22 Supermarket Items You Should Leave on the Shelf (and What to Get Instead)

• “Fresh” shrimp

What to get instead: Buy bags of individually quick frozen (IQF) shrimp

• Full-sodium broth or stock

What to get instead: Low-sodium stock

• Beef broth

What to get instead: Chicken broth

• Cooking Wine

What to get instead: Regular inexpensive wine

• Salad dressing

What to get instead: Make your own salad dressings

• Jarred Gravy

What to get instead: Good-quality low-sodium stock and make your own gravy

• Powdered hollandaise sauce

What to get instead: Make hollandaise yourself. It is much easier than many make it out to be!

• Pre-grated cheese

What to get instead: Buy blocks of cheese and grate it yourself

• Standard ricotta cheese

What to get instead: Check the labels and only buy brands that contain milk or whey, salt, and an acid. Or, you can make it yourself in five minutes!

• Pre-ground black pepper

What to get instead: Whole black peppercorns and grind them at home with a pepper mill

• Seasoning packets for tacos or chili

What to get instead: Individual spices so you can create your own spice blend featuring what you like best

• “Stew” beef

What to get instead: Whole cuts of beef such as chuck, short rib, or flap meat

• Pre-marinated meat

What to get instead: Fresh meat and marinate it yourself

• Frozen hamburger patties

What to get instead: Buy fresh ground beef or whole cuts of beef and grind them yourself

• Wet scallops

What to get instead: “Dry scallops

• Boneless, skinless chicken breasts

What to get instead: Whole or split bone-in chicken breasts

• Fresh vegetables in sealed plastic bags

What to get instead: Choose your own vegetables from the loose-produce displays

• Pasteurized or from-concentrate lemon or lime juice

What to get instead: Squeeze your own lemons and limes

• Out-of-season beefsteak tomatoes

What to get instead: If buying during the off season, choose smaller tomatoes such as cherry, grape, or plum tomatoes

• Jarred garlic

What to get instead: Whole, fresh garlic heads

• Dried delicate leafy herbs

What to get instead: Fresh herbs

• Gnocchi

What to get instead: Dried pasta or good-quality fresh pasta from a local producer

 

 
Photograph: Shutterstock

The best life advice I’ve ever gotten was from my high school physics teacher. His philosophy? It’s okay to be lazy. Good, in fact. You should want to do things the easiest way possible, as that’s what’s going to drive you toward finding ever-more efficient ways to do them. Of course, the unspoken fine print read: so long as you don’t sacrifice on quality.

I carry the same philosophy into the kitchen. Sure, there are times when I enjoy doing things the old-fashioned, hard way, but most of the time, my goal is to make the best-tasting food in the least amount of time possible, and if there’s a convenient supermarket product that’s going to help me get there, all the better. The problem is, sometimes those convenient supermarket products end up veering into “sacrifice on quality” territory, a place we want to avoid.

Here’s my list of 22 common supermarket ingredients that you should never put in your shopping cart, along with suggestions on what to look for instead.

Read the full article here.