The Meat Serving Hack That Saves You Money
If you're a meat-and-potatoes person, the thought of making meat a side dish may seem like sacrilege. But there are good arguments for taking this approach to your meals, including allowing you to stretch a few pieces of meat among more people, recipes, or both. It also opens you up to dishes you might not otherwise try.
Some cuisines are naturally less meat-forward than others. For example, Asian cuisines like Japanese, Chinese, and Korean feature more vegetables, rice, and noodles and less meat. That's true even though individual meat ingredients, like Japanese Kobe beef steaks, are popular. The reason often comes down to the cost and the availability of ingredients. Consider the techniques of Chinese restaurant stir-fry, for example. Mounds of vegetables like carrots, broccoli, bamboo shoots, and mushrooms explode colorfully onto the plate, while slivers of chicken, beef, or pork peek out from under sliced celery and bits of white rice.
Indian subcontinent cuisine, which includes Pakistani and Bangladeshi, is also known for veggie-heavy dishes. Though they also have rice dishes laden with veggies and meat in rich sauces, many of them in the form of delicious soups and stews. Dishes like chickpea stew with legumes and veggies (and sometimes raisins) swimming in a flavorful broth and Instant Pot daal with its abundance of lentils or split peas, often served with rice or flatbread, are examples of this in action. Even when there's meat in the dish, it's a member of the chorus, not the main soloist.
There are lots of ways to serve less meat
Asian and Indian cuisines don't have a monopoly on meals that use meat as just one ingredient instead of the main attraction. Borscht, Italian vegetable soup with sausage, and potato and cheese soup with bits of bacon or ham all count among the most delicious soups and stews that are flavored with meat instead of being chock-full of it. Even the old standby chicken noodle soup doesn't have that much chicken in it. For most people, the noodles and bits of carrots and celery are the stars of the show.
You can also whip up some spicy slow cooker beef chili with chunks of chuck steak or hamburger and loads of beans and veggies for a delicious way to stretch your meat budget across several meals. Or top a pile of spaghetti with two or three flavor-packed meatballs and some tomato-forward sauce.
And whether you're making it at home or taking advantage of a restaurant's happy hour menu, appetizers are a way to have a filling meal that's less dominated by meat. Bacon-wrapped asparagus, beef or chicken nachos, pot stickers, and egg rolls are among the types of starters that embrace this way of eating. Order those instead of a hamburger the next time you're out. Or whip them up in your air fryer for a quick and delish dinner at a fraction of the cost but with no compromise on flavor.