5 Fun Frugal Alternatives to Eating Out

Published September 7th, 2008

There is a lot of talk lately of the sacrifices that individuals and families are having to make on account of increased personal financial instability, higher gas and other fuel prices, inflated food prices, and decreased free time. Some of the many things that people are having to cut out are holidays and eating out. Many of you who follow this blog will know that about two years ago we made some major changes that slashed our total food costs (eating out and groceries) by over $5000 a year! One of the major changes is that we’ve stopped the frequent eating out. We will still get the rare snack when we feel like it, or go out to celebrate a truly special occasion, but eating out has not been a part of our regular routine for a couple of years now–and we love it!

Below are a few of the indulgent meals that we make on the nights when we would have wanted to eat out. I plan to have some of these ingredients on hand if we want to spoil ourselves, or to plan a special fun meal instead of going out. Now, I’d like to point out that day to day, I’m a pretty healthy eater, and I enjoy eating both sophisticated and simple food from all over the world–but that’s not the point of this particular post. I also believe in finding balance–so please, no scoffing from you healthy-types about the suggestions here. I wanted to represent some dishes that you might actually want to snack on or eat when you go to a typical casual restaurant–and tell you how I make them for less so I don’t miss the eating out.

Loaded nachos

Now many of us buy nacho chips to snack on, and eat with salsa, but what about doing them up restaurant-style? All you need is one or two big baking sheets (depending on how many you’re serving), some variation of the following ingredients, and your off!

This is what I use: Equality brand, restaurant-style white corn chips, mushroom, tomato, and green peppers finely diced, shredded cheese, and cooked chicken breast seasoned how you like and shredded by pulling apart with a fork (optional). Depending on your tastes, you may want to drizzle some salsa or taco sauce on top and then bake, or have bowls of salsa and sour cream out to dip when they come out of the oven. Other finishing touches similar to what you might get at a restaurant are to finely shred up some iceberg lettuce and put on top of the hot nachos just before eating, or make some fresh guacamole on the side.

Pizzas on pitas

No fussing with store-bought dough, no expensive pizza shells, no frozen pizzas that taste like cardboard. I offer you an alternative–the pita pizza. The Mr. Pita company here in Canada offers large, 12 inch diameter pitas that are perfect for family-sized meals, there are also healthy smaller whole wheat pitas (which my husband and I use). Pitas are fabulous because they are a nice thin crust allowing for lots of flavour without having to add a ton of toppings. Two of our favourites are barbecue chicken pizzas (thin layer of BBQ sauce, then layers of thinly sliced green peppers and onions, sliced grilled chicken breast topped with a bit of cheddar, Monterey, or Pepper Jack cheese), and Greek pizzas (thin layer of your favourite pasta sauce, thinly sliced red onion and red bell pepper, your favourite olives, topped with crumbled feta cheese).

My restaurant-style secret is to bake these at 350F until the veggies start to get tender, and then broil for the last little bit to get it to brown and the cheese to bubble–ditto for the nachos above!

Crepes

Crepes are cheap, fun, and delicious. They can be time consuming, but if you have more than one person, or make the batter ahead of time, the process can be sped up greatly. My stand-by is shaved black forest ham (or portobello mushroom) and Swiss cheese. Here’s a link to the recipe I use–minus the breadcrumb topping (at the top of the recipe is a link to prepare the actual basic crepes). If you wanted to get fancy, you could even make huge plate-sized crepes like in the Dutch restaurants!

Club sandwiches and oven fries

If you think about it, a club sandwich is not technically difficult to make, and you can definitely do it for less than the $5-10 you would pay for one in a restaurant. You will need 1-2 marinated and grilled or pan fried chicken or turkey breasts, turkey or pork bacon, lettuce, tomato, mayo and possibly cheese. I like to use rye bread, but you can use any bread you like. Cut pickles into spears for the side, and don’t forget 4 tooth picks for each sandwich to make sure your creation doesn’t crumble when cutting or handling!

If you’re short on time, there are all kinds of frozen seasoned gourmet potatoes to put on the side, or you can use my recipe: Cut Russet potatoes into wedges or spears, put into a plastic vegetable bag with some olive/canola oil, salt, pepper, paprika, Cajun seasoning, and a very little bit of cayenne pepper (careful–it’s hot!), shake around, and dump onto a baking sheet. I love my homemade oven fries, but they sure do take a long time to be done and crispy (20-3o minutes)!

Homemade McMuffins

Instead of going to a certain fast-food restaurant, we make these delicious breakfast sandwiches from the comfort of our own home. I always keep English muffins in the freezer, eggs can be poached in a mug in the microwave quickly to get the right shape, and you can use Kraft light 1% cheese slices and turkey or pork bacon to get the similar ingredient list. I use non-hydrogenated margarine on the English muffins, instead of butter–but that’s just what I prefer.

My only tip about poaching eggs in the microwave is to put a bit of water in the bottom of the mug so it doesn’t stick, to pierce the yolk, and to do it for only 15-20 seconds at a time until they’re done–if you do the whole minute + at once, you’ll greatly increase your risk of exploding eggs!

Well, hope this has given you some ideas to get that eating out comfort for less at home. Like I mentioned, these aren’t the healthiest options, but when we think about eating out, it’s often not the “healthy” that we’re going for–it’s the comfort, and the taste!

Interestingly though, while you might not be saving any calories, you are controlling the ingredients, and you can at least avoid the huge amounts of salt and unhealthy cooking oils that are often used by restaurants.

Hope this post has helped you to feel that you can have some restaurant favourites at home for a fraction of the cost!

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