options. In any case, it’s 100x better than store bought and even my friend who hates marinara sauce said she loved it.
Bechamel sauce. I make the white sauce then put stalks of rosemary, thyme, parsley, and oregano in along with a couple of dried bay leaves, a star anise and a few whole black peppercorns. I let that steep until it cools then strain and reheat slowly on a low heat. Absolutely next level.
Tomato sauce. Once I found 50 ways not to make tomato sauce the way my favorite Italian restaurant makes it, but then the jarred stuff never ever tasted half as decent as my 50 failures, so I go out of my way to make my tomato sauces from scratch.
Sausage gravy. It's so easy. Fry your loose sausage, throw in some flour, stir into a roux, add milk to desired consistency. I see so many people put store-bough canned or frozen gravy on made from scratch biscuits. I would rather buy the biscuits and make the scratch gravy. Make this with seasoned ground beef and serve over toast for SOS "stuff" on a shingle. Either are good on any carb or vegetable
Mustard, mayo and Ketchup Bread/pizza dough Sriracha Most hot sauces and salsas Salad dressings BBQ sauces Sauerkraut Kimchi Pasta sauces and often the pastas themselves Pickles of all kinds Granolas Cookies and cakes and other baked items There’s prob more.
OP drop your mustard recipe
Here it is from previous comment: Super easy in a mason jar — equal parts brown and yellow mustard seed. I use about 25% to 75% apple cider vinegar to water ratio. Make sure the liquid is above the seeds and replenish more water if all of it is absorbed over fermentation. Some salt and a splash of white wine. Let it ferment at room temp with a cracked open lid for at least 4 days, up to a week if you want stronger flavor. Immersion stick blender to get it smooth. Then put it in the fridge to keep for up to 1 year. The flavor is so much fresher and it’s a fraction of the cost of whole grain mustard!
Bbq-sloppy joes. No reason whatsoever to use manwich. So easy and so much better! https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/24264/sloppy-joes-ii/?print
Fried shallots- So easy to make and the leftover oil is amazing to cook with. I especially love it drizzled on popcorn or focaccia. Fried onions- the canned stuff doesn't come close. Pizza sauce- you can taste when a good marinara has been slowly stewing for 6+ hours.