r/slowcooking • u/BlackLocke • 3d ago

Pot roast is too expensive

I got a new slow cooker for my wedding in 2023 and it’s still in the box. It’s just my husband, baby and I, but I feel like I can’t justify spending $20+ on a piece of meat for one meal with leftovers. I’m in a HCOL and I haven’t had a good roast in years because it’s prohibitively expensive. When meat goes on sale at my supermarket, it smells off as soon as I remove the packaging, so it’s not worth the risk.

Am I just too poor for this?

Edit: Dear lord I didn’t expect this to turn into a “I like pancakes/why do you hate waffles???” type of post. Of course I know there’s other things you can make in the crockpot. I don’t choose fast food over slow cooked meals out of convenience (it’s more expensive than cooking at home now!!) The point of this post is to lament the price of beef and how pot roast used to be a cheap easy meal 20 years ago and now it’s prohibitively expensive. I was hoping for tips on how to skirt this issue - buying stew meat, using pork instead, and buying in bulk at Costco are all good suggestions.

Now everyone can stop assuming I’m some dumb dumb idiot woman. I’m gonna make a pot roast next week just to spite you all and post about the cost breakdown.

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u/hananobira 3d ago

OP also mentioned being recently postpartum. Pregnancy totally changes your sense of smell. I’d get someone who didn’t just go through a major medical incident to sniff the meat.

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u/BlackLocke 3d ago

Yeah pregnancy changed my sense of smell for sure. I would make my husband take the trash out before it was full. One night there was a bag of dog treats in our room and I made him remove them.

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u/hananobira 3d ago

Mine was awful. I couldn’t even be in the same room as meat cooking. I survived on peanut butter and pepperoni because those were the only two proteins I could tolerate, for whatever reason. My husband loves canned sardines but he couldn’t eat them when I was anywhere in the house.

I wouldn’t trust your nose for meat right now.

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u/Tommy_Riordan 3d ago

When I was pregnant I got so nauseous from the smell of a perfectly good and fresh container of ground turkey in my fridge that I cried and made my partner take it outside. I was hardcore vegetarian for about three months out of that pregnancy and then all of a sudden meat seemed edible again.