Eat Well On a Budget With These Ever-Frugal Fruit and Vegetables

Get the most bang for your buck, when money is tight. 7 frugal fruit and vegetables, high in nutrient to cost ratio + tips for adding variety.

If your grocery budget is really tight, it’s important to get the most value for money, and eating plenty of nutritional veggies at their cheapest is one way to do that.

But which fruit and vegetables fill you up and give you the most nutrition for the least cost?

In this article, I share the complete list of cheapest vegetables (and some fruit) to buy, along with recipe ideas, storage tips, and nutritional info for each, as well as how to increase variety with seasonal and frozen produce.

But here’s the quick, TL:DR list of ever-frugal* produce:

• Cabbage
• Onions
• Pumpkin/butternut squash
• Carrots
• Potatoes and Sweet Potatoes
• Citrus Fruit
• Apples

*Depending on flood, fire, cyclone, plague, drought…we’ve experienced the lot in the last few years.

By combining ever-frugal veggies with:

• frozen fruit and vegetables, which are often cheaper and don’t run the risk of going bad before you eat them
• fruit and vegetables that are in season and at their cheapest

Then, you can maximise the value of what you buy.

The last article was a list of frugal pantry staples (including beans, which are technically a vegetable but never mind). Today’s article is a list of ever-frugal fruits and vegetables which, in addition to your pantry staples, are a foundation on which to build a variety of frugal meals.

Ever-frugal Fruit and Vegetables

Ever-frugal vegetables are ones that are:

• Cheap all year round
• Have a high nutrient value per calorie, giving you great value for money and
• Store well, which helps reduce waste

How did I come up with this list?

Researchers from Paterson University compared the nutrient value of fruits and vegetables and developed a list of 41 ‘powerhouse’ veggies ranked by nutrients per calorie (click the link above to see the full list if you want to fill your basket when they are in season and want to see the rationale behind the research).

The nutrients measured are ones considered vital for health by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations. They didn’t measure things like phytochemicals, which is why there are some surprising omissions on the list (like blueberries).

For the ever-frugal produce in this article, I’ve done up a brief summary table of the main macro and micronutrients for each item. Exact amounts will depend on the season, location, soil condition, etc., but it gives you an idea of some of the

The information in the table below is a brief summary of information from the US Department of Agriculture Website, where each item has a much more extensive list of nutrients. For more information on the following produce or other food items, click through to their site.

General Costs

From this powerhouse list, I’ve picked some of the cheapest and most shelf-stable fruits and vegetables based on my own experience as well as this study done by the US Department of Agriculture on the cost of vegetables (PDF).

I’ve also added a few obvious frugal extras that, while not considered ‘powerhouse’ vegetables (onions), are still healthy, very cheap, and nutritious, so they’re worth having on the ‘ever-frugal’ list.

The table below is a snapshot of prices taken from a major Australian supermarket in May 2024.

As a comparison, broccoli is $4.90 per kilo, and zucchini is $5.90 per kilo. Frozen green beans are $2.80 a kilo, which is why it can be cost-effective to mix and match ever-frugal vegetables with frozen.

Frugal Fruit or Vegetable	Cost Per Kilo
Cabbage	$2.35 (approx.)
Onions	$2.50
Pumpkin	$3.50
Carrots	$1.90
Potatoes	$1.88
Sweet Potatoes	$4.50
Oranges	$2.80
Apples	$3.90

7 Ever-Frugal Fruits and Vegetables

Cabbage

The cheapest and most nutritious vegetable, according to the powerhouse list, is cabbage, specifically Chinese cabbage.

You can really maximise the nutritional value of cabbage by making your own sauerkraut, which is super easy.

This inoculates the cabbage with a host of good bacteria, and the fermentation process also makes it last longer.

My absolute favourite way to eat it is braised in a bit of butter (because butter makes everything nice), but it’s also perfect raw in a crunchy coleslaw, sauteed, stir-fried, or steamed.

With cabbage, you can make the very frugal okonomiyaki (Japanese cabbage pancakes) or one of the dishes below.

Onions

Onions did not actually make the list, but they are super cheap ‘prebiotic’ food, which means they feed good bacteria.

Besides using as a flavour base for just about everything, onions can also shine in their own right in frugal dishes like caramelised onion frittata below and French Onion Soup.

Pumpkin (Or Butternut Squash)

Not just for pureeing at Halloween, pumpkin, particularly the varieties in Australia are versatile and delicous. Substitute with Butternut Squash when roasting if you can’t get a good roasting pumpkin like Kent.

Roast pumpkin has a deliciously sweet caramel flavour and is perfect with a Sunday roast, in a salad, on a wrap, or on a pizza.

You can also put roast pumpkin in risotto, make roast pumpkin frittata or roast pumpkin salad.

Pureed pumpkin can be used in pumpkin soup, a sweet or savoury pie or in good ol’ Flo’s pumpkin scones, adding extra nutrition to one of the most frugal morning teas you can make.

Carrots

The cheapest of the powerhouse vegetables, carrots aren’t often the star of a dish, but you can find them in many, many dishes.

A bag of carrots give great value and are very versatile, eat them sweet (carrot cake) or savoury, raw or cooked, and put them in about everything. The are also an essential flavour base for many dishes, along with onion and sometimes celery (European) or capsicum (South American) dishes.

I like to grate them in fritters or make carrot soup.

I also grate them into just about anything to stretch meat and make meals more veggie-packed, including mince patties, fish patties, spaghetti bolognese, just to name a few.

You might also like this printable fruit and vegetable storage chart.

Sweet Potatoes (and Regular White Potatoes)

While it was only sweet potatoes that made the powerhouse list, you can’t have a frugal list without including regular white potatoes too. Both varieties are cheap, filling and nutritious.

Sweet potato can be used in just about any way regular white potatoes can be used.

Roast, mash, steam, fry, turn into chips. Serve as a side, bulk up curries and casseroles, make gnocchi.

If you have potatoes, you have a meal.

Citrus Fruit

Like onion, a dash of citrus can level up the flavour of many dishes. Jamie Oliver puts a squeeze of lemon on just about everything – even your glass of water to liven it up.

Keep citrus juice for even longer by squeezing and freezing it in ice cube trays. And don’t forget to save some rind!

Lemons can be a bit touch and go as far as price, so confession: I cheat and have lemon juice in a bottle in the fridge as a back up. Because lemon is so handy for adding a bit of acidity to so many dishes, the bottled backup is a useful convenience.

However, when lemon is the star of the show, as in the following recipes, fresh is best. If you have a lemon tree or know someone who does, even better!

Some of my favourite ways to use citrus include the following recipes:

Apples

The only fruits besides citrus that made the powerhouse list were strawberries and blackberries, neither of which are cheap to buy, although if you can pick them for free, you can’t get more frugal than that!

And while buying fruit in season will mean you can get good prices on a variety of fruits, apples are usually always available cheaply and they’re another staple that will store for a long time.

My favourite ways to eat apples include apple slices with peanut butter, apple muffins, apple pie, apple pancakes, apple puree and caramelised apples as well as the recipes below.

I like to stew the apples in the rice cooker because they are less likely to catch and burn on the bottom of the pot if I’m not being vigilent.

Get More Variety with the Budget-Friendly Tips

Ever-frugal fruit and vegetables are just the start. To eat a variety of veg on a budget, you can couple them with in-season, frozen, and homegrown produce if you have some.

Diversify By Eating in Season

Seasonality has a big impact on the cost of fruit and veg. Many of those ‘powerhouse’ vegetables that didn’t make the ever-frugal list are cheap when in season.

Seasonality will depend on where you live, so keep an eye on prices throughout the year to discover what’s cheap and in season in your region.

You can also check out these printable seasonality guides for Australia, although again, there will be some regional differences.

Frozen Fruits and Vegetables

Frozen fruits and vegetables offer great value for money. They are usually just as nutritious as fresh or more so as they are snap frozen when picked at their best.

You can buy frozen vegetables for as little as $1 a kilo and because they’re frozen, they have a long shelf-life, so they provide exceptional value in a frugal kitchen.

If you have the room in your freezer, you can stock up on fruit and veg when it’s in season and freeze it to enjoy cheaply throughout the off-season. Here’s how to flash freeze fruit and vegetables.

Grow Your Own

Some of the top ‘powerhouse’ veggies are also some of the easiest plants to grow.

While it’s not practical for all of us to start a garden, anyone can grow a pot of parsley or watercress on a warm windowsill.

And greens like lettuce, parsley, chard, kale, mustard greens, rocket, chives, and dandelion are all super easy to grow in pots, in hanging baskets, in vertical gardens and even hydroponically. I’m no green-thumb, so if I can do it, anyone can.

Snip what you need, and the plant will continue to grow and feed you for weeks and months on end.

The foundation of any frugal meal is frugal ingredients. If you have a well-stocked frugal pantry and some ever-frugal fruits and vegetables on hand, you can make a wide variety of cheap and healthy meals. For extra variety, add some seasonal vegetables and animal proteins if you eat them, which is the subject of the next article.

What are your favourite recipes that showcase these frugal fruit and vegetables? Let us know in the comments below.