The Store-Bought Rule Ree Drummond Lives By For Better Meals

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Ree Drummond, the Pioneer Woman of T.V. and publishing fame, spoke with Foodie's sister site, Tasting Table, a couple of years ago regarding her then-forthcoming cookbook, "The Pioneer Woman Cooks ― Dinner's Ready!: 112 Fast and Fabulous Recipes for Slightly Impatient Home Cooks." One of the facts you might not know about Drummond and her husband, Ladd, is that their adult kids have all flown the coop, leaving them as empty-nesters. Accordingly, life in the Drummond household has changed, and Ree's grocery shopping list has become a lot shorter. She also doesn't have as much bandwidth to dedicate to time-intensive meals, she reported, and sometimes, she leans on store-bought ingredients ... but only up to a point.

"The key to using store-bought items or shortcuts is limiting them to one or two per recipe and letting the whole or from-scratch ingredients lead," she told Tasting Table. "The point of a store-bought shortcut is to save time, but you never want to use it at the expense of the flavor of the dish." As an example, she mentioned a high-quality jarred marinara, just like our pick for the best store-bought pasta sauce brand. While Drummond would not dump jarred sauce on pasta and call it a day, she might utilize it as a quick and convenient foundation for a yummy Bolognese, she said. She advocated for picking and choosing store-bought components that can minimize your prep time in the kitchen, but never making them the star of your meal.

A well-known Ree Drummond-approved hack for saving money on groceries is utilizing frozen produce instead of fresh, as these items taste great and are less likely to spoil on you and waste money. This is an excellent example of what Drummond was discussing when she mentioned using store-bought ingredients intelligently and sparingly. Let's say that you are whipping up a bowl of hot, comforting minestrone soup that would do your Nonna proud. Frozen veg can save you a lot of slicing and dicing, leaving you the time and energy to really focus on a tomato broth that could make angels sing, and to bake a loaf of sourdough bread to chase up the leftovers in your bowl.

The Pioneer Woman website has published articles on smart ways to save money on groceries, which can feel timely given tremendous inflation at the supermarket. While the Drummond family is quite well-to-do between Ree's domestic empire and Ladd's generational ranching enterprise, Ree Drummond has made a name for herself on the basis of relatability, which extends to her cooking philosophy. Smart shoppers who aren't worth hundreds of millions of dollars can still take her advice and turn to grocery store staples to save both time and money without sacrificing taste. If you do, just be wise about what you use and how much heavy lifting it's doing on the plate.

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