When it comes to making pricey ingredients go a long way, just ask a private chef.
Insider spoke to Meredith Hayden — a private chef and recipe developer based in New York City — before her appearance at the 2023 South Beach Wine & Food Festival in February, about what she makes when she wants to create a fancy dinner experience without going over budget.
She had a simple reply: pasta.
Hayden, who spends her summers in the Hamptons working with her primary client, who she did not identify, shared that "while it's great to be able to go to the farmers' market and to prepare beautiful meals in beautiful homes," the work comes with its challenges, like rising grocery prices and fluctuating availability of certain ingredients. But amid rising costs, she's found a way to make meals more cost-effective.
"You can stretch pretty expensive ingredients like lobster and feed two to three times as many people by making a lobster pasta," Hayden told Insider. "So, instead of needing to get a pound of lobster per person, you now only really need a third of a pound of lobster per person. It still feels really special and really luxurious."
Hayden said you can use ingredients like short ribs in the same way.
"With braised short rib, you would typically want one to two short ribs per person," she said. "But, if you do a braised short rib ragu and serve it with pasta, then you really only need half of a short rib per person."
"It's just a great way of substituting, just making things stretch," she continued. "Instead of having all of the focus on a protein, incorporate it into a sauce, so that it can feed much more people."
