How To Shop For Wintertime Groceries

The cold wintertime weather doesn't usually make me crave a salad. Comfort food typically reigns supreme during the chillier months, when I and many other people turn to hearty winter soups and dishes like mac and cheese, mashed potatoes, or my personal choice of pierogies sauteed in onions and butter. 

However, leaving out vegetables for the bounty of spring and summertime harvests means missing out on tons of produce that grows specifically in cold weather months, like sweet winter squash, hearty greens like cabbage and Brussels sprouts, or bright and tangy citrus fruits. As fruits and veggies that grow on the opposite side of the calendar year than most would expect, winter produce has its own special traits that signal a ripe specimen totally different from what you would look for in summer produce. You might squeeze a fresh summer tomato to ensure it is soft and ripe, but a hearty butternut squash should be hard and heavy; following these tips for buying winter produce can help you enjoy the underrated foods of the season.

Although many would think that produce is only worth space in your pantry during the warmer months, many vegetables thrive in cold weather. This is especially true for root vegetables like potatoes, carrots, parsnips, onions, and cruciferous greens like cabbage and kale, among many others.

While we can find loads of summer produce like berries and tomatoes in grocery stores throughout the entire calendar year, you are often left paying a premium price for out-of-season produce that doesn't have the best flavor. This is why budget-conscious shoppers should stick to buying produce in season for the most flavor and bang for their buck.

Outside the produce aisle, it is good to stock up on pantry ingredients when they go on sale. A great money-saving hack is to keep an eye on prices around the holidays when pantry staples like flour, sugar, butter, and canned broth go on sale when demand is high. It is financially wise to stock up on these ingredients in the wintertime, and then you can keep enough on hand to last until the next holiday season, or at the very least a few good months into the new year.