Making the most of grocery dollars

Having trouble balancing your food budget while prices go though the grocery store roof? Consider looking toward a more unusual source for tips on cooking on a shoestring budget: professional cooks at fine-dining restaurants.

Restaurants are on a tighter budget than almost any household. If cooks don't precisely control food costs, they'll be left without a penny of profit at the end of the day. At restaurants where ingredients are expensive, making the bottom line work is even more difficult but also even more important. Whether they learn it in culinary school or on the job, restaurant cooks have many tricks that can help you save money without sacrificing quality.

A word of warning: Cooking well and sticking to a budget aren't effortless. These tips will save you money only if you're willing to spend more time with your food. But this type of cooking is satisfying and gets easier with practice.

Buy food when it's in season. Most successful fine-dining restaurants follow basic rules of seasonality. They do so because food tastes better and it's cheaper. Fruits and vegetables are cheap and plentiful in the summer, so make salads. In the winter, when it's a pleasure to stand over a hot stove, cook soups and stews.

Buy in bulk, wisely. Even at grocery stores that don't specialize in bulk purchasing, there are ways to maximize your yield per dollar. Items such as onions, apples and potatoes often come in bags that make the items much cheaper per pound.

But before you buy 10 pounds of something perishable, consider whether it's likely to wind up rotting or sprouting before you can eat it.

Waste not, want not. Chefs have an uncanny knowledge of the exact contents of their walk-in refrigerators. They keep a running list in their head of what they've bought, what they've used and what they have left.

Your fridge is much smaller. Keep it clean, and keep track of what's in there. Don't buy food without having some idea of what you're going to do with it, especially if it's an item that requires a certain amount of preparation, or other ingredients you don't always have on hand.

Let go of the list. You've probably heard it a dozen times: Go to the grocery store with a detailed list and don't get anything that's not on it. That's fine when it comes to cleaning supplies and staple ingredients, but when it comes to buying meat, fish and produce, your list is not necessarily your friend.

Choose your food based on what looks good and what's reasonably priced. You can still make a list -- just make it more general, detailing what kinds of food you need, rather than specific items. Write down "four vegetables for four people" rather than "carrots, green beans, broccoli and cabbage."

Expand your culinary horizons. Americans have become used to eating the more tender and more expensive cuts of meat.

To save money, buy cheaper cuts of meat, rather than lower-quality meat. Make soups, stews and pasta sauces, because they stretch meat out to more portions.

Start with chicken. Cooks tend to prefer dark meat over white meat because it's more flavorful. Don't take off the skin. The added fat and flavor from the skin make the meat more flavorful. Cut empty calories from your diet rather than fat from natural sources. Legs and thighs can be roasted or braised, and they're much less expensive than chicken breasts.

Cheaper cuts of beef, lamb and pork are usually the tougher cuts. These types of meat are superior in flavor to more tender cuts -- they just take a little more work and a lot more patience.

Treat meat like a flavoring ingredient rather than the focus of the plate. Use smoked or cured meats, such as bacon, ham hock or guanciale (cured, unsmoked pig jowl or cheek), in soups or as the base of otherwise vegetable dishes.