Depressing cost of ‘cheap’ everyday dish as the cost of groceries soars

One of the easiest dishes you can make has ballooned out to a depressing total cost, but one supermarket is cheaper than the others.

When it comes to cooking, it really doesn’t get much easier than whipping up a quick stir-fry.

One of my mates is so inept in the kitchen that he can only manage to cook this one dish.

It meant that when he moved out on his own for the first time, he ate stir-fry every night for at least three months.

He naturally became a bit of a wok master, but in reality it is a dish that’s hard to get wrong even if you have a very limited ability in the kitchen.

Aside from being easy to make, it should also be pretty cheap to make but — as you may have noticed — everything is a little more expensive these days.

We bought ingredients for the same dish at the big three supermarkets.

We tackled ALDI, Woolies and Coles.

We tend to do big shops once a week so it’s hard to drill down the cost of a specific dish, so we were interested to know what this basic everyday meal cost to make in a world of rising inflation.

We decided then to run a specific test then to see how much a bog standard stir fry — with no trimmings like fresh chilli or five-spice — would cost the average punter from Australia’s big three supermarkets.

We had 10 things on our list, and I’ve written them out in recipe form for you because I’m a nice guy:

Ingredients

- Broccoli

- Carrots

- Zucchini

- Mushrooms

- Snap peas

- Red capsicum

- Onions

- Garlic

- Soy sauce

- Noodles

- And some chicken thigh fillets

Inflation has cost the price of many products up.

Coles

Off to the shops we went, beginning at Coles where we were met with some moderately expensive vegetables.

We’ve all become accustomed to higher prices but it is still alarming to me that broccoli costs 11.50/kg or $2.30 for what we needed in our stir-fry.

It only makes up a small component of the meal after all, and we had nine more ingredients to go. Something told me this was going to be an expensive dinner.

Broccoli seemed pretty steep at Coles.

The total came to just over $36 at Coles.

Mushies also seemed pretty steep at $5.50 for a little punnet. I opted to get them pre-sliced, because why would you want to slice them yourself when given the option not to?

Chicken was the single biggest expense of the shop, but it didn’t seem unreasonably expensive at $14/kg, or $9.27 for what we needed.

All up, it came to $36.23.

ALDI

Conveniently situated in the same shopping complex to us was a store of the eclectic German supermarket chain ALDI, which has made a song and dance about being cheaper than its competitors.

I don’t normally shop there so I was interested to see whether the marketing was correct.

There was quite a limited selection at the store we visited and there were a lot of things missing from the shelves, but it turns out it was quite a lot cheaper than Coles for a few of the items on our list.

One of the cheaper items was red capsicum which was retailing for an eye-watering $10.90/kg at Coles. At ALDI those same pepper cost you $6.99/kg — quite a staggering difference in cost.

Red capsicum was way cheaper at ALDI.

Onions were more expensive though.

The chicken was also cheaper at $10.99 a kilo, compared to $14/kg at Coles.

The total damage to the wallet for an ALDI stir-fry? $30 on the dot, not including the “2 in1 paper cutter” you’ll be tempted to buy from the random assortment of objects in the middle aisle.

Woolies

There was nothing groundbreaking to report from the Woolies down the road, as the prices were pretty much on par with Coles give or take a few things.

Broccoli was even more expensive at $11.90/kg, but chicken was cheaper at $11.50/kg.

In fact, so similar were the prices at the two biggest supermarkets, that there was only six cents’ difference between the two totals. Woolies was marginally more expensive at $36.29.

How to cook

If you don’t know how to cook a stir-fry, then you need to seek help from a cooking specialist at least, but you basically throw them all in a pan and turn the heat on. Serve, wait until it cools to an optimal temperature and enjoy.

Verdict

So it turns out that ALDI was the cheapest of the big three supermarkets when it came to the ingredients for our specific dish, but I wouldn’t say it was exactly cheap and the selection was pretty poor.

Paying $36 at the other two supermarkets to cook just one supposedly cheap dish was pretty depressing too.

Needless to say, the stir-fry was delicious.

There was just one bowl left over after my family tucked into it.

On the bright side, the stir-fry was delicious and adequately fed my family of three, with one bowl of leftovers to spare. Several ingredients like the mushies and the soy sauce were more than we needed for one dish, so they would go towards reducing the cost of another meal in average shop.

Here is a breakdown of what my shopping trip cost at each store.

Coles

Broccoli $11.50/kg (200g) – $2.30

Sugar snap peas $32/kg (200g) $6.40

Carrot – $1.50 1kg bag

Zucchini – $4.90/kg (200g) $0.98

Mushrooms – box $5.50

Red Capsicum – $10.90/kg (200g) – $2.18

Onion – $1.50 bag

Garlic -$25kg (80g)

Soy sauce – $2.60

Chicken thigh – $14/kg (500g) – $9.27

Noodles – $2

Coles total: $36.23

ALDI

Broccoli $9.99/kg (200g) – $1.99

Snow peas $27.96/kg (200g) – $5.59

Carrot – $1.79 bag

Zucchini – $8.99/kg (200g) – $1.79

Mushrooms – $3.40 box

Capsicum $6.99/kg (200g) $1.39

Onion $2.49 bag

Garlic $24.99/kg – $2.49

Soy sauce – $1.79

Chicken $10.99/kg (500g) / $5.40

Noodles – $1.79

Aldi total: $30.00

Woolworths

Broccoli – $11.90/kg (200g) – $2.38

Snow peas $35.60.kg (200g) – $7.12

Carrot $2.40 bag

Zucchini – $4.90/kg (200g) – $0.98

Mushrooms – $4.15 box

Capsicum – $10.90/kg (200g) $21.8

Onion – $1.50 bag

Garlic – $1.25

Soy sauce 2.50

Chicken – $11.50/kg (500g) $5.75

Noodles – $1.85

Woolies total: $36.29