In the UK at Easter and Christmas time. half price joints can often be found in the supermarkets. Sometimes I buy beef ones and sometimes I buy pork ones. My friend said to me that there was no point for her in buying a half price joint of pork at Easter. She lives alone and doesn’t eat or cook joints. It would be no good for her. I suggested that she roast it and then slice and divide and freeze the meat as she often makes sandwiches. She wrinkled her nose at me and said that it wasn’t worth the effort. We use some of the pork joint to make sausages.
This year we bought 4 of them and they cost just over £20 for the lot. I made 4 varieties of sausages from two joints. These provided nearly 50 fat sausages. We have pork and wild garlic, sage and apple, spicy, and a breakfast variety. Those will last us about 5 months. At Christmas I bought a couple of beef joints which I minced to freeze to make meals like lasagne or shepherd’s pie, later.
Pork is a lot cheaper here, compared to beef. that is why I concentrated on buying those this time. They will make a larger amount of meals. By buying the joints when they are reduced at these festive times, my spending on food is reduced. I have money to buy other things that I want or need.
For those of you who don’t think that they will use a joint, I just wanted to show how I divided one joint that cost less than a fiver, to make at least 6 meals for two of us. 
First of all, I cut some into slices to pan fry or cook in the air fryer. Mr S loves these and we serve them with chips, wedges, or use them for a roast dinner (3 meals).
Some of the meat was cut into chunks to make goulash, Souvlaki or stew (2 meals, or more if it is stew), and one in little strips for a sweet and sour stir fry (1 meal). We have found that pork leg is nice and tender when cooked.
This works out at less than 50p each for our meat each meal, and we also have crackling for Mr S, and fat to make lard, which I keep in the fridge to cook with later. When I make a stew with the chunks, I will often add lentils and lots of vegetables. The stew often stretches to double the amount of meals, and gives me some to fill an odd pastie.
I cut one of my joints this way, and then cut the last one into slices and chunks and froze. We only eat meat 3 times a week and so for around £20, we have enough meat to use for most of the rest of the year. This gives me the money to buy good quality chicken from a butchers, so that we have some variety. I still have half of the mince beef left. I spent £16 on that at Christmas.
There are only two of us and we don’t particularly like roast dinners, and neither do my children if we are having family meals. It is still worth me taking advantage of joints when I see them in the shops, though. Do you buy joints when they are reduced, and if so, how do you use them?
Buying these when on sale is an absolute win. I usually stock up on pork roasts before Chistmas, when they here are reduced dramatically to about 2.30 pounds per kilogram. I make sure to buy enough to see me through the whole year. This year, so far, two were roasted in the oven for a family gathering, stuffed generously with garlic & rosemary roly-poly style, alongside baked potatoes, roast veggies, yorkshire pudding & apple crumble – leaving me with lots left over, which was sliced, packed & popped in the freezer for easy meals later on. Some I roasted in the pressure cooker; my large pressure cooker will take three roasts at a time and uses very little energy. These were turned into pulled pork and frozen in small packages suitable for me for one day and are usefull for adding to stews, soups, & cottage pies or just quickly fried up with a bit of garlic or onion or fridge gravel. The lard is saved for cooking and pastry and the stock frozen for soups & gravies. I freeze stock in plastic bags pressed quite flattish, so that a suitable piece can be broken off frozen when needed. I am not fond of the crackling, so when no more fat & gelatine can reasonably be boiled out of it in the pressure cooker, the chickens & the dog have a field day & I eat the eggs instead…The rest of the roasts are in the freezer whole & inspired by you I really might try my hand at sausage making with one of them, if I can pluck up courage. Or mince one for meat balls & loaves. So many options and so much money saved. Not to mention the time and effort saved by having endless ready to go to packages in the freezer for quick meals.
Absolutely. It has saved me shopping time and money. The pork tastes nicer too than minced pork bought separately. I don’t know why. We love that we can flavour our own sausages, too. It helps us be creative and use what we have. Thanks for commenting x
Such a visual post makes you realise what can be done with a joint of pork ! Thank you Toni x
No worries