5 Frugal Ways To Cut Back On Meat Even If You Love It

My husband's perfect meal is steak.  Yeah, yeah, maybe something underneath the steak, but the steak is the main meal.  But, we live frugally and with four people in the house, those steaks are not going to happen.  Because neither of us ever ever wants to be a vegetarian, we eat meat almost every day, but HOW we eat meat has changed.  It isn't the 'star of the show' necessarily, but it shows up all the same.  And when we do eat a vegetarian main course, I've come up with a couple of great ways to help ease the transition, even for a steak loving husband like mine.

1)  Use a little meat and a lot of X

The easiest way to do this is with ground meats, where you can add all sorts of 'other stuff' to the mix.  When you make up your taco meat, you can add black beans or rice to stretch it farther.  With chili, you can add TVP (textured vegetable protein - a dried soy product that's completely tasteless) that's been rehydrated in beef broth to the pot to stretch out your ground beef.  In meatloaf, I add extra vegetables, or oatmeal, another egg, even some spinach. 

You can also get your butcher to grind you your meat 'custom'.  So, maybe 50% ground beef and 50% ground liver, which is substantially cheaper and higher in iron to boot.

2)  Marinate or season in meat flavours.

I always cook my rice and other grains in broth these days, because it adds a meaty sort of flavour.  My turkey casserole (which has maybe a cup of turkey in it, total, but can serve 6 people) has a tsp of poultry seasoning mixed in to encourage the tastebuds to think of turkey.  Montreal steak spice is another good one to use in meatless dishes.  And I always keep a small jar of bacon drippings in my freezer to saute my onions in when making stuffing or fried vegetables.

3)  Add a stronger-tasting ingredient.

A strong-tasting ingredient helps mask the fact that meat is absent or only present in very small amounts.  I have a great vegetarian lasagna recipe, for example, that uses pureed black beans in place of meat, but honestly you can't tell that the ground beef is missing because of the taste of the beans.  Strong tasting vegetables are another good bet here - turnip baked with apples, squash with caramelized cranberry sauce, pasta tossed in melted blue cheese, potato latkes with sour cream and applesauce, french toast soaked in maple syrup and cinnamon sugar, roasted garlic baked potatoes.  You get the idea - strong flavours.

4) Use cheese.

If the casserole is meatless, shred cheese on top.  Melt cheese into spinach and fold up in phyllo pastry, make a cheese sauce and bake your cauliflower and broccoli in it, sprinkle on breadcrumbs and crisp up the top under the element for a minute.  Get that cheese going, because everyone loves cheese.

5)  Replicate texture.

I'm thinking portobello mushroom caps in place of burgers, chickpea falafel balls in your sandwiches, that sort of thing.  I make a mean meatless stroganoff using button mushrooms and onions.