Why It Might Pay To Pick Up Pecan Pie Instead Of Making It

If you want to serve up a pecan pie at your next dinner party, don't start searching for recipes online just yet. Baking this classic dessert at home may not be the best way to get the most pie for your money. That is to say, while we know that "making food at home will always be cheaper than buying it pre-made" is the number one rule of frugality, it turns out, that's not always the case — as an entire Reddit thread dedicated to the topic will tell you. 

For example, one user in the forum reportedly found that pre-roasted chicken can cost almost $2 less than a package of uncooked poultry. And while homemade orange juice might sound like a fun and healthy home cooking project, another member of the thread noted you'd have to buy around six pounds of oranges to squeeze out only three cups. The fruit retails at around $2 a pound, leaving the Redditor to report that we'd all be better off sipping on a $4 jug of the pre-made kind. And that brings us to pecan pie. Like these other recipes, this classic holiday dessert could also cost you more to bake than to buy. And here's why:

Aside from the basic ingredients, to make pecan pie you'll need to buy corn syrup, which costs a modest $2 or so , along with titular pecans, which is where things get expensive. A 16-ounce bag of pecans can cost almost $11.  Now let's take a calming breath and look around at some grocers' bakery sections. If you head over to Walmart, you can buy a ready-to-eat 8-inch pecan pie for around $6. And by going to Target you can snag a prepared pecan pie for about only two dollars more. Either way, for less money than a bag of pecans, you'd be buying yourself a ready-to-slice dessert for your party.

And if you want to get real technical about your savings, we can even break down the cost of homemade vs pre-made pecan pies per slice. Each store-bought pie offers about five servings per container, so their price rounds out to cost you a little over $1 a serving. And by making a pecan pie from scratch, five slices will cost you more than $2 a piece — and that's only if you don't need to buy anything but pecans and corn syrup. If you don't have the other requisite ingredients on hand, then the cost per slice will certainly rise. So by buying rather than baking a pecan pie, you'll be saving both time and money.

If you know you want to save money and buy a pecan pie rather than make one, there are a few steps you can take to ensure you purchase and serve a ready-made pie that will please your guests' sweet tooth. Firstly, you want to buy a grocery store pecan pie that's been freshly baked. No one wants to cut into a three-day-old dessert. In order to buy the flakiest pre-made pecan pie possible, as Money Talks News CEO and founder Stacy Johnson told USA Today, you should go scope out the bakery section early in the morning. That's when the bakery department stocks its shelves with the freshest treats.

In that same spirit, while you're shopping early, be sure to check your dessert's best-by date. The sooner the best-by date, the less freshly baked your pie is. That being said, you're going to want to buy the pie with the latest one. Once you've discovered the perfect pie, you should take it home and put it in the fridge until your party. Because it's made with eggs, the United States Department of Agriculture reports that, generally, fully-cooked pecan pies have to be stored in the refrigerator for you and your guest's safety. Once you're ready to divvy out the dessert, you can heat up your pie and serve it with a topping of whipped cream and cinnamon or ice cream.