Why the Best Budget Food to Buy is Flour

Why flour?

With flour, you can make buns and bread. You can make pizza crusts, naan, noodles, tortillas, and pie crusts.

You can also make sweet pie crusts like dessert pie crusts, pierogies, or empanadas, depending on the filling, gyoza or potstickers, and a whole host of other things like wonton wrappers that we turned into crispy noodles. 

Basic dough recipe

I will start by walking you through how to make a basic dough recipe. I love this recipe because it is versatile in that it can take on sweet, salty, and savory flavors you would like, and you can use it in many different ways. 

Ingredients

• 1 cup warm water
• 2½ tsp yeast
• 1 Tbsp sugar (optional)
• 3 cups flour
• ¼ cup Oil
• 1 tsp salt

Directions

1. Combine water, yeast, and sugar, and watch for bubbles of yeast to begin growing into a foam on top (about 5-10 minutes). 
2. Combine the remaining ingredients and knead ingredients until a smooth dough forms. 
3. Use dough as a pizza crust, to form buns or rolls, or to make calzones, etc.

Recipe versatility 

You can fill these, as I said, with different kinds of meats—pulled pork, ground beef, cheese, or anything you like. I've used this same recipe to make calzones dough for rolls, different kinds of buns, hamburger buns, hot dog buns; you name it. This dough fits the bill. 

This dough can even keep well in the fridge. 

You can reheat the slices of naan later if you don't get to eat them all in one sitting. 

You can make non-pizzas or pizza because the same recipe makes an excellent pizza crust if you bake it in the oven until it springs back to the touch and is slightly browned. Then you add your toppings and stick them under the broiler, and everything becomes brown and bubbly and golden and delicious. 

Basic noodle recipe

I love using this basic dough for anything that might strike my fancy. Next, I will show you how I use flour to make a basic noodle recipe with few ingredients. 

All this uses is flour, salt, and boiling water, which will help activate the gluten in the flour. Mixing these ingredients makes a pliable dough, which you can then roll out and make into noodles. 

You can boil those in water like regular pasta and drain them. 

Or you can use that thickened water to make a sauce for the noodles. 

Ingredients

• 1½ cups flour
• ½ cup boiling water
• ¼ tsp salt

Directions

1. Combine flour, salt, and water with a fork, then when cooled, mix by hand. 
2. Pinch off ½-inch balls and roll them out as thin as possible. 
3. Add some flour to your surface to help prevent sticking, but add as little as possible. You want a sticky dough as that will help when you're sealing.
4. Cut into noodles, or fill to create potstickers or perogies.

You can make different pasta shapes with this—everything from ravioli to rotini and other stuffed pasta. 

You can also flour a surface and roll out thin balls of the dough into flat surfaces to which you can add different stuffings and make pierogies or empanadas, depending on what kind of stuffing you put in. 

Pie crust recipes

Another basic dough I make is pie crust dough. Pie crust dough can be highly versatile as well. 

You'll need flour, salt, butter, and a little water, and you've got a basic pie crust dough. 

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• ⅔ cup butter
• 1 Tsp salt
• ¼ cup and 2 Tbsp cold water

This makes 2 full pie crusts - half the recipe to make 1 crust)

Directions

1. Cut butter into flour/salt mixture.
2. Add ¼ cup and 2 Tbs of cold water and mix until combined. 
3. Roll out on a floured surface, place flattened dough into an ungreased pie pan.
4. Trim excess dough from the sides and use your fingers or a fork to make a design around the edges.

I did want to mention that while these are very basic recipes that will get the job done, there may be even tastier recipes that include more ingredients. However, I'm trying to stick with as basic a recipe as possible to make use of the fact that we might only have flour and a few other ingredients on hand. 

Now with this dough, you can make a pie crust dough, or you could also make a sweet pie like this hand pie. 

Tortillas recipe

I've made a fantastic tortilla recipe. All it uses is flour, oil, salt, and a little bit of water. I love this recipe because it makes soft, flexible tortillas, but also it's really easy and straightforward to make and uses ingredients most people have on hand on a day-to-day basis. 

The awesome thing about having tortillas on hand is that you can make so many different dishes with them. 

Ingredients

• 1½ cups flour
• 2 Tbsp oil
• ½ cup warm water
• A pinch of salt

Directions

1. Mix ingredients, then roll out 1-inch balls of dough on a floured surface until they are about 5 inches in diameter (about the size of your hand).
2. Preheat a pan on medium heat. 
3. Put each tortilla in the pan and flip when one side starts getting colored.
4. Place under a tea towel to stay warm and steam (this will soften them) until ready to serve.

The best budget food

There are so many more uses you can use flour, from thickening your sauces with flour and a little bit of water to making biscuits or croissants or using leftover bread to make stuffing.

Are there other ways you use flour to make something delicious for your family? Share your ideas and recipes in the comments below.