People say that you should make food rather than buy them, but

cakes

Subs, sandwiches of all kinds really
Pizza
Chinese food

I shouldn't have to say this, but this is the case if you buy decent ones of all of the above

>>8716469
If you're broke, pesto. A jar of pre-made pesto tastes okay and costs 5$. Ingredients to make it yourself, assuming you don't have an herb garden with basil in it, could run you around 25-30$

>>8716489
where do you live where basil leaves and some pine nuts cost $25+

pho
pastries
pizza
pesto

and possibly some other foods that don't start with P

>>8716769

No he has a point.

>Basil
>Pine nuts
>Salt
>Pepper
>Parmigano regiano
>Extra virgin olive oil

Probably looking at $20 right there.

Anything that relies on ingredients that are technically cheap by weight, but costly due to the initial investment. Especially when they're ingredients you'll rarely ever use in any other dish.

I'm sure Grandma Chen has no problem adding a quarter-teaspoon of fermented dog extract or a pinch of ground panda bone to her authentic asian recipes, but I'm not really interested in a $30 investment for one ingredient just to use it once every five to six months.

>>8716835
how do you eat/cook this?

>>8716469
tomato paste
chicken nuggets
yogurt
cheese
crackers
dumplings

>>8716482
>Subs, sandwiches of all kinds really
What the fuck? That is something you should always make yourself.

>>8716489
What the fuck? I thought food was meant to be cheap in America. A jar of pesto is £1, I could make an equivalent amount of homemade pesto for about £4.

>>8716769
North Carolina. Basil is fairly cheap, but a bag of pine nuts is 10$ around here.

>>8717032
Most food is pretty cheap here. Pesto is not one of those foods.

>>8716777
This anon doesn't fuck around with cheap olive oil, I like that.

Puff pastry.
All condiments really.
Pizza really in my experience
Chinese types of food


>>8716829
This especially, I bought fish sauce to make shrimp toast on November 4th or so. Haven't used it since.

>>8716777
$20 and you get to make 7 or 8 better versions of jars that sell for $5

whatever. poor gonna poor

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>>8716469
It depends where you live.
I live in Italy and for sauce i prefer to use store bought pelati, rather than fresh tomato. Home-grown tomato are way better to use raw, in the sauce they become too watery for me.

Anything that requires deep frying because fuck doing that myself

Any kind of broth Asian soup
Cheese
Milk, cows are impractical

>>8716469
Basically you have to examine the trade off between the time and effort it takes to make yourself and how much better it tastes compared to store bought or restaurant stuff.

For example, for me my pasta sauces taste phenomenal compared to store bought ones, and they aren't very hard to make, so I always make them myself. But I wouldn't waste my time making my own pasta, I've tried it before and it's a very marginal increase for a lot more effort.

Basically just try everything and see what you think is worth the effort and what isn't.

>>8717092
Was waiting for someone to say puff pastry

>>8717235
you can get a deep fryer at walmart for $30 that will change your life

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this might help

Anything from a bakery, don't bake bread

>>8716469
>what food products are better off being bought than being made?

As far as quality and price goes? Nearly all of them.

There is the time factor to consider, of course.

>>8716469
phyllo dough.
That's stuffs pretty hard to make unless you have a machine.

>>8717098
this

>>8716469
Wine and distilled spirits of quality.
Long term fermented foods such as aged cheese, certain types of kimchi, stinky tofu.
Long term fermented condiments such as soy sauce.
Certain types of high risk fermented meats such as rakfisk and muktuk
Foie gras unless you're into torture

>>8718004
yeah it'll turn you into a blob and kill you 20 years early

Steak

>>8716469
Depends on a lot of factors. Like where you live, how much time you have, what your budget is, and how much you enjoy cooking as an activity rather than just a means to transform ingredients into food.

Bread is a good example. You can get cheap store-bought bread which is much faster and much cheaper than making your own bread. But making your own bread is pretty fun and tastes a lot better than shitty supermarket bread, and you can get to make it exactly the way you want it. So depending on your time, budget, and personal preferences, they're both viable options.

Rotisserie Chicken