BBQ expert reveals how to save money on BBQs along with cheapest places to shop for BBQ essentials

With the UK set to see increasingly warm weather throughout the rest of June, I wanted to send over some research from Moneyboat into the cheapest UK supermarkets to buy all your BBQ essentials along with some top tips from BBQ Expert Jon Finch on how to make a BBQ affordable this summer:

The research looked into the prices at six of the biggest UK supermarkets in ASDA, Tesco, Waitrose, Aldi, Morrisons and Sainsbury’s for various different BBQ essentials such as Burgers, Sausages, Chicken Drumsticks and more.

The research revealed that Aldi is the cheapest supermarket in the UK to secure all 13 of the BBQ essentials, coming in at £29.94 in total, with Waitrose coming in as the most expensive at £41.08.

Here is the full ranking:

Here are the specific items that were priced up:

Sausages: 6 pack of Cumberland sausages

Burgers: 4 pack of ¼ pounder burgers

Ribs: Rack of beef ribs

Veggie Burgers: 2 pack of veggie burgers

Chicken Burgers: 4 pack of chicken burgers

Hot Dogs: Price for 10 hot dogs

Coleslaw: 600g of coleslaw

Chicken Drumsticks: Price for 1kg of chicken drumsticks

Steak: A 227g cut of sirloin steak

Corn on the cob: Price for 1kg of corn on the cob

Halloumi: 225g of halloumi

Burger Buns: 4 pack of burger buns

Hot Dog Buns: 6 pack of hot dog buns

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Along with this data, Moneyboat asked Live Fire and BBQ cooking expert Jon Finch for his top tips on how to make a BBQ affordable and how to cook a BBQ on a budget:

Interviewer: How do you make a BBQ affordable?

Jon Finch: There are two main cuts of meat. We have the primary cuts and the secondary cuts. What I would call primary cuts, they are the big ones when you think of a steak so that might be a Sirloin steak, a Rump steak, a Fillet steak or a Ribeye steak. They’re the most expensive cuts of meat and have the reputation for having the most flavour but also being the most tender.

There’s been a real decrease in the popularity for secondary cuts.

These are often muscles that would’ve worked a lot harder like a flank steak or a flat iron steak. They can be a third if not less than the price of a sirloin so whereas if I went into Waitrose and bought sirloin and am paying £40 per kilo, I may be paying between £10-12 per kilo for Flat Iron steak and those cuts are great on the BBQ.

They are quite lean, so you have to cook them medium rare otherwise they go tough. They are packed with flavour because these are muscles that have done a lot of work throughout their life. To save money, go for cheaper, secondary cuts and cuts that aren’t obvious.

A really great cut of meat which sounds a bit scary but is delicious is a neck of lamb. You can get them in strips of meat and season them, they’ll take lots of marinating and are beautiful, tender and packed with flavour. They are a fraction of the price of buying a normal lamb steak or leg of lamb. Pigs’ cheeks have got to be slow-cooked, but they are delicious and cheap as well. There are so many cheaper alternatives that you have to be more careful with when cooking but the end result, you can get more flavour than these bigger, more famous steaks.

I: How do you cook a BBQ on a budget for a gathering?

JF: Roast chickens are the obvious one (to save money). People go and buy chicken pieces and end up spending £20 on it whereas to buy a decent quality supermarket whole chicken might be around £4-5. You can buy a little gadget that sits on your grill that the chicken sits on like a poultry roaster and put it on the indirect part of your BBQ.

As it cooks, the liquid is going to steam the inside of the chicken, the outside is going to get that lovely BBQ flavour and then you’ve got a single piece of meat that is easy to cook and you’re going to feed it to six to eight people for it. You just need some nice salad with it or grilled potatoes on the side and then you have a real inexpensive meal that you’re probably spending £1 ahead and everyone is happy.