People Are Ordering Catering Instead of Groceries to Save Money. Is It Really Cheaper?

In a TikTok video from January, the fashion influencer Madi Webb unboxes an enormous catering delivery from a nearby Brazilian restaurant. “I feel like I just cracked the code,” she says, explaining that the order of chicken and veggies costs only $100 for a week of lunches.

Since then, all over social media, people like Webb are claiming they’re ordering catering from local restaurants and big chains to hack their weekly meal prep. They take the food home, portion it up, and fridge or freeze it to eat all week. The argument? It’s theoretically cheaper than buying groceries and easier than cooking a whole bunch of food at once. 

Reactions to the hack fall in either the eye-roll or the this-is-genius camps. “Consider me influenced,” one TikTok user replied to Webb’s video. Others were outraged: “I’m sorry but anybody who tells you it’s a better deal to order Chipotle catering as meal prep instead of buying the ingredients at a grocery store is probably a trust fund idiot who has literally never shopped anywhere except Whole Foods,” wrote one Twitter user. 

But are bulk food orders really cheaper than cooking for yourself? We compared the catering and family meal packages offered by various large, national chains—like Chipotle, Boston Market, and Panda Express—against their à la carte menus and homemade approximations duped by various content creators. The store locations for catering and regular menus were chosen at random, so they may differ slightly based on where you live. For food cost comparisons, we used $101 per week and $4.80 for a meal, based on the Bureau of Labor’s 2021 data on yearly cost of groceries for American households.   

The scoop: Sorry, TikTok. Though it’s virtually impossible to make an apples to apples comparison between home and restaurant meal prices without recipes, and our per-week grocery spend data is based on household sizes instead of individual budgets, making your own food generally costs less than ordering catering. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t some solid timesaving options out there—pending your diets, preferences, and health needs—a few of which aren’t that much more expensive than buying groceries. Scroll on for the best deals.

Chipotle 

Catering hackers frequently name the fast casual burrito joint as a popular destination. 

Bean, rice, and steak-filled burritos

Catering price: For 10 rice-bean-and-steak-filled burritos, with a bulk order of chips and salsa, catering customers will pay about $12.10 per serving ($121 total). 

Regular menu price: To cobble together the same meal from the à la carte menu, you’d fork up about $13 per order—meaning, buying 10 catered burritos is about $9 cheaper than ordering them individually. (That being said, all of Chipotle’s noncustom burritos come in under $11, if you don’t care about the chips and salsa.)

Grocery dupe: Even if you adjusted for inflation, it’s going to cost you less to make your own burritos in bulk and freeze them: According to a year-old video from food YouTuber Joshua Weissman, who frequently recreates takeout favorites in his “But Cheaper” series, a homemade riff with chicken could cost as little as $2.15 per burrito (or $21.50 for 10). 

Chicken burrito bowls

Catering price: A catering package of deconstructed chicken burrito bowls that supposedly feeds 10 and comes with additional tortillas costs $10.75 per serving ($107.50 total). 

Regular menu price: For a single chicken burrito bowl, you’ll pay about $9 per order at Chipotle. So, like the burritos (minus chips and salsa), it’s actually cheaper to just order the bowls individually—unless those tortillas hold a special place in your heart. 

The takeaway: The cheapest move at Chipotle would be to buy 10 individual chicken burrito bowls for $90 ($9 each). Assuming you need enough food for 21 meals per week, that’s still going to cover only about half of them. That cost almost matches what American households currently spend per week ($101) for all food—and you know the shredded lettuce ain’t gonna freeze well, right?

Sweetgreen

You’ve got to want to eat a lot of Sweetgreen to even enter the ring: The minimum catering size at the salad chain is 20 meals. 

Catering: A “Greatest Hits” bundle includes five orders of four popular menu items—the Harvest Bowl, Kale Caesar, Super Green Goddess, and Guacamole Greens—for $236.50 total. Sweetgreen also has a catering order minimum of $250, which means you’d need to add on snacks and drinks you may not want or need just to meet that cost. 

Regular menu: If you were placing the same order à la carte, it would cost you around $264. So ordering a Sweetgreen catering package could save $14 at most compared with ordering 20 individual meals. 

Grocery dupe: That being said, YouTuber Ethan Cheblowski, who regularly hacks restaurant meals at home, managed to re-create his custom Sweetgreen order. It included chicken, almonds, goat cheese, and Green Goddess dressing for about $6 less than it cost in store ($14.95, based on a recent calculation at a New York City location). It’s not a perfect dupe, but includes many of the same ingredients as The Harvest Bowl, which sells for $14.45. 

The takeaway: Though Sweetgreen catering is cheaper than ordering à la carte, you’ll still pay at least $250 per catering package. Assuming you’re down to eat salad nearly three times per day, it could cover most of your weekly meals—but at a huge premium. And unless you have a big family or lots of roommates, you’re probably not going to get through enough salad before it wilts to oblivion in your fridge. A week’s worth of Sweetgreen catering at $250 is more than twice as expensive as the $101 a week that Americans supposedly spend on food. Meal prepping your own salads is way cheaper, and if you keep the components separated they’re not going to spoil nearly as fast. 

Qdoba 

Next up: Chipotle’s nemesis. 

Catering: A 10-meal chicken hot bar catering package from Mexican-style chain Qdoba comes with grilled adobo chicken, rice, beans, guac, a bunch of toppings including salsa, and tortilla chips for $119.50 total ($11.95 per serving). 

Regular menu: Doctoring a similar chicken bowl in-store costs about $9.85 per order, or $13.40 with additional chips and salsa. So it’s about $2.10 cheaper per meal to order individual bowls if you don’t include chips and salsa, and about $1.45 cheaper per meal to order catering if you do. 

Special deals: If you order a Family Meal pack, which includes enough chicken, beans, rice, queso, salsa, and chips for up to five people, you’ll pay $39.95 total ($7.99 per meal). Granted, it’s light on the veggies, but you could easily change that with a bag of frozen ones. And unlike a salad, cooked components like these will keep well in the freezer. 

Grocery dupe: Loosely judging from Weissman’s Chipotle burrito video, which features similar ingredients, ordering the Family Meal pack is likely still more expensive than cooking at home. 

The takeaway: A catering package from Qdoba costs a little less than the regular menu when you include chips and salsa, but each serving is more than double what most Americans allegedly pay per meal. The Family Meal pack nets out at a better deal overall than catering, especially considering you could use it as a base and stretch it further with a few supermarket staples. Still, cooking at home remains the cheapest option of all.

Panda Express

Everybody's favorite mall chain is a hotbed for deals.

Catering: At Panda Express you can buy up to 16 meals worth of food for $112. The catering meal package includes two sides, like chow mein and greens, and two mains, like orange chicken and Beijing beef, for $7 per meal. 

Regular menu: For one side and the same two mains, an à la carte combo costs $10.10—so catering is almost $5 cheaper per meal and includes an extra side. 

Special deals: The best move here is ordering a Family Meal pack, which includes three mains and two sides and costs just $32 total ($6.40 per meal) for up to five servings. 

Grocery dupe: Is the Family Meal combo cheaper than cooking the same meal at home? Doubtful. Though it’s certainly not a perfect comparison, back in October, Weissman managed to make orange chicken, chow mein, kung pao pork, and a side of rice for $2.85 per serve. 

The takeaway: Panda Express is one of the best chains we’ve found for ordering food in bulk. On paper, a Family Meal deal at $6.40 a meal is just a third more expensive than America’s estimated per meal average grocery spend—but in practice, according to some bloggers who claim the combo feeds more like eight people, it could actually be on par. The Family Meal also comes with three entrées, so you could divvy up your portions to ensure a bit more variety than premade bowls like Sweetgreen’s. 

Boston Market 

Here’s one for people who idolize the rotisserie chicken dude, who ate 40 full birds in 40 days. 

Catering: At Boston Market, a chicken buffet for five includes mashed potatoes, sweet corn, cornbread, and two liters of soda. It costs $64.99 total ($13.00 per meal). 

Regular menu: That catering price ain’t cheap, especially considering a quarter chicken meal with two sides and fresh-baked cornbread will only set you back $10.99.

Special deals: This is where things get exciting. For $57.49 you can get an XL Family Meal, which comes with three whole chickens, six large sides—like mac and cheese and vegetable stuffing—and 12 hunks of cornbread. Boston Market doesn’t say how many meals this pack covers. But based on the regular menu’s quarter chicken meal portions, we can say 12 meals could be portioned out for $4.79 each. 

Grocery dupe: Depending on whether you’re buying $4.99 Costco chickens (which are apparently not delicious anymore) or $8.49 ones from Whole Foods, you might not be able to make this much food for the same price—although homemade mac, cornbread, and other sides would certainly bring the cost down. 

The takeaway: Boston Market is the best value meal deal we’ve found, coming in at one cent less than the average American household spends per meal. And while rotisserie chicken might get old after a while, the Family Meal comes with six entrées—so you could make a handful of different combinations. 

This post was originally published on Bon Appétit.