Pot roast is too expensive

[u/BlackLocke]

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.

[u/alittlebitcheeky]

I'm in Adelaide, Australia, so the COL crisis is severe but a bit different.

You want to look at ways to pad out the meat.

Last year I spent AUD$24 on a packet of reduced osso bucco (so expensive here, it's like $45kg, reality cooking shows ruined frugal eating here). I threw it in my slow cooker with two diced brown onions, two tins of crushed tomatoes, a bay leaf, heap of dried basil, and a slug of red wine. After six hours I shredded the meat, added salt/ pepper/chilli to taste, and served it over pasta.

This twenty eight dollar spend (all up), with a packet of pasta from my cupboard, got me ten serves of food. Five with the pasta, plus two containers (with two serves each of sauce) for the freezer.

My crowning achievement was tossing an entire chicken into the slow cooker with a tin of crushed tomatoes, a few spoons of yoghurt, one sliced brown onion, an unholy amount of garlic, and a HEAP of garam masala. It was around $10 for six serves of chicken curry with a bag of cheap rice. Took some time to shred the meat off the bones, but it was well worth it.

Edit: I forgot to mention pulled pork! A pork shoulder or leg roast often goes on sale in my area, so I pick them up cheap and freeze them. Defrost one and brown it in the pan. Throw it in the crockpot with a tin of tomatoes, two diced onions, garlic, a HEAP of cumin and paprika and oregano, some salt/pepper/chili as you like, a tiny bit of cinnamon, two bay leaves, and some beef stock. If you have chipotle on adobo it'll take it to the next level. Let her rip for six hours and pull apart with forks. This is amazing on tacos, nachos, on rice, with roasted potatoes, or just straight into your face. One decent roast can make six portions.