Also smash burgers. Why are people paying actual hamburger prices for what seem to be burnt scraps from other people’s burgers?
A large pizza now costs over $20.
That’s a deal. Most pizzas in my area at 30-40 per large.
And that toothed dude trying to normalise the high price of hotel rooms on the ad… Did you check? You didn’t check! You gotta check!
I’m not going to use Trivago, but I love that commercial. My wife and I will do grinning impressions at each other while trying not to move our faces.
To recreate a McGangbang these days it’s upwards of $50, same as in town
Well the dollar is pretty much worthless so…
Someone show “Pulp Fiction” to a Gen Z and ask them what they think about the $5.00 milkshake
$5 in 1994 = $11.27 in today’s money. I’m not from the US, is that egregious or standard today?
Adjust it for M2 supply. That is true inflation.
The official inflation counter is nonsense.
Do a quick search of actual 1994 prices if you don’t believe me.
And $12.00 is what you’d spend at a high end restaurant or hotel for a 2026 milk shake.
Even Shake Shack, which is a good shake but still corporate fast food is like $8.
More than I would pay for one
I don’t know if it’s worth $11.27 but it’s pretty fucking good.
Depends on the place I guess. The old I’ve cream place in town? That’s a little pricey, but not unheard of. One of those smoothie places? I don’t think they have anything that cheap.
How much is like a dairy Queen shake these days? I’m blessed with an abundance of quality local establishments so I haven’t been in a while.
Secret to White Castle burgers is steaming the patty over onions on the pan/griddle and putting the bottom bun on while steaming.
Secret to McDonald’s burgers is salt pepper and a touch of msg.
Big Mac sauce is ketchup mayo touch of mustard and some relish
Popeyes chicken is just buttermilk marinated chicken coated with flour cornstarch and a touch of baking soda.
More wholesome fast food at home and it’s cheaper too
Also check out Jordan the Stallion on YouTube for all the fast food secrets.
Thank you for this. Neeeeed more useful stuuufffffff
He’s gotten more into the “I found this thing people were raving about, let me show you with a glasses throw” and less into the “hey check out this dope recipe it’s so good I threw my glasses” and “hey this fast food company pissed me off so here’s their secret recipe”
Noted, go for the older content.
Thanks all the same :) my partner likes food like a lot, and we don’t like spending way too much money, so options are good :)
I would also encourage “the plant slant” as another great recipe content creator and he also does shout outs to other good channels so you can springboard off there.
Thanks! I very much appreciate this, I like word of mouth advertising because people work together rather than they get paid for it
I like the maker spaces similarly, so Allen Pan is a good creator if you like mythbusters-type “is it possible to do” sort of stuff. 😁 same shout outs and collabs. He literally worked with them.
Chick Fil A chicken is marinated in pickle juice before deep frying.
Fast food at home takes a higher level of time and skill commitment. For fried chicken i gotta source all ingredients for the batter, make more than i need for the chicken to have adequate coatings, use a shitload of oil for a deep fry or buy a deep fryer, cook the chicken, then clean up the dishes and kitchen afterwards.
It is still defintely possible but many people working long shifts or overtime find it hard to do. My method for nearly any meal with more than 5 minutes of prep+cook time is to make lots of it, as you get more food per time invested that way and just eat it for a few days or freeze extra servings.
More than one hour of hourly wage for a single meal. Or more than one hour of work for multiple homemade meals? I’m going with more than one hour of work for multiple meals. But you do you
This ignores the skill portion. I might ruin 3 meals before i make something edible that my body actually wants me to keep eating. I also keep coupons and know the local deals, my avergae fast food order ends up being about 30 minutes worth of wages. And tbh my work doesnt have a proper lunch break so I’m often still getting paid for 15-20 minutes i spend ordering and eating. It is still a loss compared to bringing food, which i usually do, but its not a massive loss.
Part of my problem as well is i dont work a defined shift and often end up spur of the moment working late. So if I pull something out to defrost or start soaking beans in the morning. Working ovetime can delay my cooking time from 5 pm to 8 pm, often cutting into the time i should be going to bed or getting other important shit done. I do meal prepping to help mitigate this but then im often eating the same lunch and dinner for 3-4 days straight, which can get difficult on the pallete.
Try prepping food that freezes better. I’ve got sandwich bags with servings of frozen rice or whole potatoes, quart bags with soups, red curry, lentils, etc. When I get home from work, I pick something and defrost it in the microwave. Ready in <10 minutes.
An air fryer goes a long way, I don’t see much difference in terms of crispyness compared to regular oil frying and it’s a lot less cleanup and work.
I use an air fryer to reheat fried chicken. Are you using it for the initial cook too?
For big batches to freeze I use oil. For a small meal without oil, I’ve found it works if you spray on the oil during the air frying a few times. I mostly do that for tofu. I toss mushrooms or other veggies in olive oil, herbs and garlic, and toss it in there too with a bit of cheese sometimes.
none of those have been any good in over a decade
True and the homemade versions taste better than they did a decade ago
Secret to McDonald’s is salt, pepper, and a touch of MSG
I work at MacDonald’s and the seasoning shakers ingredient list (because the spices come already mixed) contain a lot more than just those 3 things.
Because they add extra stabilizers and preservatives. Try it at home and the patties will taste the same.
It also has cumin, onion, and garlic powder in it.
Tried those mixed with the salt pepper and msg and it didn’t taste as similar
The leanness of the beef is a big factor in making burgers. I don’t know McDonald’s ratio; the boxes for the meat patties don’t have it listed. I have to imagine they use a pretty fatty blend tho. Their burgers are greasy as hell.
I use 85/15 from my supermarket and they slap. I ball it up then season the top, place it seasoned side down and smash it then season the flat side. Flip when the meat juices on top start bubbling. The cooked side will have and shiny crust to it and you’ll know you’re on the right path
I kinda wanna try about 1/4 of a tablespoon of baking soda in there the next time I make a burger to see how much better maillard reaction it gives and also see if it messes with the flavor. It helps browning, and I have been hearing recently it also keeps more juices in the meat.
They have $25.00 burgers?
No but a meal can be close to $25 and a $25 burger is just an overly thick patty stacked too high with too many ingredients. Anyone can make that at home
Morning Star veggie burgers and black bean burgers are super cheap, tasty and a direct affront to the Christian religion.
a direct affront to the Christian religion
They’re a subsidiary of Kellanova, owned by Mars. Not exactly the small indie lefty company I was expecting. There also is no real MorningStar farms, or family, or group behind them.
They’re about as anti-christian as your average desk chair and about as offensive.
That part was a joke…
Oh!
haha?
Super cheap? $9.20 for 16 oz from what I’m seeing in my area. Hardly cheap, much less super cheap.
Where I am it’s $7.94 for 18.9oz of 8 patties. That’s less than a buck per patty making a single non cheesed burger around $1.75. If you don’t think that’s super cheap then I don’t know what to tell you.
Less than 2.5 oz those seem like sliders. Though I wonder maybe they don’t lose as much of their weight during cooking.
And they’ll still charge you $15
They’re like 4 for 5 dollars.
What?
25$ for a burger WTF???
My local burger place makes the best hurgers I have ever tried and they range from 10€ to 14€ depending on the style you take.
Nah man it’s standard everywhere /s
I don’t why everyone hasn’t stopped eating out and just cook at home these days
$25 can get me the ingredients for 20 hamburgers
$25 can get me the ingredients for 20 hamburgers
No it cannot. 10 would be a large stretch, let alone 20.
Let’s see… quarter pound patties are a little on the big end so assume 3oz patties, that’s 3.75 lbs of beef which is also about what 80/20 costs per pound on sale here. So a little over 14$ for the beef, buns are a buck fifty or so for an eight pack, you need three to make twenty burgers so that’s about 4.50$ more. Now you gotta put lettuce tomato pickle and onion on your twenty burgers that’s about a quarter head of lettuce, so a buck there, two or three cheap slicer tomatoes there’s two dollars, honestly fifty cents worth of pickles if you put four on each one and probably one onion is overkill so let’s round up to a whole dollar there.
Tbh excluding the condiments a dollar twenty five or so for a burger made at home is about right. If you wanted to go overboard the probably 1/8 jar of mayo and 1/4 squirt bottle of mustard is a buck or two. Now you’re a few bucks over but it’s an all the way burger not some knuckleheads “whatever I had in the fridge” concoction.
I used the sale price of ground beef because it’s the most expensive thing and if you’re cooking at home the most expensive component of a meal being on sale is what prompts you to make it.
The burgers on a real plate and all are 1/4 lbs. Not 3 oz. They are 3oz after cooking though. And the thing is, you can’t buy a quarter head of lettuce. So bump all those partials up to full units you can buy. Cause many will have the unused part thrown away. Then don’t forget the cost to cook it. Propane, or charcoal, or whatever. And you need something to clean all the dishes and utensiles… we can call the cost of the dishes and utensiles a wash though, just about everyone uses those all the time. But the grill… toss about $5 toward it. The cheap ones don’t last long, and you need a flipper and such. Now the big thing you are skipping is the time. Time to go to the store, time to prep. Time to cook, and the worst one usually… time to make a meal plan that includes this before hand, rather than just going out to eat when you haven’t planned. And in some families… one or more persons won’t eat the damn burger, so you have to make something else they will eat…
The hell it can with these hamburger meat prices.
I know, right? 1lb of hamburger is around $8 for me. I buy ground turkey instead. It’s generally leaner and I get it for $10 for 3lbs. It doesn’t taste exactly the same, but I like it and it’s way cheaper.
When we can, we like to do a mix of ground turkey and beef, cause the turkey taste is a bit different. The mix we have found great for things like chili, spaghetti, loose meat (mamwich) etc… Gives some beefy flavor and saves a little money.
You can also use a beef broth or bullion cube and it’ll basically infuse the turkey with the beef flavor.
That is a great idea too! Thank you!
Some people were never taught how to cook. Some people have messy room mates leaving the kitchen nearly unusable. Some people work unexpected overtime and have their shift run longer and into another meal time. Some people struggle to find the time to cook and clean up for themselves.
The only way I manage to eat decent throughout the weekdays is by doing lunch and dinner prep during my sundays. Its takes a lot of planning sometimes to ensure i have enough ingredients and i often don’t get to recreate as much as id like on my weekends.
With the all of human knowledge at your fingertips tips there’s never been a better time to start cooking. And taking time to learn to cook is investing in yourself
It is, but someone working 60 hours a week often just wants to do something easy and learning new skills takes effort. I myself have been learning to cook more but its still a big time commitment and i try to plan around it to reduce spur of the moment trips to the grocery store to save on my expenses, instead trying to shop when I’m already in the area for other things as well. I also try to shop sales and expiring soon reductions which further reduces my options of cooking for a given week. Its a big balancing act of time, energy, and budget, and as the stomach starts growling people throw the budget portion out the window to save on time and energy by buying fast food.
but someone working 60 hours a week often just wants to do something easy and learning new skills takes effort.
It takes almost no effort to use a crock pot, and it’s really hard to fuck up if you follow directions. When I was working 2 jobs, I’d regularly throw something in the crockpot in the morning, and come home to an amazing smelling home and a meal that was basically done.
People who say they can’t cook aren’t trying, there are so many easy ways to make cooking so simple that even my sister in law can do it unattended.
Do you struggle to find time to cook? Are you eating unhealthy because you have to eat fast food everyday? Worry not! The sponsor for today’s comment has the solution…
Because my family lives at home and they’re all reactionary shitwads
Ok but by the time instacart delivers my groceries to me I could have just gone out for the same cost so I just have Uber Eats go out for me so I can pay an additional premium for my premium food and still have to do the cleanup myself wait what?
Ok but by the time instacart delivers my groceries to me I could have just gone out for the same cost
Did you know…
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You can go to the grocery store yourself, pick things out yourself, and take them home yourself? It’s cheaper, too!
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You can buy more than 1 meal’s worth of food at a time and then store food at home for later – you actually don’t have to make a special order for every single meal!
Now you’re just being silly…
(…but based on the downvotes I guess my sarcasm was not laid on thick enough)
It was too realistic. I’ve met people who do exactly what you described. Depression can be one hell of a ride for some people.
I thought it was funny.
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Life involves effort. Crazy, I know.
The $25 burger is shit.
Burgers, in general, are shit.
What makes them good is the bang for buck. The concept is in their design. Some good shit between buns, allowing it to be consumed faster than a traditionally segmented dish. If you have time, wallet, and dignity, you take the dish. If not, you just get the chef to shove it between buns and serve it up.
If a burger is not doing those things, it is not a burger. It is a shit burger. Arguably it’s so shit, it’s an expensive burger-themed dish.
I don’t hate or love burgers. I’m just a realist.
Burgers, in general, are shit.
I don’t hate or love burgers. I’m just a realist.
Sounds like you don’t like them. Which is an affront to food everywhere.
No, I like them. Especially classic Red Hook street style. But I know what they are not and I know that I will only find disappointment in someone putting something on my plate at that price and try tell me it’s a burger.
Hamburgers are supposed to be 25$ (well, money is made up and a price is only relative but you get what I mean). Beef is expensive as fuck to grow. Between time, land, water, food, raising a cow is an endeavor, it might be one of the hardest food sources to grow that we have, and that’s even with raising them locked in a cell their whole life, which we should try not to do.
I think the 25$ hamburger is a good thing, it reflects the real cost of beef. The only reason it’s been low is because we subsidize the cattle industry immensely, and we used to do it more. It’s also because demand has gone down and supply has followed, the more people eat vegetarian the more a hamburger will be priced like the luxury it should be.
And to be fair, I know that our crops of cattle feed were ruined by the tariffs and the straight closing, I would bet the increased cost is preempting the expected downfall of these crops in the coming years.
You’re right about the real cost, but this isn’t normalization of cost - beef production is still as high as ever and is still being subsidized with tax dollars, and the difference in price is being pocketed by meat companies while taxpayers eat the production cost. It’s the tariff refund problem again.
This situation is the worst of all possible worlds.
I have seen people say this so many times but apparently I’m missing that because while I have seen it, it’s somewhat rare and usually it at least does include a side also.
