Holiday Budgeting: Making the Most of One Cut of Meat

Price per pound, meat is usually the most expensive item on your holiday grocery list. As we sprint through the holiday season, hosting meals with family and friends can get expensive. Buying one large cut of meat, like a spiral cut ham, and making it stretch across multiple meals is a great way to cut down on costs.

Know Your Serving Sizes

A serving of meat for adults is 3 ounces. This is about the size of a deck of cards.  Protein sources are measured in 1-ounce equivalents. This includes 1 ounce of cooked lean beef, pork, chicken, or game meat, ¼ cup cooked beans, 1 egg, 1 Tablespoon of peanut butter, or ½ ounce of nuts or seeds. Adults generally need 5–7-ounce equivalents of protein per day. Depending on your lifestyle, gender, and age, this means you may only need 2 servings of protein foods a day to “meat” your daily requirement. This means the ham you bought for a holiday dinner can easily be stretched into meals that last for the rest of the day, or over the course of a week.

Plan for Multiple Meals

When you are preparing for a holiday event, consider buying a larger cut of meat to use across several meals. Sauces, soups, casseroles, or enchiladas are some ways to make your meat source stretch further. You can save bones from the meat for soup stock or consider substituting a portion of the meat with things like rice, carrots, or cauliflower, or adding alternative proteins, like eggs, beans, legumes, nuts and seeds, or soy products. Be sure to refrigerate any leftovers and reheat them to 165°F.

Happy Holidays from all of us at the Cent$ible Nutrition Program to you!