Three foods you can make in 5 minutes that taste better than stuff in the store

Most homemade food demands a sacrifice: It’s more delicious than what you buy in a store, but it’ll never be more convenient.

True for potato chips, perhaps. But what you make at home can be cheaper, faster and better tasting than anything you can buy. This holy trinity is hard to pull off. But all it takes is a little practice. I spent the past year perfecting my favorites.

My motivations were twofold. I wanted to reduce, if not eliminate, packaging waste and ultra-processed foods (now 70% of the country’s food supply) along with the plasticizers that come with its packaging, from bisphenols to phthalates. My second was health: better ingredients for me, my family and the environment.

Modern grocery stores don’t optimize for better taste, or even saving time. They optimize for shelf life. Emulsifiers and preservatives such as carboxymethylcellulose, sodium benzoate, potassium sorbate and other additives keep mass-produced products ready to eat for weeks or longer. That’s the reason your oil and vinegar dressing stays “shaken” for months or your bread doesn’t mold so quickly.

This isn’t entirely bad. Mass production lowers prices. But as more than half of Americans’ calories now come from ultra-processed foods, the health toll is rising. These products have been linked to higher rates of obesity, Type 2 diabetes, depression, certain cancers and a 50% higher risk of cardiovascular death. Consumer Reports found industrial chemicals used in plastic manufacturing, such as BPA and phthalates, are “widespread” in supermarket foods (albeit still within limits set by regulators).

I decided to find out what I could stop buying. I set three nonnegotiable rules: Everything had to taste better than store-bought, cost me nothing extra and take five minutes or less (once I’d dialed in my process).

Too good to be true? It turns out, I had too many to fit in this column. I picked three favorites that gave me the “why did I ever buy this” moment I sought.

Bon appétit.

Chicken and veggie stock: A week of meals in a pot

Stock from a can tastes like real stock the way instant tastes like a proper cup of coffee. When I made my own broth, it was like a miracle for my mouth. Here’s how to do it.

Keep a bag or container in your freezer. During the week, toss in leftover veggies, chicken bones, onion skins and other savory ingredients as you go. When full, pour it all into a pot (or, my preference, a slow cooker), fill with water and let it cook on low for the next day or two. Freeze it or, better yet, add some chopped veggies and noodles (concentrated stock like Better Than Bouillon adds punch). You’ll have meals for days, and your children will love you.

Before I discovered this, I wouldn’t make soup because store-bought stocks were so insipid or expensive. Making my own seemed like such a hassle. Now I sup soup almost weekly.

When I ran the cost savings compared with buying the equivalent stock at the grocery store, I was shocked. Three minutes of active work yields six quarts of superior broth worth roughly $39 if you’re buying the good stuff in the store. Overnight electricity is cheap, and my rescued ingredients cost nothing. That’s like being paid hundreds of dollars per hour to make a genuinely better product compared with store-bought.

Active time: 3 minutes.

Savings: 99% (Store-bought: $12 to $39 for six quarts. Waste ingredients: $0; electricity: $0.43).

Implied hourly wage: $641/hr.

Yogurt: Let the microbes do the work

Yogurt has two ingredients: milk and a starter. Mine does, at least. The stuff you buy in the store? Around a dozen ingredients, including gelatin, added sugar and coloring for many brands.

The added ingredients solve manufacturing problems that don’t exist for homemade yogurt: industrial scale, cost minimization and long shelf life. When you make yogurt at home, bacterial fermentation creates a perfectly thick, creamy product with potential health benefits, including reduced inflammation, as well as protection against heart disease and diabetes.

All it takes is the hard work of a few billion bacteria (Lactobacillus bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus, in particular). By converting lactose, a sugar in milk, into lactic acid, they lower the PH at temperatures between 110°F and 115°F. Proteins in the milk coagulate and thicken. It’s all performed free of charge.

Commercial yogurts skip this traditional fermentation in three ways: Thickeners and protein powder fake the texture; extra acid rushes the process in half the time, forgoing the complex flavors that slow fermentation develops; and sugar masks the blandness.

Why settle for substitutes when the real thing is so easy? I admit: My first forays into yogurt were messy. Too watery. Too cold. Too warm. Once, I tried heating the glass bottle directly in a pot of water (don’t ask) before it shattered. When I finally figured it out, it was astonishingly simple — and delicious. Mix with your favorite flavors — mine are lemon juice, maple syrup or frozen berries — and enjoy in your fridge for up to three weeks. Here’s an idiotproof version of yogurt you can make at home:

Active time: 4.5 minutes.

Savings: 46% for 64 oz. (store-bought: $11.50; homemade: $6.26)

Implied hourly wage: $70/hr.

Popcorn

Popcorn from the grocery store is a crime against common sense. It’s egregiously overpriced for a truly insipid product that might sit on shelves for months before you take it home.

For years, manufacturers coated their bags with the “forever chemicals” now in all of us. People consuming microwave popcorn had “markedly higher levels of PFAS in their bodies,” according to a 2019 peer-reviewed study in Environmental Health Perspectives. PFAS were “voluntarily” phased out of food packaging in 2024, according to the FDA, but the lack of strict regulation has left a bad taste in my mouth.

Luckily, making the perfect snack at home is also among the simplest things you can do in the kitchen. Here’s how to enjoy fresh, delicious popcorn any day of the week in minutes.

Active time: 1.5 minutes

Savings: 92% (Store-bought, six bags:$6; Homemade: 50 cents)

Implied hourly wage: $220/hr.