Everyone likes a break from the responsibility of cooking dinner. Even people who love to cook enjoy not having to plan, shop, prepare, and clean up sometimes.There are ways to lower the cost of take out without limiting yourself to the value meal at a fast food restaurant when you are on a budget.
One way to have a take out meal when you are on a budget is to avoid buying the sides and just get the main dish (fried chicken, lasagna, etc). It can be very convenient to order the meal deal, but it can add to the cost of ordering take out. Purchase the main dish item for take out and supplying the sides yourself. It will still minimize the work involved to do dinner and will provide larger portions. You can match the sides that the restaurant offers or you can come up with your own. Often you will already have easy to prepare sides at home. Here are some easy and inexpensive sides:
• Mash potatoes-most take out food restaurants use instant potatoes, buy a large box or a couple small specialty (cheddar, sour cream and chive, etc) bags of instant mashed potatoes and make it yourself.
• Canned vegetables-canned vegetable warm up quickly on the stove or in the microwave. You will have more options for a vegetable.
• Salad-this is a healthy choice for a side dish. Using the minimal amount of ingredients and the salad dressing that you have in your refrigerator will keep the cost down.
• Dessert-buy a box mix and prepared frosting of a favorite flavor of cake
• Gravy-a few packets of gravy will yield more than what you will receive with your take out order. If you really like the restaurantÂ’s gravy though, you might want to go ahead and order that from them because it will be hard to match.
• Fries-a large bag of frozen French fries can be heated up easily and quickly in the oven.
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