Tips to help you cook healthier and cheaper meals

Different ways of cooking can make your meals healthier and save you money

Three plastic food containers with cooked meals including green beans, sliced meat, cucumber and tomato

Choose a healthier cooking method

Some common cooking methods will get you through most recipes. These include:

  • boiling and simmering
  • baking and roasting
  • grilling
  • steaming
  • frying
Person cooking coluorful vegetables in a frying pan on a modern stovetop.

When frying you can use less oil, or an oil spray. For healthier ways to cook, try grilling, poaching or steaming rather than frying or roasting – this means you won’t need to add any extra fat to the pan. For example:

  • for eggs, poached or boiled is a tasty alternative to frying
  • boil or steam vegetables
  • cook your steak in a griddle pan or grill it instead of frying

Freezing

Freezing is a great way of storing food, keeping leftovers and cutting down waste. For food safety, it's ok to freeze most raw or cooked foods providing you do the following things:

  • freeze food before the 'use by' date
  • follow any freezing or thawing instructions on the label
  • thaw food in the fridge so that it doesn't get too warm
  • use food within one to two days after it’s been defrosted – it will go off in the same way as if it were fresh
  • always follow the instructions on packages for storage and use-by dates

Microwave cooking

Not only is a microwave usually the cheapest way to heat up food, they also:

  • use less energy than an oven, which is good for the environment and your bank balance
  • cook food quickly
  • help food keep its vitamin content during cooking
  • require less cooking fat than other methods of cooking such as pan frying
A person's hand opening a microwave containing a dish of broccoli and brown rice. The microwave digital display reads "0:38." A small potted plant is visible on the countertop.

What can be cooked in a microwave?

Meal ideas

Discover a variety of healthy and easy-to-prepare meal ideas for every occasion.

Discover meal ideas
A bowl of tofu stir-fry with kale and chickpeas, garnished with sesame seeds and green onions, served with chopsticks on the side.
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