Christmas vegetables could last long into the new year for just 5p a bag
A food expert has revealed that Aldi’s 5p festive veg could feed you through January for less than £1, offering a cost-cutting solution for shoppers.
Glasgow-based food expert Andrea Macaulay, who heads up the hospitality curriculum at Glasgow Kelvin College, said bulk buying, batch cooking and freezing can stretch the low-cost veg across 30 to 40 hearty meals.
This works out at just over 2p per serving.
Macaulay said: “When people look at vegetables at home, they often think in terms of one meal at a time. In professional kitchens, we think about yield. You’re cooking once, but eating many times. That’s how you get the most value from your ingredients, especially in January when budgets are tight.”
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Aldi’s one-day-only festive veg deal included potatoes, carrots, cabbage, sprouts, parsnips and swede at just 5p per bag.
For under £1, shoppers could prepare a month’s worth of lunches or dinners.
Macaulay said: “In professional kitchens nothing goes to waste. Every stalk, stem and skin should be popped in. Vegetable peelings and trimmings can be simmered down into a simple stock or gravy base, which adds flavour without costing anything extra. If you’re picking up around 2kg of each festive vegetable, that gives you roughly a 12kg harvest haul. Split across a couple of large batch-cooked meals, that can comfortably produce around 40 hearty portions and means almost none of that veg ends up in the bin.”
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She said this approach not only saves money, but removes pressure during the first few weeks of the year.
Macaulay added: “As long as you make sure you have enough freezer space, you could save yourself a huge amount of money.”
She said: “When you break it down per portion, you’re talking about food that costs just a few pence a meal. Planning like this takes the stress out of January and makes it much easier to eat well without overspending.”
For more on Glasgow Kelvin College, visit their website.
